 Thanks to partners NetGalley and Harlequin Books for the digital ARC of Jean Meltzer’s The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah.
Jean Meltzer’s The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah is a delight. I’ve enjoyed all of Meltzer’s books, but this second-chance, Hanukkah-centered romance may be my favorite since The Matzah Ball. Evelyn Schwartz lives for her job as an on-the-rise television producer. The show that she’s sure will be her big break is a live-action televised musical of A Christmas Carol starring a temperamental but wildly talented star. Schwartz has dealt with divas before, so she’s determined to use her eight days of rehearsal to make sure everything is perfect. Then she discovers that David, her ex-husband, is filling in as the studio doctor for the entirety of the rehearsal and the live show itself, and everything that seemed to be so under control falls apart. And then, the ghosts start showing up. Yes, they’re like the ghosts of A Christmas Carol, except they’re the “Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah” ghosts that take Evelyn on a tour through every heartbreak, from the dissolution of her parents’ marriage to her father’s death to her wedding, with David beside her for every one. The novel alternates between Evelyn’s very high-strung point of view and David’s more solemn perspective, which sheds light on his view of their marriage and divorce, including the reason that he walked out while Evelyn was at work and never looked back. Meltzer deals with topics both serious—content warnings for miscarriage—and silly—her star’s very specific candy demands. But what centers the story is the tender love between Evelyn and David and the lovely retelling of a classic story through a new lens. What a joy of a book.
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 Thanks to partners NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC of Stephanie Perkins’s Overdue. The book is out now!
Stephanie Perkins has long been an auto-read author for me. Her YA romance novels are absolutely gorgeous, full of first love and longing and unique teen protagonists. So, when I saw that she was publishing her first romance book for adults, I requested the egalley immediately. Overdue is the story of a librarian, Ingrid Dahl, who is eleven years into a long-term relationship with Cory, her first boyfriend. They’re happy enough. Until maybe they’re not? When Ingrid’s sister announces her engagement, Ingrid and Cory wonder why they haven’t felt the urge to get married. The answer they land on is that they’re not willing to commit until they have some experiences outside their relationship. They give each other a month to date around, which—they’re confident—will inspire them to come back together and move their relationship forward. When they settle on their arrangement, Ingrid immediately has her first date in mind: Macon, a fellow librarian on whom (she’ll barely admit to herself) she’s long had a crush. Macon is her best friend, her “work husband,” a curmudgeon, a plant guy. And when she approaches him, he rejects her. Horribly. Now riddled by doubts, Ingrid makes some desperate efforts to follow through on the plan, to varying success. When she and Cory meet up after a month, neither is ready to call it quits. So, the arrangement continues. This is act one of a multi-act, slow-burn romance in which Ingrid figures out who she is and what she wants from life and from love. While there’s so much here to rave about—Ingrid’s journey, her lovely friendships, her efforts to be friends with Macon after that horrific rejection—I’m not sure the burn needed to be quite this slow, and I never felt the wholesale giddiness that I often feel with Perkins’s YA romances. Then again, perhaps that’s the way it should be since the type of love Ingrid is looking for isn’t that unreserved first love but, instead, a love that will last and that will be true to her adult self, not the teenager she was when she first met Cory. And watching her slowly bring Macon back into the center of their friendship and, eventually, more is a beautiful journey.  Thanks to partners NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC of Madeline Bell’s The Austen Affair.
