Come for the royal shenanigans, stay for the appealingly nuanced characters.
This reissue of a self-published 2018 novel pairs royal romance and fake dating.
On her 30th birthday, Cherry Neita, a Black British woman, meets a handsome white stranger who introduces himself as Ruben Ambjørn. Attraction sizzles immediately, and they wind up in a passionate embrace outside her flat when the paparazzi show up, cameras flashing. Cherry had no idea the man she was about to hook up with is actually the Prince of Helgmøre, a tiny Scandinavian island. Having recently weathered one scandal over his “sexual proclivities” (kink and bisexuality), Ruben can’t bear another and announces that she’s his fiancée. Cherry feels she has to go along with the ruse, especially when Ruben offers a financial incentive that will help her provide for her beloved, chronically ill sister. The pair agree to spend one year in Helgmøre, pretending to be engaged. For Ruben, being back home means facing his cruel half brother, the king, but he soon realizes that everything is better with Cherry by his side. Hibbert’s signature charming characters and scorchingly sexy scenes are on bright display here and make for a delightful, engrossing read. The royal angle gives extra appeal but the heart of the story is the distinct leads and their desires as they find emotional and sexual fulfillment. The drama gets turned all the way up near the end in a way that doesn’t entirely fit with the more intimate and introspective tone of the rest of the book, but the happily-ever-after still satisfies. Ruben has trauma in his past and Cherry puts on a persona for most people, so it’s gratifying to witness them love each other for their full, authentic selves.
Come for the royal shenanigans, stay for the appealingly nuanced characters.Pub Date: July 21, 2026
ISBN: 9781464235412
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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