An irresistible story of love and adventure that will delight both newcomers and regular readers of queer romance.
A retired 18th-century highwayman who hates the aristocracy is tempted when a handsome nobleman approaches him for one last job.
Kit Webb’s days as a highwayman are behind him. In his last job, he lost his best friend and permanently injured his leg so that he can barely walk or ride a horse—losses that threaten to overwhelm him with grief. He now spends his time running the coffee shop he owns in London. He’s bored and surly and itching for adventure. Then Edward Percy appears at the coffee shop, dressed to the nines and full of silly chatter and brazen flirtation. Percy wants to hire Kit to hold up his father’s coach, hoping to gain leverage that will force his father to do right by his young second wife and daughter. Persuading Kit gives Percy the perfect excuse to haunt the coffee shop for weeks, sometimes dressed like a lord in silks and satins, with a powdered wig and a ridiculous heart-shaped beauty patch, and sometimes dressed more anonymously in a commoner’s clothes. Either way, Kit can’t keep his eyes off Percy. The sexual tension is thick in Sebastian’s latest historical romance. Both men are lonely. Both men have learned how harsh the world can be. And both of them are caught by surprise when sexual attraction turns into something more tender. Sebastian’s prose is entertaining and delightful, with many steamy scenes in which the two heroes fight each other with fists, knives, and swords to train for their upcoming robbery attempt. It’s also full of intelligent and thought-provoking political debates, with Kit holding forth on the evils of the English class system and Percy confronting his own privilege and thinking about who, exactly, he wants to be.
An irresistible story of love and adventure that will delight both newcomers and regular readers of queer romance.Pub Date: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-302621-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A charming dual-timeline romance about learning from past mistakes.
In Yarros’ latest romance novel, a young woman hires a handsome but infuriating writer to complete her late great-grandmother’s half-finished book.
After her marriage to a Hollywood producer ends in high-profile divorce, 28-year-old Georgia Stanton returns to her childhood home in Colorado. When she arrives at the house where she was raised by her great-grandma—the famous romance author Scarlett Stanton—she finds her mother, Ava, lying in wait. Georgia is in possession of the only unfinished manuscript that her deceased relative left behind, and her own mom wants her to sell the rights so they can get some cash. Georgia succumbs to the pressure and enters a deal in which another author will finish the book’s second half. The manuscript tells Scarlett’s life story, including how she found, and lost, her one true love. Georgia feels strongly that the finished novel must reflect the true events of Scarlett’s life, as difficult as they may have been. Unfortunately, the publishers hire Noah Harrison, a stubborn writer at the height of his career, who has his own fictional vision for the novel’s ending. As Noah and Georgia butt heads, each of them researches Scarlett’s history in England during World War II. As they learn more about Scarlett and Jameson Stanton, the fighter pilot she loved, Georgia and Noah must navigate their own increasingly complicated relationship. With two equally engrossing storylines, this book will draw in even seasoned romance readers. As the story jumps between past and present, the author also alternates present-day perspectives between Georgia and Noah, moving deftly between her characters’ distinct voices. The relationships are well developed, and the love that Scarlett felt for Jameson is especially palpable. Along with the sweetly romantic themes, the book explores several heftier topics, including personal ambition, grief, family discord, and self-esteem. The story has a few digressions that do little to advance the plot, but the main characters are sufficiently engrossing that readers will want to stick with them to the end.
A charming dual-timeline romance about learning from past mistakes.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68281-566-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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