A heart-skipping small-town love story with tight pacing, captivating prose, and memorable characters.
Parker offers a charming romance about a woman living and working in a lobster-fishing town on the New England coast.
The remote village of Christmas Cove, Maine, is home to the endearingly awkward Charlie Pinkham, who describes herself as a “female lobsterman.” (“Most people get it wrong,” she explains at one point.) Her life is one of comfort and familiarity, with long days hauling shellfish and pleasant times with grandmother Mem and best friend, Maia. She believes herself to be unsuited to romance, and she allows very few people past her emotional defenses. Then several changes happen to her and those around her: Mem finds love; Maia asks Charlie to post on her blog, and her lobster-themed posts are a surprise hit; a handsome (but married) new tenant moves in next door; and Charlie connects with a stranger online and inadvertently sets in motion a local Christmas festival. Charlie navigates all these events with unease, struggling to accept the notion that her world could possibly expand beyond her usual boundaries. This cozy, feel-good romance explores the power of a small supportive community, the many kinds of love that lift us up and how fear can weigh us down, and whether it’s possible to find that rarest of loves—much like the one-in-100-million “cotton candy” lobsters that Charlie describes in her posts. Parker brings the December Maine coast to vivid life with captivating, intelligent prose that highlights the Maine resident’s clear love of the region, as when she describes the village’s lights (“water can effortlessly transform beads of light into a fitful sea of stars”) and a new dawn: “Strands of silver float up from the twilight sea, churning pink as they reach for the sun.” Just as lovingly illuminated are her descriptions of the rhythms and tasks of lobstering.
A heart-skipping small-town love story with tight pacing, captivating prose, and memorable characters.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9798991306904
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Riveter
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A deep and moving portrayal of first love.
Two college students rekindle their relationship as they unravel the truth behind their breakup.
On the outside, college senior Bennett Reiner has it all. A goalie for Waterfell University’s hockey team, he lives with a group of friends in a luxurious off-campus house. He and his best friend, Rhys Koteskiy, have fathers who are retired hockey legends. But on the inside, he’s falling apart. Struggling with OCD, a shaky friendship with Rhys, and second thoughts about pursuing a future in hockey, the only thing keeping Bennett afloat is also the one thing breaking his heart: Paloma Blake. All dyed-hair and attitude, Paloma has built a bad reputation on the hockey scene since their relationship ended freshman year—but Bennett knows the real P. Underneath her promiscuous facade lies a scared and lonely girl running from a childhood of abuse. When they were together, it seemed like their romance was perfect, until Paloma broke it off without warning. Since then, Bennett has run to Paloma’s side whenever she needed him, whether she was drunk, lonely, or hurting, and now he’s determined to win her back. For Bennett, Paloma is his antidote, the cure for his compulsions; for Paloma, Bennett is her protector, her safe space. And though Paloma yearns to be with Bennett again, she’s not sure she’s willing to open old wounds and reveal the truth about her painful past. In the third installment of the Undone series, Corinne spotlights familiar characters as they navigate trauma, heartbreak, and first love. Bennett and Paloma’s relationship is raw and vulnerable, and their journey of relinquishing control is both necessary and inevitable. Their romance evolves as they open up to one another, and in return, the reader is rewarded with a love story that’s as lyrical, evocative, and emotional as poetry.
A deep and moving portrayal of first love.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9781668219423
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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