A charming and disarmingly tough story of the many ways that love can adapt to crises.
In this sequel to Josh and Gemma Make a Baby (2022), Ready continues his story of a couple as they face major changes in their lives.
The author begins this novel where the last one left off, with her two main characters, Gemma Jacobs and Josh Lewenthal, poised on the brink of a perfect life. Gemma has a career in social media marketing, Josh is an author, and the two are deliriously in love with a baby on the way; they’re about to be married in a ceremony with Gemma’s extended, loving family in attendance. They’ve put the shocking events of the previous novel behind them, which involved an encounter with Ian Fortune—a former “self-help guru” who’s now known as an “employee-abusing conniver who misled millions.” Gemma was directly involved in Fortune’s downfall, but she’s contentedly refusing all phone calls from the press about it. However, the couple’s pregnancy coach tells them that “everything is about to change,” and soon afterward, Gemma is at the altar when disaster strikes: She collapses, and when she awakens, she learns several things in quick succession: She’s given birth to her baby, Josh is not around, and Ian Fortune is back in her life. Most notably, she finds out that several months have passed while she was in a coma. Her picture-perfect future is now in tatters, and as the novel picks up steam, Gemma not only wonders if she can put it all together again, but also whether she really wants to do so.
The underlying concept of Ready’s novel is intriguingly unconventional. Most contemporary romances take their adorable couples through a series of minor tribulations before smoothing things out and leaving the characters ready to live happily-ever-after. Indeed, these are hallmarks of the genre. But in this sequel—which stands well enough on its own—the happily-ever-after moment is merely the starting point, after which Ready piles on one complication after another to darken the picture that she painted in the first book. Gemma’s world is suddenly in turmoil—not only because her own health has drastically altered for the worse, but also because Josh is nowhere to be found. Ready makes the winning decision to lighten up the narrative with quipping humor. As in the previous book, she uses Ian Fortune as the vehicle for the most amusing material, and he almost completely steals the book. When Gemma tells him that she hates him, for instance, he quips, “Please. Try to be original. The whole world hates me. Wouldn’t it be more fun to love me? Don’t be a follower, Gemma.” For a thrillingly long section of the book’s third act, Ready effectively leads readers to wonder if she isn’t going to upend every single one of the genre’s expectations. It’s a testament to her exceptional writing skill that even the most romantic-minded readers won’t be sure which outcome they prefer.
A charming and disarmingly tough story of the many ways that love can adapt to crises.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781954007437
Page Count: 352
Publisher: W.W. Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.
Childhood friends, almost-sweethearts, a misunderstanding, and a funeral.
Blair Lang and Declan Renshaw were best friends who went on one date before a disagreement and an accident sent them in different directions after high school. Now Blair is back from college to be with her great-aunt Lottie, who’s dying, and to support her single mother in small-town Seabrook, California. Finding a job at a coffee shop puts her in the path of her former boyfriend, since he turns out to be its owner. Can the two get past their mistakes? The novel uses the popular second-chance romance trope, but Pham fails to energize it through interesting characters. Blair’s grief over her great-aunt’s death and her plan to help her mother are overshadowed by internal monologues about her feelings, the way her friends aren’t paying attention to her, and the novel she plans to write. Declan’s distinguishing characteristic, besides being a former high school quarterback, is his skill at building birdhouses. Unsurprisingly, the couple doesn’t have much chemistry; when they embrace, their “bodies meld like…memory foam.” The wooden characters, unusual word choices (“conglomerate of pedestrians,” “litany of plants”), and odd turns of phrase (“tension melting from his eyebrows like butter melting in a warm pan”) are almost enough to obscure the lack of plot development. What passes for stakes is easily defused when Blair comes into an inheritance that saves her from working as a consultant at Ernst & Young in New York—so she can write a romance novel.
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781668095188
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
Rowell delivers the requisite happily-ever-after, but it doesn’t quite satisfy.
A second-chance romance from the author of Slow Dance (2024) and the Simon Snow Trilogy.
Cherry is fat. There are other things to know about Cherry, but this fact is essential to how she sees herself and—she knows—essential to how other people see her. And now that her husband’s hugely popular webcomic is a movie, she not only has to endure people confusing her with the character that’s based on her, but also the knowledge that the actor playing this character is wearing a fat suit. This pain is exacerbated by the fact that her marriage is over. It’s at this rock-bottom moment that her college crush reenters her life…This is a book about being fat, and Rowell does a great job of depicting what internalized fatphobia looks like. “Cherry was so used to thinking about being fat, she hardly even noticed that she was doing it. She was so used to thinking about being fat, she never thought about it.” Observations like this will resonate with a lot of readers, as will Cherry’s complicated feelings about weight-loss drugs. This is also a romance and, as a romance, it’s kind of all over the place. It’s totally realistic for Cherry to wonder if Russ—the guy from college—never pursued her because of her weight. This is a conflict that feels true. What’s less believable is the way he reacts when he sees a trailer for Cherry’s husband’s movie. It’s clear that he didn’t get that this movie was going to be a blockbuster. In short, Russ freaks out, and it’s not at all clear why. As for Cherry’s husband, the way she feels about him at the beginning of the book is totally disconnected from the way she feels about him in the novel’s latter half. It’s normal to have complicated feelings about the end of a marriage, of course, but there’s no emotional throughline to help the reader understand why Cherry’s feelings change so dramatically.
Rowell delivers the requisite happily-ever-after, but it doesn’t quite satisfy.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9780063380264
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 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.
