A tense buildup with a suitably happy ending.
YA veteran Garcia (The Lovely Reckless, 2016, etc.) gets hearts racing with a well-paced novel of romance and the sweet science.
Peyton is a biracial (Cuban-American and white) high school senior in Washington, D.C., who was just offered a spot to play soccer for her top-choice university program when an injury turns all her plans on their heads. This was no accident on the pitch, though: Peyton was pushed down a flight of stairs by her abusive mixed martial arts–fighting ex, landing on her knee. In the aftermath, in which her ex denies any wrongdoing and she receives anonymous threats, Peyton escapes by moving in with a beloved uncle and his twin sons in rural Tennessee. Though her hope is to focus on school and healing, fate has other plans as another up-and-coming kickboxing and MMA fighter, Owen, becomes an inescapable presence in her life. Peyton is wary of fighters and even more dubious about her own instincts, struggling with anxiety and post-traumatic stress related to her father’s death and her own assault. Though some readers may find the frequent alpha-male posturing thrilling and romantic, it becomes tedious after the third testosterone-fueled fight takes place only halfway through the book. If the reader can stick out the brooding and violence, the conclusion is satisfying. Owen is white and there is diversity among the secondary characters.
A tense buildup with a suitably happy ending. (Sports romance. 15-18)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-07920-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Imprint
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2018
Intriguing but convoluted and underdeveloped.
When the veil between life and death is torn, threatening everything and everyone she loves, Célie is determined to take “till death do us part” as a challenge, her role as Bride of Death notwithstanding, in this sequel to The Scarlet Veil (2023).
Célie’s life has very abruptly gone to hell in a handbasket. She’s been turned into a vampire and abandoned by the mysterious and infuriatingly alluring man who turned her. Fearful of hurting her friends, she can’t eat or sleep, and she loathes herself and what she’s become. Célie is also being haunted by her late sister, Filippa. The dead are walking, something is going wrong with magic, and Death himself has manifested in corporeal form to claim his due. Only Célie can mend what’s been broken—but at what cost? This sequel picks up without much time spent reorienting readers to plot points or character dynamics. As in the first book, the drama spools on for too long, only properly picking up momentum about two-thirds of the way through the book. What starts as a slow-burn romance soon becomes quite the opposite, and although the stakes are generally higher than before and there are some very touching moments, the narrative never quite comes together in a satisfying way, and the worldbuilding and characters feel shallow and lack sufficient context. Most characters are light-skinned.
Intriguing but convoluted and underdeveloped. (Paranormal. 16-18)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063258808
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
Plenty of heat but not enough substance to keep the fire burning.
A romantically entangled stepbrother and stepsister in Los Angeles navigate their tumultuous history and take their relationship to new levels in this translated title by an Argentinian author.
Nick and Noah are madly in love: Their mutual attraction is established as the book opens with Noah’s 18th birthday party, during which she and Nick have an explicitly described sexual encounter behind the pool house. This fiery scene sets the stage for twists and turns in the lovers’ journey, including a separation when Noah is forced to go on a monthlong mother-daughter European tour. But reminders of their pasts (chronicled in the 2023 series opener, My Fault) threaten to undermine their stability. Nick’s wealthy estranged mother makes an unfortunate appearance, while Noah is haunted by the trauma of her father’s violent death. The blend of everyday complications (jealousy, parental disapproval) with frothy visions of high-society life is at once lacking in subtlety and intimately irresistible. The series initially gained popularity on Wattpad, and the novel follows the episodic structure typical of works on that site; sensual encounters occur at reliable intervals. Still, the characters and their milieu feel formulaic, and the writing is stilted. The differences between the two—Nick is five years older and has an office job; Noah has just finished high school—makes their suffocatingly possessive relationship feel particularly squirm-worthy. Nick and Noah and their families read white.
Plenty of heat but not enough substance to keep the fire burning. (Romance. 16-18)Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781728290768
Page Count: 450
Publisher: Bloom Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
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