A creative paranormal love story for fantasy fans.
After the death of a close friend, a young woman embarks on a journey that leads her to transcendental love in Hawkinson’s fantasy romance.
Thirty-two-year-old travel agent Jenna Hickson’s life unravels with a single phone call on a frigid January day in New York City. She finds out that her best friend, Padma Kumar, has been struck and killed by a car while crossing the street. Jenna retrieves Padma’s things, which include a flash drive containing Padma’s magnum opus: a novel set in 14th-century Scotland that features a young princess who begins a fantastical adventure. Padma died before she could finish it, so a grieving Jenna vows to do so on her behalf. However, the moment Jenna begins to write, she begins to question her own reality: She finds brand-new edits and markings in Padma’s text that she didn’t make herself, including strikethroughs and a small “P” symbol on various pages; soon it becomes clear that they may have a supernatural origin. Jenna’s days are filled with thoughts of her friend, and her dreams are filled with strange enigmas, including an old castle, a handsome gentleman, and a threatening storm. As Jenna immerses herself in that fantasy world and in Padma’s fictional world, she finds herself driven to visit the real-life Dunnottar Castle—the place that inspired it all. These three plotlines—Padma’s novel, Jenna’s dreams, and Jenna’s trip to Scotland—come together to form a complex romance novel with a touch of the paranormal and plenty of historical lore. Each storyline is thoughtfully plotted and well-paced, and they blend seamlessly without abrupt shifts that might take readers out of the story. There are areas that might have benefited from some revision, such as the excessive amount of detail regarding Jenna’s cat, Jenna’s many emails, and some of Jenna’s day-to-day activities, but she remains a sympathetic protagonist with a clear goal. The sweeping descriptions of Scotland (“The gently undulating sea beckoned….Come closer. Come and touch, feel, and smell me, it seemed to say”) provide an exciting backdrop.
A creative paranormal love story for fantasy fans.Pub Date: June 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1732017559
Page Count: 561
Publisher: Bowker Identifier Services
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A surprisingly sensual sports romance.
A collegiate diver and swimmer secretly pursue kink together, and risk falling in love along the way.
Scarlett Vandermeer is struggling. Despite a successful recovery from the injury that almost ended her Stanford diving career, she hasn’t been able to get her head together, and it’s affecting her performance. Plus, she’s trying to stay focused on getting into medical school. A relationship would be out of the question. By comparison, Lukas Blomqvist is a swimming idol, a record-breaker who wins medals as easily as breathing, and Scarlett has long been convinced he would never look in her direction—until one fateful night when a mutual friend lets slip that they have something unexpected in common: Scarlett likes to be submissive in the bedroom, while Lukas prefers to take a dominant approach. Now, they both know a big secret about each other, and it’s something neither of them can stop thinking about. It’s Lukas who suggests they have a fling—purely physical, just to take the edge off, so Scarlett can get out of her own head and stop overthinking her dives. Initially, their arrangement is easy to stick to, but the more time they spend together, the more Scarlett starts to realize that what she feels for Lukas is more than physical attraction. Complicating the situation is the fact that Scarlett’s friend Penelope Ross used to go out with Lukas, and the longer Scarlett keeps mum about her true feelings for him, the more difficult it is to keep the situation hidden from another person she really cares about. While Scarlett and Lukas’ relationship does begin as a physical one, their deeper psychological connection takes a little too long to emerge amid all the other storylines, resulting in a somewhat rushed resolution. However, Hazelwood’s latest is proof of the depth and maturity that has emerged in her writing over the years, and it highlights her embrace of sexier, more emotional elements than were present in her original STEMinist rom-coms.
A surprisingly sensual sports romance.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593641057
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.
Two people with bad luck in relationships find each other through a popular Reddit thread.
Emma Grant and her best friend, Maddy, are travel nurses, working at hospitals for three-month stints while they see the country. Just a few weeks before they’re set to move to Hawaii, Emma reads a popular “Am I the Asshole” Reddit thread from a Minnesota man who thinks he’s cursed—women he dates find their soulmates after breaking up with him, and the latest one found true love with his best friend! Emma has had a similar experience, which inspires her to DM the man and commiserate. She’s delighted by her witty, lively interactions with software engineer Justin Dahl, and is intrigued when he suggests that if they date each other, maybe they’ll each find their soulmate afterward. Emma upends the Hawaii plan and convinces Maddy to move to Minneapolis for the summer so she can meet Justin in person. The overly complex setup brings Emma and Justin together and the two hit it off, with Justin immediately falling head over heels for Emma. Jimenez then pivots to creating romantic roadblocks and melodramatic subplots centering on each character’s family of origin. Justin’s mother is about to serve six years in prison for embezzlement, which means Justin must move back home to care for his three much younger siblings. Emma was traumatized by her own mother for much of her childhood, left to fend for herself and eventually abandoned in the foster system. When her mother shows up in Minnesota, Emma must face her traumatic childhood and admit that she has prioritized her mother’s well-being over her own. There is little time devoted to Emma’s painful efforts to heal herself enough to accept Justin’s love, which leaves the novel feeling unsatisfying.
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781538704431
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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