An intercultural holiday rom-com that fully nails the promise of its premise.
Jalaluddin delivers romance treasure: a plausible fake-dating premise and a surfeit of laugh-out-loud moments.
Atlanta singletons Sameera Malik and Tom Cooke are navigating professional turbulence while nursing wounds from relationship rifts. When their paths cross at Sameera’s firm’s holiday party, chemistry sparks—but it’s professional synergy that prompts their connection. Layoffs are coming at the boutique law firm where Sameera works as an associate, putting her job and independence in jeopardy. Tom is a chef who uses YouTube to drum up catering business while dreaming of hosting his own TV cooking show. A decline in his online engagement jeopardizes both sides of his livelihood. So after some motherly intervention places Tom in Sameera’s path a second time—sensing the barest whiff of a secret romance, Tahsin Malik hires him to cater her party for Eid—Tom captures the spunky attorney in a video, and it’s a hit. Recognizing that he got “more attention from that candid video…than any others in the past six months,” he and Sameera negotiate a deal. She’ll fake date him for two months and record six videos, and Tom will smooth the way for his wealthy best friend Andy Shaikh to become Sameera’s prospective client. Precarity also stokes Sameera’s insecurity, since she’s already feeling like the black sheep of her successful Muslim Desi family—with a sister pursuing a Ph.D. at Oxford and a father retired as head of neurosurgery at Emory, “if she wasn’t an associate at the [law firm], who was she? Nobody.” Just when you might worry that the book is so realistic as to lack the fun and froth of a great holiday rom-com, Jalaluddin ups the family shenanigans to 11 as Sameera’s mother and Tom’s stepmom hijack the proceedings like matchmaking mamas from the Regency era. Soon, the entire Malik family embarks on a meet-the-parents holiday jaunt at Tom’s fabulous family estate in Alaska, where they’re practically royalty, and hijinks and culture clashes and shady side deals ensue.
An intercultural holiday rom-com that fully nails the promise of its premise.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781662533044
Page Count: 287
Publisher: Mindy's Book Studio
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
Two hot people confronting their trauma, making passionate love, and solving violent crimes! ’Nuff said.
A heartbroken man lusts after his therapist while seeking revenge on a drug kingpin and his enforcer.
Mitch Haskell’s wife, Angela, died two years ago of an apparent suicide, but Mitch has always believed the scene was staged. Certainly, she would never have willingly left their young son, Andrew, behind. Consumed with a thirst for vengeance, Mitch—a former Marine and undercover agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration and currently a police detective—is struggling with alcohol dependency and uncontrolled rage. Andrew is living with his in-laws, who are making not-so-subtle suggestions that they might apply for permanent guardianship if Mitch can’t get it together. So his boss and best friend, John Bowie, mandates that he go into therapy, which puts him in the path of sexy Dr. Dylan Reede. Within a few days, Mitch makes a connection between two new murders and the death of his former partner; finds a big clue that points to the truth about Angela’s death; goes undercover as a homeless man; takes on a vicious drug cartel; and obnoxiously bullies Dylan with a charm offensive that leads them inevitably to bed. While Mitch seems to lean into the stereotype of the ex-soldier/cop with deeply buried trauma who believes that the ends justify the means—at least in law enforcement—Dylan offers the strength and sweetness to help him start breaking down his walls, allowing herself to be vulnerable in turn. Is passionate sex enough to ground a relationship and a family for the long term? For these characters, and the breakneck speed of this thriller, it’s as good a foundation as any.
Two hot people confronting their trauma, making passionate love, and solving violent crimes! ’Nuff said.Pub Date: March 17, 2026
ISBN: 9781538743027
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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