A complex romance explores how two lovers are influenced by class, gender, and societal expectations.
A duke entrusts his secretary with the task of selecting his new duchess.
Penelope Pettypeace is the rarity of rarities: a woman employed as a personal secretary to a high-ranking member of the aristocracy. She’s a consummate professional even though she’s been secretly in love with Hugh Brinsley-Norton, the Duke of Kingsland, for years. King is aware that he must take a bride and have heirs, but he has no interest in courtship. He decides on a more direct route and places an advertisement inviting London’s eligible young women to write letters describing their qualifications for the role of duchess. King asks Penelope to choose the best candidate, unaware of her feelings for him; he also refuses to admit that his hyperawareness of Penelope is a sign that his feelings for her are more romantic than professional. Things change between them when a mysterious threatening letter appears in the mail. King has no choice but to reveal a terrible secret about his past, not knowing Penelope has a secret of her own that might ruin her if it comes to light. Their evolution to lovers is pleasing and satisfying, especially since they have to trust each other with truly devastating stories from their pasts in order to make a future together. Heath explores how society’s confining rules force people into uncomfortable and even desperate choices. The end result is a fascinating exploration of power, but the narrative choice to reveal Penelope’s secret to King and the reader simultaneously leaves the book feeling frustratingly unbalanced.
A complex romance explores how two lovers are influenced by class, gender, and societal expectations.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-295201-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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
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
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