A winning second-chance romance that’s fun, steamy, and full of crackling chemistry.
When two former pop stars reunite for a Broadway show, the drama spills offstage and into their personal lives.
Kathleen Rosenberg always knew she wanted to be on stage—she just never imagined it would involve reinventing herself as Katee Rose, a pop star who was more famous for her contrived nasal singing voice and famous boyfriend than she was for her talent. Together with Ryan LaNeve, one-fifth of the boy band CrushZone, she made up one-half of America’s favorite couple. That is, until things went awry and she found herself falling for another, more sensitive CrushZone member: Calvin Kirby. When her relationship imploded, so did her career. More than 10 years later, Kathleen has mostly moved on from her Katee Rose days—until she gets the chance to star in a Broadway show written by Harriet Watson, her best friend and songwriter, and directed by none other than Cal Kirby. Kathleen hasn’t forgotten how he abandoned her when her career went up in flames, and she doesn’t trust him. But the opportunity to live out her dream and show off her natural talent is too great to resist, and soon she’s working side by side with the man she hates. Through long hours and lots of dance practice, though, Kathleen discovers that their chemistry never went away—in fact, it’s stronger than ever. Would a relationship with Cal destroy everything Kathleen has worked so hard to build? As she did in her adult debut, Funny You Should Ask (2022), Sussman creates a dual-timeline story, simultaneously showing Kathleen and Cal’s past as pop stars and their current lives as they attempt to move on and reinvent themselves. The chemistry between Kathleen and Cal is smoldering, and the stakes feel high—Kathleen doesn’t want a dramatic romance to take attention away from her best friend’s writing or to fall back into the same mistakes she made when she was younger. Fans of 2000s pop music will eat up the details of Kathleen’s early singing career—and her downfall, which mirrors the media’s treatment of female pop stars at the time.
A winning second-chance romance that’s fun, steamy, and full of crackling chemistry.Pub Date: May 30, 2023
ISBN: 9780593357378
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dell
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
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
SEEN & HEARD
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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