A delightful medical drama that’s infused with gallows humor.
A young nurse and a cynical doctor find love in this novel set in a 1970s emergency room.
Mary Grace Kelly is a young nurse who has recently left her small town to start work in a big-city ER in Ohio. She soon crosses paths with Dr. David Korn, whom she initially dislikes for his brash, arrogant personality. But David develops a crush on her, and eventually asks her out on a date, which she surprisingly accepts. The pair quickly grows close, but Mary Grace harbors a traumatic secret from her childhood that keeps her from fully letting her guard down around David, especially sexually. She befriends a homeless man, Frankie MacAnnany, and they get an apartment together, with her new roommate becoming a father figure. Frankie also bonds with David’s Uncle Solly. When Mary Grace’s abusive father becomes ill, her sister, Kathleen, demands that she return home to care for him. Mary Grace dreads this and her mental health starts to deteriorate, affecting her relationship with David. Her loved ones devise a plan to spare her a final traumatic meeting with her father. Callaghan’s story is skillfully told in an epistolary format, with letters and journal entries from the main characters. These are interspersed with the ER’s logs and case notes that are wonderfully immersive while still providing room for fully realized character arcs. The ER logs offer great opportunities for gallows humor and hint at the social issues medical workers face. One nurse writes: “What is the sense in what we do? Do we just provide band-aids to cover up the owies of society?” The scheme Solly, Frankie, and Mary Grace’s mentor, Sister Dolores, concoct to save the protagonist stretches credulity a bit. And some readers will wish Mary Grace had come up with her own road map. But the trio’s plan does lead to a believable resolution. Ultimately, this story is sure to please lovers of ER tales who also enjoy romance novels.
A delightful medical drama that’s infused with gallows humor.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 316
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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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