An emotionally grounded romantic thriller with enough steam to satisfy genre fans.
In Wolff’s novel, a chance encounter between a pop star and a football player leads to a complicated romance.
Sloane Walker, the ultra-famous popstar known to the world as the Black Widow, has kept her defenses high ever since two consecutive boyfriends died under tragic circumstances. Although she had nothing to do with either death, much of the public blamed her anyway, fueling a narrative that she found that she couldn’t escape. Now, she has a reputation for being icy and unapproachable—the emotional armor she wears to shield herself from further pain. Her inner circle is small by design, and she’s determined never to let anyone else in. However, everything changes the night that she meets Mateo “Sly” Sylvester, an up-and-coming NFL quarterback, at a post-concert meet-and-greet. Mateo attended the show with his beloved abuela, a devoted Black Widow superfan. The moment he meets Sloane, he’s struck by the tension between her cold, calculated image and the vulnerable woman he glimpses during her interaction with his grandmother. Sloane is caught off guard by Mateo’s quiet insightfulness, and how he seems to see her for who she really is. Mateo feels a deep sense of responsibility for the well-being of his family members, and that fierce protectiveness extends to Sloane as he begins to earn her trust. He becomes determined to show her that love doesn’t have to end in tragedy. Over the course of Wolff’s novel, both Sloane and Sly are revealed to be well-developed characters, and the plot moves briskly. A sinister threat emerges, apparently from an obsessed fan, and readers will find themselves even more invested in the main characters’ relationship as the stakes grow higher. Sloane, who’s used to such unwanted attention from members of her fan base, is determined to brush off the danger—but this time, it feels different: more targeted and disturbing. As the risk intensifies, and Sloane and Mateo’s relationship threatens to derail their careers, readers will follow along as they decide if their love is powerful enough to survive the fallout.
An emotionally grounded romantic thriller with enough steam to satisfy genre fans.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781649379177
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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