In Madeline Bell’s The Austen Affair, Tess Bright is trying to save her ailing career as an actor with a new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. The title role of Catherine Morland is quite a switch from her typical part as a protagonist of a teen drama, Chuck Brown . . . from which she was just fired. She feels ready for the challenge, not least because her mother had inundated her with all things Austen from the time she was a young girl. This job could rejuvenate her life. What’s standing in her way? Well, first, her grief for her mother, which led to admitted unreliability on set. And, second, Hugh Balfour. Hugh, cast as Henry Tilney, the male lead, is self-serious and accomplished and from a successful acting family. He’s also quite, quite critical of—well, of everything about Tess. He’s skeptical of her credentials, her intelligence, her talent. And Tess has had enough. She’s going to win over everyone on set, make a beautiful tribute to her mother, and prove that she deserved the role. Of course, Hugh isn’t exactly on board, which means that things are bound to go wrong. In this case, they go *very* wrong, and—after a freak electrical accident—Tess and Hugh end up traveling back in time to the village where Jane Austen lived AND where Hugh’s ancestors originated. You can imagine the chaos that ensues. I have a particular relationship with time travel books. Often, I have to talk myself into picking them up because when the premise isn’t done well, everything else falls apart. Fortunately, in this case, the time travel works, serving both as a way to deepen the Austen tribute (which many of you know I love) and as a way to take Tess and Hugh out of their comfort zones, placing them in a situation where they can get to know each other authentically. I thoroughly enjoyed this enemies-to-lovers romance (my favorite trope!). Bell creates believably flawed characters whose quirks end up being perfect complements to each other. It’s great fun watching these modern characters navigating the particularly Austenian challenges of her time with some familiar archetypes—the rake who veers between charming and slimy, the ailing patriarch with a wonderful devotion to his family, the spirited older widow who keeps things running, the intelligent young woman whose heart is broken by the wrong man. The Austen Affair is a fabulously rich romance with some unexpected, well-executed twists.  Thanks to partners NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC of Maggie North's The Ripple Effect. The book will be published on June 17!
Just about a year ago, I published a rave review of Rules for Second Chances, the first book in Maggie North’s romance series. I’m thrilled to report that book two, The Ripple Effect, is just as lovely, just as nuanced, just as moving. Lyle “McHuge” McHugh, the psychologist behind the second chances detailed in book one, is the male protagonist here. He’s a relentlessly positive, understanding nurturer whose new company Love Boat, a whitewater canoeing/relationship therapy business, is facing some challenges. Because of some negative press, McHuge needs to anticipate every potential disaster . . . which means having a doctor on staff. In steps Stellar J Byrd who is facing her own challenges. After losing a job she loves as an ER doctor, Stellar has been struggling to make a living wage through gig work, but in their expensive tourist destination, she’s having a hard time. The Love Boat opportunity would be just perfect except for the awkwardness of her relationship with McHuge because of an ill-fated hookup that ended with Stellar ghosting him. Out of desperation, Stellar does accept the job, along with a stake in the burgeoning company. But their first outing includes the journalist who wrote the hit piece on McHuge; his former mentor seems out to steal his idea; and the awkward energy between Stellar and McHuge represents its own problems, particularly after Stellar gets the idea that faking an engagement might help to provide one more shield between the company and the critiques it’s received. North excels at taking romance tropes and offering authentic complexity. Both McHuge and Stellar have intriguing backstories that have shaped their current outlooks on relationships (romantic and otherwise), and watching North peel back their protective layers is both illuminating and satisfying. I’ll continue to read whatever she publishes, and I recommend The Ripple Effect as a perfect read for summer!  Thanks to partners NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for the digital ARC of Ali Brady's Battle of the Bookstores. The book will be published tomorrow!
Certain authors have become summer staples for me, and the co-authors known as Ali Brady are for sure on that list. Their newest book, Battle of the Bookstores, is a delight. Josie Klein is a literary fiction connoisseur who finds comfort in order and in unraveling the challenges present in her favorite genre. Her bookstore, a Boston landmark, features carefully curated books for the discerning reader. She’s less than impressed with her competition. Ryan Lawson manages the romance bookstore that’s two shops down, just on the other side of a coffee shop. Ryan, the youngest of a slew of boys, has defied expectations his whole life: he’s a tall guy who never played basketball; a strong man who drinks the most bougie of coffees; a male reader who loves romance. Ryan’s deep connection to his bookstore started when the owner, his mentor, helped him to learn to love the genre. The two would be, perhaps, content to disagree—from a distance—if they weren’t forced into proximity by the man who purchased the coffee shop and its flanking bookstores. He’s decided to unite the spaces and put it all under the management of just one of them. The manager who will stay will be determined by a competition: who can make the most money in the months leading up to the stores’ unification. Josie and Ryan’s initial meeting sets up a confrontational relationship that only worsens as the competition grows. What complicates their story is that they—unbeknownst to them—have been developing a close companionship through private DMs on a booksellers’ chatroom. While sparks fly (and not in a good way) when they’re face to face, they turn to each other for comfort and care online. What follows is a beautiful, enemies-to-lovers romance that delves into Josie’s and Ryan’s backstories with care and nuance and also highlights everything there is to love about books and reading and defying expectations about who-should-love-what. I saved this one for the start of my summer break, and I’m glad I did: I didn’t want to do anything else once I picked it up. Ali Brady delivers the fabulous summer read I’ve come to expect, with the perfect balance of romance and humor, depth of character and compelling plot. Now the wait until their next novel begins…  Thanks so much to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of Katherine Center's The Love Haters, which will be out on Tuesday!
