A touching tale of adult reckonings and reunions with some heart-tugging reversals.
A young performer in a family band and the daughter of an ultrarich New York business mogul fall in love in Ready’s contemporary romance novel.
A young man named Jace Morgan races through New York’s Central Park to try to stop a wedding, sharing an intense look with the bride when he arrives. “I almost can’t reconcile the Andi lying in my arms last night with the Andi standing in the gazebo,” he muses. The narrative then cycles back to Jace at 17 years old, being taunted by Reid Shilling and other rich boys from the private school that he attends on scholarship. The bullies disperse when the fight is broken up by a girl named Andrea Leighton-Hughes, who introduces herself as Andi. The teens hang out and fall in love. Jace plays guitar in a band called the Morgan Brothers with his brothers, Dean and River. His musician parents were the victims of a shooting incident in a Bronx bodega, forcing eldest son Dean to take on construction work to support the family while also trying to score their band gigs. Jace chokes up singing in public, but he is able to relax when he sees Andi at their shows. When the band gets a last-minute job at a charity gala, Jace discovers that Andi is the daughter of Robert Chatham Leighton-Hughes, one of the richest men in Manhattan. She tells him that she is merely a “chess piece” in her family and that she has a particularly cold mother. Andi travels with Jace for months when the band gets a national tour but returns to New York following a shocking betrayal. Andi forms new bonds with both Reid and her mother while Jace contends with fame and family issues. Years later, the lovers reconnect and move forward.
The author has written an entertaining, emotion-laden rich girl–poor boy romance. The novel effectively celebrates and leverages its New York City setting, with several key scenes taking place in Central Park, specifically in Belvedere Castle. Andi’s overbearing family amusingly parallels that of a real-life New York real estate mogul and former president: They live on the top floors of a gilded, garish tower; Andi’s brothers (including a Robert Jr.) vie for attention; and the matriarch is glamorous and enigmatic. Several of the book’s wealthy characters end up inspiring sympathy in ways that are surprising yet satisfying. Adding to the novel’s engaging web of plot twists are moments in which band members commit or confess to some rather grave misdeeds. Some of the periods of estrangement the lovers experience come off as a bit far-fetched, particularly a separation precipitated in part by a letter gone astray. Andi’s motivation for her marriage, however, is developed beautifully by the author to exploit its full potential for pathos. This subplot also allows for a lovely moment of contemplation by the ostensible antagonist, Reid, that provides context for the novel’s title: “And my therapist said that the best way to move through grief is to concentrate on the right now. Not the past, not the future, just this moment right here. That small space between the past and the future. Like the moment between the inhale and the exhale.” A touching tale of adult reckonings and reunions with some heart-tugging reversals.Pub Date: July 25, 2023
ISBN: 9781954007536
Page Count: 540
Publisher: W.W. Crown
Review Posted Online: March 22, 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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