Review_FICTION
48 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ MARCH 2, 2020
Review_FICTION
The Wrong Mr. Darcy
Evelyn Lozada and Holly Lörincz. St. Martin’s
Griffin, $16.99 trade paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-
250-62214-3
Lozada, star of the Basketball Wives
reality TV show, and coauthor Lörincz
(who previously collaborated with
Lozada on The Perfect Date) loosely rei-
magine Pride and Prejudice as a sporty,
multicultural romance with a surprising
amount of edge. Hara Isari is determined
to make it as a sportswriter. Derek Darcy,
a professional basketball player in Boston,
spent his rookie season sidelined after an
injury. He’s now ready to get back in the
game when he hears a troubling secret
about his best friend and teammate
Charles Butler. When Hara wins a national
writing award, the prize is an exclusive
interview with media-shy Charles, who
brings Derek
along. At the
interview,
Derek criticizes
her for her soft-
ball questions,
all of which had
to be approved
by the team’s
hostile owner.
Hara and
Derek’s first
impressions of each other are just as
disastrous as Austen fans will expect, but
they grow closer as Hara attempts to dig
out Charles’s secret. The authors bring
the lively plot to an unexpected, explosive
finish, but the occasionally stilted prose
keeps the tale from fully taking off. Still,
the basketball angle is an inventive spin
on a favorite story. This is sure to delight
fans of sports romance. (June)If You Must Know
Jamie Beck. Montlake Romance, $12.95
trade paper (368p) ISBN 978-1-5420-0871-6
Sibling rivalry and sisterly love coexist
in the bittersweet launch of Beck’s Potomac
Point series (after In the Cards). Sisters
Amanda Foster and Erin Turner are happy
maintaining as much distance from each
other as they can get in their charming New
England town. Rule-abiding nursery school
teacher Amanda Foster is pregnant and hap-
pily married. Free-spirited yoga instructor
Erin is mourning her father while trying
to build up her bath products business.right and wrong. Curtis moves the plot
along quickly, often at the expense of scene-
setting and emotional impact, frequently
informing (rather than showing ) how
characters are feeling, and offering inter-
pretations for plot points that need no
explanation. This surface-level telling
hampers what might otherwise be an
immersive space opera. Despite these
limitations, however, the worldbuilding
is engaging and the character dynamics
are capably imagined. Readers willing
to look past this story’s flaws will see
plenty of potential for the series to come.
(Self-published)Romance/Erotica
Wolf Under Fire
Paige Tyler. Sourcebooks Casablanca, $7.99
mass market (320p) ISBN 978-1-7282-0561-8
Tyler (Wolf Rebel) cranks up the heat in
the action-packed paranormal romance
that launches the Special Threat Assessment
Team (STAT) series, about a government
agency created to monitor supernatural
threats. Werewolf Alpha and ex-Navy
SEAL Jake Huang moves to Washington,
D.C., with his nascent pack—consisting
of himself and identical twin 18-year-old
women he rescued from vampires—for a
job as a STAT team leader. In the new
position, he can finally let his fur flag fly
and spend meaningful time around fellow
supernaturals. Jestina Ridley is a human
STAT agent assigned to Jake’s team and
bad experiences with supernatural threats
in her past have left her with a wariness of
werewolves. Despite a rocky start to their
relationship, attraction smolders between
them as they track a dangerous supernatural
entity from the U.S. to the U.K. and to
the lushly described shores of French
Guiana. Over-the-top situations lead to
intricately choreographed action sequences,
lending the novel the feel of a delightfully
ludicrous cinematic thriller. Tyler teases
more fun to come in future installments
with the introduction of many complex
secondary characters, among them Caleb,
an omega werewolf with control issues.
Those willing to suspend their disbelief
are in for a sizzling thrill ride. Agent:
Courtney Miller-Callihan, Handspun
Literary. (June)conflicts as the
18th-century
Europe-esque
nation of
Galitha takes
its first steps
from monarchy
to democratic
republic.
Galithan Sophie
Balstrade, a “sar-
torial sorceress”
working to weaponize her spell-casting
skills for use against the Royalist forces,
travels with her ally, Alba, leader of the
Order of the Golden Sphere Convent, on
a short sea voyage to gather supplies from
manufacturers in Fen, a neighboring
country where magic is illegal and relation-
ships between factory owners and their
workers have been influenced by news of
the reformation in Galitha. Back home,
the leaders of the Reformist Army, among
them Sophie’s rabble-rousing brother,
Kristos, and her charming fiancé,
Theodor, who’s left the gentry, face
internal difficulties as they struggle to
construct a new government, debating
issues of representation and whether to
lead with idealism or pragmatism. Miller
does not shy away from battle and
bloodshed as the political conflict comes
to a head, but also refreshingly portrays
the intimate, personal impacts of sweeping
social changes. Series fans will be pleased
with this satisfying, sophisticated fantasy.
Agent: Jessica Sinsheimer, Sarah Jane Freymann
Literary. (May)The Mars One Incident
Kelly Curtis. Kelly Curtis, $2.99 e-book
(246p) ASIN B07TX9NQ8J
Curtis debuts with a competently
plotted but rough-around-the-edges
far-future adventure, the launch of her
Unification series. Alma Hattie Johnson,
a newly minted spaceship captain in the
Joint Confederacy, a governing body that
has banned technology for all but a select
few, defies orders to destroy a ship full of
pirates. As punishment, Alma is sent on
what ought to be a mundane supply run
to nearby Mars One station. But as rival
political factions infiltrate the government,
Alma’s politics and competency are called
into question and she’s again forced to
choose between her orders and her sense of