A fine romance, despite some questionable plot points.
A 27-year-old woman visits a sex club hoping to lose her virginity.
Writer Stella Johnson is tired of waiting to meet the right person organically, so when her roommate plans a trip to a sex club, Stella is determined to finally take care of her pesky virginity problem once and for all. She hits it off with a handsome man, and it seems her luck has changed, but the interlude fizzles out when neither of them has a condom. Max Williams is disappointed and kicks himself for not exchanging contact information with the intriguing woman from the club. The next day, Stella is shocked to find Max in the office of the digital magazine where she works. Max owns an AI company and is her chief executive’s brother; at his brother’s request, he’s created an AI assistant to “help” the digital magazine’s staff complete research and writing tasks. Stella and her coworkers suspect this means layoffs are imminent and are determined to avoid using the new AI. Max is thrilled to see Stella again and asks her out on a date, promising a more conventional opportunity to get to know each other. Aware of the bad optics, they pledge to keep their personal lives separate from the office and embark on a charming, sexy romance. The chemistry and banter between the two lovers is the highlight of YA author Jamal’s adult romance debut, but the AI assistant plot is hard to swallow; readers are unlikely to believe Max’s shock over his brother’s Machiavellian plans to lay off the writing staff and replace their work with output from the AI.
A fine romance, despite some questionable plot points.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780593953839
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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
Light on plot and heavy on bolstering traditional gender norms as the ultimate goal for both men and women.
A Seattle woman meets a Chicago businessman as she flies home from a visit to a friend, and her small act of kindness blossoms into more.
Maisy Gallagher is barely making ends meet. With her father’s unexpected death a few years earlier, she dropped out of nursing school to help out in the family’s jewelry store, working with her uncle. Her older brother, Sean, also moved back home so he and Maisy could help their mother and their 10-year-old brother, Patrick. When Maisy offers a ride to a rude businessman who sat next to her on the plane, she’s just operating on the kindness her grandmother instilled in her. That businessman, Chase Furst, turns out to be an incredibly wealthy banker; he’s flown into Seattle to make funeral arrangements for his mother, to whom he hasn’t spoken in years. Sparks fly in this gentle and predictable romance that leans heavily on long-distance and class-divide tropes. As with many of the author’s books, Christianity and the characters’ reliance on God’s will—as they wait and see what happens next—play a large part, as do traditional gender roles where women cook, clean, and only work in paying jobs until they have children at home to take care of. The author does offer a lighter touch when it comes to the painful ways alcoholism can destroy family relationships, with an understanding of the regret that can weigh on every family member.
Light on plot and heavy on bolstering traditional gender norms as the ultimate goal for both men and women.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9798217091676
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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