A heartwarming novel of love triumphing over life’s struggles.
A New Englander dreams of opening a pastry shop in Paris, but life gets in the way in Jean’s debut romance.
Twenty-six-year-old Evie O’Shea flees to France from her home in Tallow, Massachusetts, in part because of her toxic relationship with her mom. Evie finds her hometown to be “a place where my overbearing, high-society Southern belle of a mother, Caroline, reminds me what a constant disappointment I am for, well, everything.” She also suffers from debilitating endometriosis, which forces her to make dramatic changes in her life. While in Paris, she contends with her anxieties over her brother’s upcoming wedding and her mother’s desire for her to have a suitable date. After a surprise visit from Liam Kelly, a childhood crush, her world turns upside down. They decide to go on a “fake date” to the wedding, but first, they decide to practice being a couple so they aren’t thrown by each other’s fake flirting, and a real romance begins to bloom. Liam and Evie’s banter is full of light wordplay, as when Evie makes tea: “Just letting off some steam, don’t mind me.” “Oh man, how long have you had that one brewing?” However, Evie’s endometriosis flares cause her self-esteem to plummet: “I had somehow wrapped my disease around my identity.” Eventually, though, Evie develops a profound awareness “that home isn’t exactly a place for me. It’s a person. It always has been.” Jean’s portrayal of the easy, relaxed relationship between the two longtime friends intermingles effectively with Evie’s frustrations. Jean also effectively relates the sexual tension between characters and shares the main characters’ thoughts and dreams with readers along the way. Jean’s knowledge of Paris, and a sprinkling of French phrases, gives the setting a feeling of authenticity.
A heartwarming novel of love triumphing over life’s struggles.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-578-38076-6
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Sunset and Camden Creative
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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: today
A smart, steamy romance.
Tomforde’s sports romance pairs boardroom power plays with dugout drama.
As the youngest and only female owner of a Major League Baseball team, Reese Remington is used to pressure. Even though Reese is the granddaughter of the Windy City Warriors’ former owner, the men around her still question her position; she’ll “most likely have to work twice as hard and make [the] club’s success twice as noticeable to have any hope of being viewed as the right person to operate this team.” It doesn’t help that the franchise is bleeding money, the result of her grandfather’s hands-off approach in the years before his retirement. Reese must use her razor-sharp intelligence and fierce business sense to not only prove herself in a role in which the public is eager to see her fail, but also to make unpopular financial decisions to get the team out of the red. Enter Emmett Montgomery, a former All-Star turned field manager whose priorities lie firmly with people rather than profit. A man devoted to his team and his adopted child, Emmett has long since closed the door on romance, despite gentle nudging from his loved ones. His empathetic team-first mentality puts him immediately at odds with Reese’s pragmatic agenda, and with his contract up at the end of the year, Emmett worries he’ll be on the chopping block if he speaks out too much. Told from the perspectives of the leads, the novel gives equal page time to Reese and Emmett. Their concerns––the scrutiny Reese must endure as a woman in a male-dominated industry, and Emmett’s worries over his contract renewal––are tangible and add a sense of urgency to their every decision. While the novel includes some unavoidable exposition dumps to orient readers, it more than compensates by establishing clear stakes and a sense of momentum from the outset. The narrative successfully introduces credible barriers to the romance, which largely follows recognizable genre beats. The baseball setting is also used effectively, with the season-long arc mirroring the couple’s romantic and professional journeys.
A smart, steamy romance.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781649379795
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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