An angsty and totally immersive romance with a charming setting.
A former musician finds healing and a complicated love story with a contractor in a picture-perfect mountain town.
After a breakdown and her latest breakup, Merritt Valentine left Los Angeles and moved in with her twin sister, Olivia, in the quiet town of Crested Peak, Colorado, two years ago. She hasn’t made music in a decade, and now she’s focused on fixing up the house she impulsively purchased. Enter Nikolaos Petrakis, the contractor/jack-of-all-trades who knows everyone in Crested Peak. Niko is attractive, kind, and single—a dangerous combination for Merritt, who’s still reeling after her career and relationship fell apart. Niko, also on the heels of a nasty breakup, knows he should avoid Merritt if he doesn’t want to get his heart broken again. After they’re both warned to stay away from each other, they resolve to keep their relationship strictly professional. But the best laid plans are no match for the chemistry between Merritt and Niko as they fix up her house, taking antiquing trips and sketching out plans. They make a classic romance novel mistake—they decide to hook up for a designated amount of time and promise not to let things get too deep. Merritt worries that her baggage is way too much for a nice guy like Niko to handle, while Niko isn’t sure he can count on anyone to need him around for more than house repairs. Soon, they’re falling hard for each other—but with a firm end date for their relationship, can they make it last? Wilder creates a steamy slow-burn romance featuring two characters who desperately crave love but are unsure if they deserve it. Both Merritt and Niko have things to work through—Merritt with her mental health and the guilt she feels over leaning so hard on her family and friends, and Niko with his fear of abandonment and questions about his sexuality. Their road to love isn’t a smooth one, and Wilder puts them through the wringer on their way to a happily ever after. But when they get there, it feels well-earned and immensely satisfying.
An angsty and totally immersive romance with a charming setting.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780593871690
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dell
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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