A clever, if flawed, love story.
A separated couple attempt to fool each other via online hijinks in this romance.
Hailie James’ marriage to lawyer Davin Garret is on the rocks: “Her husband had become a stranger to her, and whenever she tried to get him to discuss how to improve their relationship, he clammed up tightly and gave her the silent treatment.” She has decided to stay with her mother. She reasons that some distance apart will do them good—hopefully, it will force Davin to realize how much he misses her. But absence is not the full extent of her plan. An IT expert, Hailie leaves behind her MacBook Pro, a “Trojan horse” she intends to use to spy on Davin. She trusts it will prove or disprove her suspicion that Davin is carrying on a secret affair. Unbeknown to Hailie, Davin’s distance has been due to mental health issues that he has been reluctant to talk about. He quickly sees through Hailie’s ruse and soon turns the trick back on his wife by browsing sites he knows will upset her. (For example, he Googles “How do I take all my wife’s money when we divorce?”) Davin hopes he can lure Hailie back through his wily scheme, but his actions are unsurprisingly misinterpreted, and these two spouses who really want to get back together may be in danger of sinking their marriage forever. Tameem’s narration switches back and forth between the two characters, who worry and fume even as readers are able to assemble the entire picture: “She had been willing to overlook his searches on dating apps because the woman he was looking for was so blatantly an accurate description of her. Although she had been angry with him at first, on reflection she had been touched by it. She wondered if he knew that he had described her in minute detail.” The storytelling is lacking in some respects: Davin and Hailie are not quite as complex as they should be, and the world they inhabit feels a bit nebulous and nonspecific. Readers will know all along where things are going, but even so, there is some fun to be found in this modern take on “The Gift of the Magi” formula.
A clever, if flawed, love story.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 189
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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