This wild and wacky time travel romance may challenge even the most adventurous reader.
A 21st-century hockey player becomes a prime marriage-of-convenience candidate when he's thrust into 19th-century England.
After having been benched for the season, professional hockey goalie Tucker Taylor decides to use his time off to visit his sister in England. After an unexpected dip into a local cow pond finds him emerging in 1812, he meets spinster Lizzy Wooddash, who's as perplexed as he is, especially since she's never seen a cell phone before—there's no service, of course, but she's amazed when Tuck takes her picture. All Tuck wants to do is get back to his own time, but Lizzy sees an opportunity, prompted by a suggestion from her friend Jane Austen. Lizzy longs for the life of freedom often afforded to widows. If she and Tuck marry, she'll be declared a widow once he returns to the present day and disappears from her era. In the meantime, Lizzy is happy to provide Tuck with guidance on how to blend into Regency society. Lizzy takes things in stride, perhaps a bit too much, as the notion that a man from the future—who plays a sport that hasn't been invented yet—has shown up in her timeline prompts barely any disbelief on her part. Of course, Tuck and Lizzy's well-meaning plan begins to go wrong as their mutual attraction grows and they start to rethink whether they'll be able to make a clean break when Tuck is able to leave Lizzy's world. As if a time-traveling hockey player didn't make this story strange enough, the inclusion of Jane Austen—who's inspired by Lizzy to create the character Elizabeth Bennett—is an even more bizarre detail. While the romance genre nurtures a culture where even the most inventive and nonsensical setups can find an audience, this book doesn't quite nail the campy creativeness needed to pull off its odd combination.
This wild and wacky time travel romance may challenge even the most adventurous reader.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9780063412323
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
