An engaging, feel-good love story with plenty of plot twists.
A shy, agoraphobic French professor must save her school and win the heart of her first love in this romance.
Georgie Bricker’s personal and professional lives collide when Willa Cather College, where she’s taught for the past 24 years, faces financial trouble. To stave off bankruptcy and closure, the school hires Truman Parker, who happens to be Georgie’s first love, as an interim vice president of finance and administration. Wafler revisits the characters of her earlier novel, Georgie Girl (2020), but even if the romance rekindles quickly and perhaps too predictably, the relationship navigates new emotional terrain. “Does Truman like me for the me I am now or for his former Georgie Girl?” Georgie wonders after spending the night at her lover’s house. The couple must face not only the insecurities of age and a pregnancy scare, but also mounting pressure from Truman’s family. Separated from his wife, he is desperate to remain close with his twin sons, Trask and Asher, now juniors at nearby George Wythe College. Truman’s mother, Eleanor, has a long history of interfering with matters of the heart, especially when it comes to issues of class and money. Georgie has never been Eleanor’s idea of a good match. But it is not until Georgie makes a startling discovery about Eleanor’s plot to undermine her favorite student, Laurel Cross, that the professor channels her determination and passion into a series of creative projects to save her school. The college’s plight means more to her than anyone else. Childhood trauma left Georgie terrified of leaving her home, so for two decades, she’s barely driven a few miles from the campus. The moves in Wafler’s uplifting romance sometimes feel like staples of the genre (“Follow the candles around to the back,” reads one of Truman’s notes to Georgie), and most of the young characters are idealistic and see the world through rose-colored glasses. Truman’s sons shift their affections easily to Georgie as soon as their father’s new paramour cooks them dinner. But the enjoyable and surprising novel makes up for this with genuine emotions, a fast pace, and a cast of whimsical female players led by Georgie.
An engaging, feel-good love story with plenty of plot twists.Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781647424527
Page Count: 320
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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