A swoony slow-burn romance that lives in the little moments.
Two former flames agree to get married for as long as it takes to flip the run-down apartment they’ve inherited together.
LaRynn Lavigne and Deacon Leeds haven’t laid eyes on each other since the summer in Santa Cruz when they had a brief fling as teenagers. The relationship didn’t last, but it made enough of an impact that when they’re finally face to face again, a decade later, they have to figure out how to exist around each other. Total avoidance isn’t a possibility, because their grandmothers—who were married to each other and both recently died—left them a shared inheritance of a ramshackle apartment, and LaRynn and Deacon have to figure out the best way to fix it up and sell it for a profit. The only snag in their plan is that LaRynn can’t access the money they need in her trust fund until she gets married, and Deacon can’t use his construction skills to do the repair work without said funds. When the idea of tying the knot comes up between them, they reluctantly agree to a temporary union: stay hitched for as long as it takes to renovate the house, then go their separate ways. Living in the apartment while they fix it up, they’re sharing a space that lacks most of its walls, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of emotional barriers still in place. As their forced proximity also forces LaRynn and Deacon into some tough but long-needed conversations, it begins to lead them to the realization that the intense feelings they had for each other still burn just as hot as they did during that summer 10 years ago. DeWitt’s latest romance is less about two people finding love and more about how they rediscover a love that never truly disappeared. Through dual timelines and points of view, we’re offered a window into both the evolution of Deacon and LaRynn’s romance and their incredibly satisfying, hard-earned road to a happily-ever-after.
A swoony slow-burn romance that lives in the little moments.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781250329387
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
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
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
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