An uncomplicated and often one-note romance uplifted by evocative descriptions of its social and cultural setting.
A doctor is forced to reexamine her own hurts when she gets a second chance at a relationship with the love of her life.
Houston-based doctor Preeti Patel is juggling multiple anxieties: Not only does she need to find a new apartment, but she's in the middle of hunting for a permanent position as a medical resident. She locates a place where she can stay until she gets a job, but she has to share it with her ex-boyfriend Daniel Thompson for a few weeks. Preeti has been assiduously avoiding Daniel since she broke up with him six years ago without giving a reason. But while living in close quarters with Daniel, she's forced to accept her feelings for him and finds herself compelled to reevaluate her priorities and give him honest answers about their past. Preeti’s struggles with anxiety are illustrated in graphic detail, but the dynamics of her relationship with Daniel, which hinges more on the memories of a previous connection than on any significant development in the present, remain less well developed. Preeti’s interactions with her friends and family are occasionally fun and heartwarming, and the characters’ penchant for long emotional monologues are reminiscent of melodramatic Bollywood films. But author Patel is sharply insightful when she hints at the complex links among religion, roots, and community in the Hindu Indian diaspora and exposes the fault lines in several of these communities, particularly the deeply entrenched racism and sexism that sometimes fracture them.
An uncomplicated and often one-note romance uplifted by evocative descriptions of its social and cultural setting.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5387-3336-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
A powerfully strong romance for readers who like their love stories full of torment and passion.
Best friends confront feelings for each other when they take a honeymoon trip together.
Francesca Gardiner and George Saint James have always been best friends—just like Jo and Laurie from Little Women, which they both love. Frankie has a big, complicated family and George was the boy next door who’d moved in with his eccentric grandmother. Their friendship survived childhood, awkward teenage years, and living together as young adults without ever venturing into the romantic—well, except for one kiss, but they don’t talk about that. When Frankie gets engaged to an older professor named Nate, George isn’t happy and a huge fight ensues. Despite his misgivings, George shows up to be her best man, but Nate leaves Frankie right before the wedding with only a cryptic letter. Devastated, Frankie goes to a friend’s house to recuperate, but her honeymoon is already planned and paid for—so she decides to travel to Tofino, a picturesque town on the coast of Vancouver Island, with George taking Nate’s place. Frankie wants to fix her friendship with George, but now that they’re in a romantic suite in a beautiful location, things are more complicated than ever. She’d always thought a relationship would be a bad idea, but she’s slowly beginning to realize they’ll never be able to go back to being kids. Maybe the only way forward involves forging a new kind of relationship. Fortune, the author of romances like This Summer Will Be Different (2024), returns with another love story full of longing and intense angst. The many allusions to Little Women are charming, and Frankie is a delightfully headstrong, feisty character. She and George have explosive chemistry, and Fortune manages to make the “will-they-or-won’t-they” nature of their relationship feel like life-or-death stakes.
A powerfully strong romance for readers who like their love stories full of torment and passion.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780593953242
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.
Childhood friends, almost-sweethearts, a misunderstanding, and a funeral.
Blair Lang and Declan Renshaw were best friends who went on one date before a disagreement and an accident sent them in different directions after high school. Now Blair is back from college to be with her great-aunt Lottie, who’s dying, and to support her single mother in small-town Seabrook, California. Finding a job at a coffee shop puts her in the path of her former boyfriend, since he turns out to be its owner. Can the two get past their mistakes? The novel uses the popular second-chance romance trope, but Pham fails to energize it through interesting characters. Blair’s grief over her great-aunt’s death and her plan to help her mother are overshadowed by internal monologues about her feelings, the way her friends aren’t paying attention to her, and the novel she plans to write. Declan’s distinguishing characteristic, besides being a former high school quarterback, is his skill at building birdhouses. Unsurprisingly, the couple doesn’t have much chemistry; when they embrace, their “bodies meld like…memory foam.” The wooden characters, unusual word choices (“conglomerate of pedestrians,” “litany of plants”), and odd turns of phrase (“tension melting from his eyebrows like butter melting in a warm pan”) are almost enough to obscure the lack of plot development. What passes for stakes is easily defused when Blair comes into an inheritance that saves her from working as a consultant at Ernst & Young in New York—so she can write a romance novel.
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781668095188
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
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