A sweeping debut novel about the ever changing nature of identity and love.
A sprawling look at the yearslong relationship between two women.
Hashimoto’s debut novel follows two Asian American women as they fall in (and out) of love again and again. When Eleanor Suzuki, “a queer biracial Asian Jewish girl,” meets Leena Shah, a beautiful and “hyperfocused” Indian girl, in an elevator on their college campus, they start an ever evolving relationship spanning more than a decade. In the shadow of graduation, the women try to figure out what their lives will look like together and apart. While Eleanor struggles to decide on her next step, Leena has her whole life mapped out. When explaining her girlfriend’s focus, Eleanor says: “In Leena this severity felt reassuring, like a compass and a map, a way forward.” Imbued with desire, jealousy, and hope, their youthful courtship ends suddenly. Six years later, Leena—while visiting Dhaval, her almost husband-to-be—runs into Eleanor on the streets of San Francisco. As the two make plans to catch up, Leena feels the uncanniness of their encounter: “Nostalgia broke loose inside her, for who she used to be: a college kid open to endless possibilities.” The chance encounter upends both of their lives when they fall back into a friendship—or perhaps something more. Hashimoto’s writing deftly explores the ways relationships, personhood, and expectations shift and change over time. After a secret nearly blows up Leena and Dhaval’s relationship, she questions what her life could be if she let go of what her life should be: “To lose him would be a blow to who she was supposed to be. And. Yet. The wild, restless, tangled unknown beckoned.” Hashimoto beautifully renders the tension between fear and the innate pull of living one’s truth. The novel explores hard questions with honesty, vulnerability, and compassion, which makes the sometimes-painful answers easier to swallow.
A sweeping debut novel about the ever changing nature of identity and love.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-936932-95-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Feminist Press
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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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