A compelling marriage-of-convenience story in a beloved series.
A ruined debutante finds herself back in society—as a mistress.
Leo Ramsgate, Lord Savage, has a reputation to match the name of his marquessate: He’s a serial monogamist, but he stays with no mistress for more than four months. To avoid misunderstandings, he even signs a contract with each woman before beginning their affair. He’s just bringing his current liaison to a close and looking for the next when a woman chases a dog in front of his carriage: Lady Prudence Thorogood, a woman who barely made her debut before she was ruined by an indiscretion. She’s only going back to London in order to recover a few items from her inheritance via, well, larceny, so when Lord Savage offers her the same deal he offers other women, she turns him down gracefully. But several weeks later, when her attempts at subterfuge have fallen short, she returns to his house to accept the contract. Having been ruined, Prue suspects her reputation can’t get much worse, and she already knows how to grit her teeth and get through sex. But as Leo is happy to show her, intimacy can be fun, and she has a lot to explore. When Leo discovers she is actually a virgin—or, rather, was a virgin until a lengthy and steamy scene between them—he marries her in a quiet ceremony, but they still expect to go their separate ways after the four-month contract is up. As the end date approaches, both find that they don’t want their time together to end but also that they don’t know how to tell each other as much. After an entire series inspired by Prudence's banishment from society, readers will be glad to finally meet her and to see her learn to take control of her life. Prue and Leo are well matched despite seeming like opposites at the start, and Lorret draws out their explorations of the carnal arts beautifully. Though this book is different from the earlier volumes of the Mating Habits of Scoundrels series, it will charm Lorret’s fans thoroughly, combining classic Regency tropes and storytelling with contemporary sensibilities.
A compelling marriage-of-convenience story in a beloved series.Pub Date: May 24, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-314301-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A powerfully strong romance for readers who like their love stories full of torment and passion.
Best friends confront feelings for each other when they take a honeymoon trip together.
Francesca Gardiner and George Saint James have always been best friends—just like Jo and Laurie from Little Women, which they both love. Frankie has a big, complicated family and George was the boy next door who’d moved in with his eccentric grandmother. Their friendship survived childhood, awkward teenage years, and living together as young adults without ever venturing into the romantic—well, except for one kiss, but they don’t talk about that. When Frankie gets engaged to an older professor named Nate, George isn’t happy and a huge fight ensues. Despite his misgivings, George shows up to be her best man, but Nate leaves Frankie right before the wedding with only a cryptic letter. Devastated, Frankie goes to a friend’s house to recuperate, but her honeymoon is already planned and paid for—so she decides to travel to Tofino, a picturesque town on the coast of Vancouver Island, with George taking Nate’s place. Frankie wants to fix her friendship with George, but now that they’re in a romantic suite in a beautiful location, things are more complicated than ever. She’d always thought a relationship would be a bad idea, but she’s slowly beginning to realize they’ll never be able to go back to being kids. Maybe the only way forward involves forging a new kind of relationship. Fortune, the author of romances like This Summer Will Be Different (2024), returns with another love story full of longing and intense angst. The many allusions to Little Women are charming, and Frankie is a delightfully headstrong, feisty character. She and George have explosive chemistry, and Fortune manages to make the “will-they-or-won’t-they” nature of their relationship feel like life-or-death stakes.
A powerfully strong romance for readers who like their love stories full of torment and passion.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780593953242
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
