A sexy romantic comedy that occasionally goes off course when focusing on secondary characters and storylines.
A poker-playing travel writer meets her celebrity crush in DiPlacido’s romance novel.
The book opens with a sex scene—the first of many—and with Izzy Santillo’s first mention of famous card shark Nick Nolan. Nick isn’t the man in bed with her, but she’s fantasizing about him and calling out his name. Izzy has never even met Nick, but that changes soon enough, as Izzy, a travel writer and poker hobbyist, heads from her home in Pittsburgh to Las Vegas to play in a poker tournament and write a travel article. There, she meets Nick, literally falling for him: “I stumble, I bump into Nick, jostling me the other way, stumble again, and this time my heel slides on the smooth floor and I go down, yelping again.” The two hit it off, and romance blossoms as Nick, a popular and handsome poker champion, begins to help Izzy with her card playing. The book immerses the reader in the world of high-stakes poker, with all of its glitz and glamour. The narrative focuses on romance, sex, and, of course, poker as Izzy begins to work her way up the ladder in the card-playing world. Though there’s a lot of poker talk, nonaficionados will be able to figure out the ins and outs, while players will appreciate the attention to detail. The novel is likable and can be laugh-out-loud funny. Nick is handsome and cocky in a charming sort of way, and though his relationship with Izzy has its requisite ups and downs, it’s one that readers will root for. But there are a few problems: The author tells the story from both Izzy’s and Nick’s points of view, which adds a layer of confusion, and some of the characters, particularly Jennifer, Izzy’s father’s trophy wife, are both one-dimensional and annoying. The novel works best when it sticks to the world of poker and the steamy romance between Izzy and Nick.
A sexy romantic comedy that occasionally goes off course when focusing on secondary characters and storylines.Pub Date: March 17, 2010
ISBN: 9781450588591
Page Count: 424
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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