Much like a good love song, this story demands to be felt.
A Swedish wedding singer struggles with his love life when his girlfriend moves to America.
J is a “somewhat successful Swedish singer-songwriter. If you live outside of Sweden, it’s unlikely you’ve heard any of his songs on the radio…unless you are one of the bookish, folkish sort who listen to bookish, folkish stations that play bookish, folkish ditties.” Because he wrote a song called “If You Ever Need a Stranger (to Sing at Your Wedding),” he’s started a lucrative side hustle singing at the weddings of mostly strangers (and a few friends). But he’s a unique sort of wedding singer—instead of simply singing covers of popular songs, he writes an original song for each couple. His own love life, though, is complicated. His girlfriend, V, works for a buzzy startup that requires her to move to New York. J, used to being the one who leaves for tours and gigs, is at loose ends without V around, and their communication suffers with an ocean between them. When he gets a wedding gig in New York, he eagerly hops on a plane, only to find that V is not so eager to see him. As his relationship goes through a slow and painful breakdown, J continues playing weddings—some for people who are truly in love, and some for couples whose foundations are built on shaky grounds. Through it all, he keeps writing original songs for each couple, even as the lyrics are suffused with his own heartbreak. The concept is immensely clever: The story is written by Levithan, best known for his YA work, with original songs written by Swedish singer-songwriter Lekman, also a part-time wedding singer—and who actually wrote a song called “If You Ever Need a Stranger (to Sing at Your Wedding).” As J plays wedding after wedding, emotions take center stage. The languid pace fits J’s quest to find out if love really can conquer all, if marriage even matters, and if there’s any hope for his relationship with V.
Much like a good love song, this story demands to be felt.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9781419778124
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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