A charming dramedy featuring a promising sleuthing duo.
In this mystery/romance, a woman whose longtime crush just married her sister escapes to her godmother’s crumbling castle in France only to encounter the snarky best man in residence.
New Yorker Merry DeLuca is dreading walking down the aisle. She is a bridesmaid at her sister Angela’s wedding but has been friends with the groom, Leo Fernandes, for years and is secretly in love with him. She was finally going to confess this to Leo when, alas, he met the more beautiful Angela. Further aggravating matters is Leo’s best man, Noah Wright, a famous travel documentarian. A pre-wedding meeting did not go well, with Merry spotting that the guarded, watchful Noah dumped her gift of wine in the trash. At the wedding, stressed-out Merry gets drunk and flirts with Noah, waking up the next day in a hotel room to find him sleeping beside her. She sneaks out and faces further challenges. A human resources mediator, she has to fire a lot of people, and then Angela announces that she’s pregnant. So Merry quits her job and follows her unconventional godmother Jupiter Mountlake’s advice that “you’re allowed to escape if your life is in a trash compactor.” Merry goes to stay at the French countryside chateau that Jupiter purchased. Unfortunately, the place is a dump, and worse, Jupiter rented the chateau to Noah. Amid missteps, Merry and Noah learn to open up to each other and uncover a painting by a renowned missing artist, providing new clues for Noah—the vanished artist turns out to be one of the underlying reasons for Noah’s travels.
Ready has written a tale that deliciously taps into its French trappings. Merry enjoys pungent cheeses and the attentions of a handsome local art gallery owner called—but of course—Pierre. Yet this novel also includes psychological nuances that enrich what could have been simply a rather glossy and superficial story. Lead couple Merry and Noah are sketched out with childhood backstories that explain their wary natures. Even secondary characters Angela and Leo return for their own revealing twists, including one on the Lovers’ Bridge that figures prominently for several reasons in the tale. The mystery weaving through this romance gets overly convoluted at times (What took Noah so long to get to this chateau?). There are also a lot of rather fortuitous, just-in-time entrances by other characters who block Merry and Noah at critical moments. But overall, it’s hard to resist a story with a female hero who reprieves a lobster and realizes that Angela’s appropriation of what Merry first desires is a pattern (“I know that look. It’s the red bike look”). The novel’s final moments, which bring together the characters in an emotionally satisfying way, update the book’s opening scene. Merry and Noah would certainly make for engaging detectives unraveling mysteries in future installments. His roaming adventures could be aided by her mediator skills, which come in handy during a tense moment with Pierre in this tale. Indeed, Ready perhaps hints at this future with Merry’s final note: “Don’t forget to watch his latest episodes, where we travel to all the most romantic locations in the world—the Amalfi Coast is next.”
A charming dramedy featuring a promising sleuthing duo.Pub Date: April 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781954007482
Page Count: 454
Publisher: W.W. Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fresh and upbeat, though not without flaws.
An earnest grad student and a faculty member with a bit of a jerkish reputation concoct a fake dating scheme in this nerdy, STEM-filled contemporary romance.
Olive Smith and professor Adam Carlsen first met in the bathroom of Adam's lab. Olive wore expired contact lenses, reducing her eyes to temporary tears, while Adam just needed to dispose of a solution. It's a memory that only one of them has held onto. Now, nearly three years later, Olive is fully committed to her research in pancreatic cancer at Stanford University's biology department. As a faculty member, Adam's reputation precedes him, since he's made many students cry or drop their programs entirely with his bluntness. When Olive needs her best friend, Anh, to think she's dating someone so Anh will feel more comfortable getting involved with Olive's barely-an-ex, Jeremy, she impulsively kisses Adam, who happens to be standing there when Anh walks by. But rumors start to spread, and the one-time kiss morphs into a fake relationship, especially as Adam sees there's a benefit for him. The university is withholding funds for Adam's research out of fear that he'll leave for a better position elsewhere. If he puts down more roots by getting involved with someone, his research funds could be released at the next budgeting meeting in about a month's time. After setting a few ground rules, Adam and Olive agree that come the end of September, they'll part ways, having gotten what they need from their arrangement. Hazelwood has a keen understanding of romance tropes and puts them to good use—in addition to fake dating, Olive and Adam are an opposites-attract pairing with their sunny and grumpy personalities—but there are a couple of weaknesses in this debut novel. Hazelwood manages to sidestep a lot of the complicated power dynamics of a student-faculty romance by putting Olive and Adam in different departments, but the impetus for their fake relationship has much higher stakes for Adam. Olive does reap the benefits of dating a faculty member, but in the end, she's still the one seemingly punished or taunted by her colleagues; readers may have been hoping for a more subversive twist. For a first novel, there's plenty of shine here, with clear signs that Hazelwood feels completely comfortable with happily-ever-afters.
Fresh and upbeat, though not without flaws.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-33682-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A lovely and moving romance that examines what it truly means to live.
Opposites attract when a Grim Reaper clashes with a Guardian Angel in this whimsical paranormal romance.
Darcy Moore is in a bit of a tough spot; she’s a Grim Reaper who’s grown tired of death. When she’s given her next assignment, Darcy decides to go rogue. Rather than reaping, Darcy is determined to save her mark, which only upsets the balance kept by the Department of Hauntings and Spirits. Nothing good comes from a Grim Reaper who’s gone AWOL. Bartender Gabriel Aetos works as a Guardian Angel. He doesn’t take kindly to the fact that a Grim Reaper is slinking around his territory. His role is to protect people, while hers is to usher souls into death. To him, their very natures are at odds and his sudden attraction to Darcy won’t change that. This is very much a grumpy-meets-grumpy romance. Gabriel tries hard to keep Darcy at arm’s length and is open about his mistrust of her. Darcy’s standoffishness, though, is born out of her feelings of isolation and loneliness. Dealing in death has taken an obvious toll on her, and she’s traveling her own introspective path on what it means to be human. Darcy’s fragility is what slowly convinces Gabriel to get close to her, despite the heady yearning he keeps under wraps. However, both view their jobs as central to their existence, for better or worse. While Darcy is actively wondering what it would mean to break free of her Grim Reaper responsibilities, Gabriel has never seemed to ponder being anything other than a Guardian Angel. Borison’s romances—most recently And Now, Back to You (2026)—always strike an emotional chord, with deep-seated conflicts that tap into themes of identity, connection, and grief. This addition is truly the epitome of a Borison romance.
A lovely and moving romance that examines what it truly means to live.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9780063430464
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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