Is The Love Haters my favorite book by Katherine Center? It is not. It was still, however, a good read, and I continue to be infatuated with Center's ability to tell a story, to create compelling characters. Here's the synopsis: "Katie Vaughn has been burned by love in the past—now she may be lighting her career on fire. She has two choices: wait to get laid off from her job as a video producer or, at her coworker Cole’s request, take a career-making gig profiling Tom 'Hutch' Hutcheson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in Key West. The catch? Katie’s not exactly qualified. She can’t swim—but pretends that she can. "Plus, Cole and Hutch are brothers. And they don’t get along. Next stop: paradise! But paradise is messier than it seems. As Katie gets entangled with Hutch (the most scientifically good-looking man she has ever seen . . . but maybe a bit of a love hater), along with his colorful aunt Rue and his rescue Great Dane, she gets trapped in a lie. Or two. Swim lessons, helicopter flights, conga lines, drinking contests, hurricanes, and stolen kisses ensue—along with chances to tell the truth, to face old fears, and to be truly brave at last. "Swim lessons, helicopter flights, conga lines, drinking contests, hurricanes, and stolen kisses ensue—along with chances to tell the truth, to face old fears, and to be truly brave at last." Parts of this one stretched my credulity in ways I didn't love, and I've seen other reviews point out that this one should probably come with content warnings about body image issues. I thought Center worked through Katie's process of coming to accept herself well, but I do agree that, for some readers, parts of this might be very tough to read. I did enjoy the awkwardness of Katie and Hutch's early meetings, and Aunt Rue and her friends are a delight. And I'm always a sucker for the complications a dog (in this case, a BIG dog) brings to a romance. Overall, this one is a fun, summer read . . . and I'll definitely keep reading whatever Center writes. (I'm almost a completionist!)  Thanks to partners NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC of Emma Lord’s The Rival, which will be published on January 21.
Emma Lord has such a talent for writing YA romances with compelling premises that don’t fall victim to oversimplification. (It’s why she’s one of my auto-read authors.) With her newest novel The Rival, she tells a sort of enemies-to-lovers romance that confronts the challenges of being a college freshman and the best way to stand up for a cause we believe in. Sadie earned her high school’s single, coveted spot at Maple Ride University, winning out over her family friend—and secret, long-time rival—Seb, who’s attending a different, prestigious school. Sadie is determined to make her mark at Maple Ride and to earn the one staff position for a freshman at the college’s zine Newsbag, all as a way of setting up her comedy career. There’s a twist, of course. Seb, who was waitlisted, has shown up on campus. And he also wants to join the Newsbag staff. Sadie had looked forward to escaping the constant challenges of her rivalry with Seb but also of establishing a new, true college identity, the one she had never been able to live out when she was with our family. With them? Well, they’re A. LOT. And Sadie always finds herself in the role of mediator, smoothing things over, evening out everyone’s emotions. Now? She may want to be a lot, too. That’s the initial setup. Add in a budget controversy in which the college is pulling money away from extracurriculars like Newsbag to fund their sports teams, and there’s the perfect recipe for a compelling, complicated, wonderful YA novel. The romance is at the center of the book here, but it’s not the only focus. There are wonderful conversations about Sadie and Seb’s challenges as they leave their families—they’re excited to be on their own, homesick for their families, ready to carve out new identities, but not quite prepared to leave who they were behind. There are great considerations of friendship, of how to be an advocate and an ally without dismissing the concerns of those who may be affected by change. There’s a fantastic subplot about romantic relationships—Sadie is completely inexperienced and, now that she’s in college, is having a hard time moving past the feeling that she is the ONLY one who is in her same position. That may sound like too much, but Emma Lord makes it work. The Rival navigates these various threads easily, with humor and empathy and swoony romance. It epitomizes everything I love about Lord’s writing.  Thanks to partners NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC of Colby Wilkens’s If I Stopped Haunting You.
