A romance with high stakes that are defused unconvincingly.
Student pianists battle their attraction while competing for a grand prize.
Marigold Gensler really dislikes Jamie Larson. An emergency related to her mother’s worsening multiple sclerosis made her ghost him on a date their first year at a prestigious New York music school, and they’ve been on the outs ever since. Coming from a small Midwestern town, Jamie has a chip on his shoulder and thinks well-connected East Coast elites like Goldie have unfair advantages. Add to that his professional jealousy of her technically inferior but emotively superior talent, and it’s meant three years of sniping. Now they’re weeks away from an important competition in Stockholm, Jamie is struggling with his younger brother’s death by suicide following homophobic bullying, and Goldie has received an MS diagnosis herself. When Goldie’s father invites Jamie to spend the holiday break at their apartment so he won’t be alone in the dorms, the two rivals come clean about their frustrations with each other. Once the dust settles, they make peace, start practicing together for the competition, and soon slide into a romance. With the book written in dual first-person point-of-view sections and alternating timelines, past and present events are initially a bit hard to distinguish. There are moments that sparkle, such as a sidewalk kiss, but the pacing is bogged down by multiple passages of Goldie and Jamie practicing or listening to music (with one exception where they detour into a duet of a sexier kind). The competition that’s been built up as a real crisis for their relationship becomes almost a nonissue, making their earlier animosity feel like a tempest in a teacup. The reality of Goldie’s worsening condition is acknowledged without really addressing how it will affect their relationship going forward, while Jamie suddenly changes his mind about his aspirations, creating a rushed conclusion.
A romance with high stakes that are defused unconvincingly.Pub Date: tomorrow
ISBN: 9780593500538
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dell
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 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
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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