The endearing heroine is the beating heart of this quirky, outlandish, earnestly optimistic romance.
A scientist finds herself drawn to two surprising men: One is a poet and the other is her own AI invention—in a human body he created himself.
Competing for a prestigious and lucrative prize is a huge opportunity for AI architect Ava Green, but living in a (definitely haunted) castle—even one near her Yorkshire home—for three weeks alongside the other nominees means a lot more socializing with new people than neurodivergent Ava is typically comfortable with. She gets off to a bad start with American single dad Forrest Faulkner, who’s hoping to win so he can expand his arts teaching to more young people, and she becomes extra awkward around Hal Babbage, another contestant, who looks just like the fantasy man of her dreams. At least Ava has her best friend, Rani Shah, by her side, and she can always retreat to her lab to continue working on FreeThought, a new eco-friendly AI that doesn’t use stolen data to learn. She unexpectedly grows closer to Forrest, her initial nemesis, but when her AI reveals he crafted Hal as a body for himself just to ask her out on a date, Ava finds herself in a complicated love triangle. This completely zany book juggles numerous plot threads and mostly succeeds due to Ava’s humorous first-person narrative, which helps ground all the over-the-top elements with real emotion. Nothing about the science or the competition feels remotely plausible, but readers who can suspend their disbelief will find a lot of fun in these pages. Forrest’s romantic interest in Ava feels under-explained, but their interactions are entertaining and adorable, especially when his daughter is involved. There may be an element of arts-versus-science in the competition, but this story is a celebration of both, as well as a tender look at humanity and love.
The endearing heroine is the beating heart of this quirky, outlandish, earnestly optimistic romance.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9780063416925
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
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
Light on plot and heavy on bolstering traditional gender norms as the ultimate goal for both men and women.
A Seattle woman meets a Chicago businessman as she flies home from a visit to a friend, and her small act of kindness blossoms into more.
Maisy Gallagher is barely making ends meet. With her father’s unexpected death a few years earlier, she dropped out of nursing school to help out in the family’s jewelry store, working with her uncle. Her older brother, Sean, also moved back home so he and Maisy could help their mother and their 10-year-old brother, Patrick. When Maisy offers a ride to a rude businessman who sat next to her on the plane, she’s just operating on the kindness her grandmother instilled in her. That businessman, Chase Furst, turns out to be an incredibly wealthy banker; he’s flown into Seattle to make funeral arrangements for his mother, to whom he hasn’t spoken in years. Sparks fly in this gentle and predictable romance that leans heavily on long-distance and class-divide tropes. As with many of the author’s books, Christianity and the characters’ reliance on God’s will—as they wait and see what happens next—play a large part, as do traditional gender roles where women cook, clean, and only work in paying jobs until they have children at home to take care of. The author does offer a lighter touch when it comes to the painful ways alcoholism can destroy family relationships, with an understanding of the regret that can weigh on every family member.
Light on plot and heavy on bolstering traditional gender norms as the ultimate goal for both men and women.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9798217091676
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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