A romance novel that is genuinely romantic as well as psychologically sophisticated.
A British officer returns from war to the temptations of a new love in Shaw’s historical romantic drama.
In 1795, Captain Edward Trewin of the British Royal Navy returns from war with France as a widely celebrated “hero for the nation” likely to become wealthy from the spoils of victory. Nonetheless, his mood is black, as he left Cornwall on acrimonious terms with his wife Julia, who resented being abandoned to care for their two daughters alone. Embittered, she answered none of Edward’s letters over the course of the year he was abroad. Reluctant to return home, he accepts an invitation to lodge with his old friend Admiral Augustus Heywood in Portsmouth, and he is immediately taken with Augustus’ daughter Caroline, who has never married—though she expects an offer soon from George Winslow. Winslow jilts her, though, for a wealthier prospect, and Caroline is left free to enjoy the company of Edward, who savors her attention. The romantic electricity between them crackles—the author deftly captures their mutual longing—and their flirtations finally crescendo into a full indiscretion, the first of many. In this intelligently rendered story, Edward is caught between the love he has for Caroline and his marriage “in shreds,” a union that only further deteriorates when Julia finally unleashes upon Edward “unvarnished declarations of her deep unhappiness”; there seems to be no way out for him. (“What am I to do? I love my wife, but she will not have me. It seems that Caroline will have me, but she is not my wife.”)
Shaw offers more than a simplistic tale that pits honor against love—Edward loves both Julia and Caroline, a predicament that becomes even more challenging when Julia begins to express more welcoming signs of forgiveness. The issue here is the fathomless complexity and expansiveness of romantic love, which can present itself as an intractable problem. There are elements of the story that inspire incredulity—Caroline’s father is remarkably magnanimous when he learns of the affair, especially when one considers the precepts of martial virtue by which his life is governed. Occasionally, the author’s writing can veer into anodyne earnestness, the familiar stamp of a lesser romance novel; here, Caroline anxiously considers her plight: “I want to make him happy. Could we not make each other happy? Would that be so wrong?” However, such insipidity is rare. In fact, while Shaw’s prose style can be a touch genteel, the plot is well executed and briskly paced, and the erotic tension between Edward and Caroline is impressively palpable (“When the dance ended, he bowed to her deeply, resisting a sudden and wholly inappropriate impulse to press her hand to his lips”). Also, Edward is a delicately drawn protagonist—a sailor naturally constituted for war, he is also surprisingly nuanced and sensitive, and these contradictory inclinations are made entirely plausible by the author. This is a thoroughly enjoyable read—deeply thoughtful and dramatically immersive.
A romance novel that is genuinely romantic as well as psychologically sophisticated.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781681311005
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Meryton Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A powerfully strong romance for readers who like their love stories full of torment and passion.
Best friends confront feelings for each other when they take a honeymoon trip together.
Francesca Gardiner and George Saint James have always been best friends—just like Jo and Laurie from Little Women, which they both love. Frankie has a big, complicated family and George was the boy next door who’d moved in with his eccentric grandmother. Their friendship survived childhood, awkward teenage years, and living together as young adults without ever venturing into the romantic—well, except for one kiss, but they don’t talk about that. When Frankie gets engaged to an older professor named Nate, George isn’t happy and a huge fight ensues. Despite his misgivings, George shows up to be her best man, but Nate leaves Frankie right before the wedding with only a cryptic letter. Devastated, Frankie goes to a friend’s house to recuperate, but her honeymoon is already planned and paid for—so she decides to travel to Tofino, a picturesque town on the coast of Vancouver Island, with George taking Nate’s place. Frankie wants to fix her friendship with George, but now that they’re in a romantic suite in a beautiful location, things are more complicated than ever. She’d always thought a relationship would be a bad idea, but she’s slowly beginning to realize they’ll never be able to go back to being kids. Maybe the only way forward involves forging a new kind of relationship. Fortune, the author of romances like This Summer Will Be Different (2024), returns with another love story full of longing and intense angst. The many allusions to Little Women are charming, and Frankie is a delightfully headstrong, feisty character. She and George have explosive chemistry, and Fortune manages to make the “will-they-or-won’t-they” nature of their relationship feel like life-or-death stakes.
A powerfully strong romance for readers who like their love stories full of torment and passion.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780593953242
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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