If I Stopped Haunting You is an enemies-to-lovers romance that incorporates a consideration of publishing trends for indigenous horror with a super-spooky Scottish haunted house story and an open-door romance story with LGBTQ+ representation. Yes, it may be a lot. But it’s a lot of fun. Penelope Skinner is one novel into her writing career when she makes a potentially career-ending move: during a conference panel about indigenous horror books, she launches her own hefty novel at the head of Neil Storm, an infinitely more successful author who Penelope considers to be a sellout because of the way he uses Native stereotypes in his most recent book. The scandal chases Penelope into hiding until her friend Laszlo invites her to a writers’ retreat in an isolated Scottish castle. She’s eager to get a grasp again on her writing career . . . and then she discovers that Laszlo has also invited his friend—and her nemesis—Neil and her ex-girlfriend Daniela. Not awkward at all. They make it to the castle, complete with a horrifically creepy introduction from the caretaker, before completely falling apart. And then a mix of (un)healthy competition, jealousy, and denied chemistry ensues, all while the four writers are trying to churn out new books and a ghost seeks out a new audience for her story. Wilkens’s mix of romance and the paranormal here mostly worked for me, and I appreciated the sincere consideration of what the publishing industry is looking for in the works it promotes by indigenous authors. I did feel, at times, that the parallels between the romance and the paranormal were a little jarring, but overall, I found If I Stopped Haunting You to be a compelling debut romance with some thought-provoking questions at its heart.  Sarah Ward’s The Crossover is a delightful, sports-centered romance focused on two very different college athletes whose different approaches to life and love bring them together.
Stella is a driven perfectionist whose last relationship has led her to vow to avoid romance and double down on her commitments. She’s an equestrian who wants her future to center on the sport, despite her mother’s skepticism that she can support herself at all. Owen’s approach to everything—love, sports, academics—is decidedly more casual. As a new transfer to Mountain Ridge University, Owen is joining the basketball team at a disadvantage. But he’s not worried (about anything). When they first meet, at the gym, Owen is immediately drawn to Stella, and Stella is . . . not interested. At least that’s what she tells herself. But as she gets to know Owen, she starts to see that there may be more depth than either of them had believed. In her second novel, after her great middle-grade read Victory Gallop, Ward’s first foray into romance is compelling and heart warming and so much fun. Stella and Owen both have strong backstories that fuel them, and each is fighting their way out of the limitations their parents have placed upon them. The Crossover is a delightful book that cements Ward as an auto-read author for me!  Thanks to partners NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC of Emma Lord’s The Break-Up Pact. The book will be published tomorrow.
You can’t go wrong with a book by Emma Lord. Her five YA novels have made her an auto-read author, so when I saw she was expanding into adult romance, I was thrilled! Her new book The Break-Up Pact, which features , friends to lovers, second-chance romance (of a sort), AND fake dating does right by its tropes and confirmed my commitment to reading everything she writes. June and Levi were—along with June’s sister Annie—inseparable as kids and clear through high school. And then, as Levi and Annie, and then June, went to college, they drifted apart. June started dating Griffin, joining him on global adventures—and, by extension, on his quest for fame. She thought they were happy . . . until he returned from a solo trip with someone new, breaking up with June on a reality tv show and making her (the Crying Girl) a viral sensation. Levi has achieved fame of his own, and his fiancee left him for an action movie star, meaning that Levi, too, has become a viral object of pity. Levi returns to town, finding June running Tea Tides, the tea shop that she and Annie had always dreamed of opening. Now, in the wake of Annie’s death, June is struggling on all fronts, failing to make the business a success, losing the love that she thought she had, and finding herself unsure how to deal with the unresolved feelings she still has for Levi. June and Levi wallow in misery for a while, and then June’s best friend Sana has an idea: they can each emerge with a little more dignity, a chance for Tea Tides, and some envy-inspired romance for Levi if they just pretend to revenge date for a while. And so the Break-Up Pact is born. Lord has such a fantastic touch with characters that I fell in love with June and Levi and all of their family and friends right away. The Break-Up Pact is steamier than Lord’s YA books for sure, but it captures the same giddy sense of new relationships and possibilities while balancing the wistful longing for the days when June and Levi were best friends and Annie was still alive. I so appreciate the way the novel peels back the layers of each character’s recovery and of the rebuilding of their multifaceted relationships. It’s a lovely read, a moving portrait of compassion and friendship, grief and love, and it’s about characters figuring out who they are and how being with the right person can help them build stronger individual identities. |
AuthorI'm Jen Moyers, co-host of the Unabridged Podcast and an English teacher. Archives
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