With stars in her eyes

With stars in her eyes A novel

Andie Burke

Book - 2025

"Next up from break out author Andie Burke (Fly with Me) is With Stars in Her Eyes, a swoon-worthy sapphic bookstore romance about fresh starts and finding that one person who feels like home. Seconds from a meteoric career launch, cellist Courtney Starling suffers a frightening migraine attack during a key performance. While harmful rumors fly, she escapes to her happy place-her best friend's Kansas bookshop. Courtney's working incognito when a scream sends her leaping off a shelving ladder to find the woman who screamed cowering near the register. When Thea Quinn dropped in for a misdelivered package, she did not expect a mortifying encounter with a bearded dragon in front of an inconveniently attractive bookseller. Clutchi...ng an upcoming book club flyer and the tattered shreds of her dignity, she heads back to her new piercing job at the tattoo shop next door. She moved to this quirky place for a fresh start. But maybe the meet-disaster was a sign? Maybe Thea needs to branch out beyond her photography hobby and connect with new people...like at a historical romance book club run by a particularly mysterious and sexy bookseller with a pixie cut? Friendly lunches become stolen moments between the bookshelves. Courtney and Thea's old problems feel ages away. But just as their chemistry heats to a combustion point, consequences from Courtney's past arrive literally on her doorstep at exactly the wrong moment. New revelations and surprising connections take the pair from feeling joyfully lovestruck to confusingly star-crossed. Both women must decide what they're willing to give up for happily ever after"--

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Subjects
Romance fiction.
Queer fiction.
Novels.
Romans.
Genres
Romance fiction
Queer fiction
Novels
Romans
Published
New York : St. Martin's Griffin 2025.
Language
English
Main Author
Andie Burke (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
pages cm
ISBN
9781250372529
Contents unavailable.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

A meet-cute in a quirky bookstore kicks off this cozy queer romance from Burke (Fall for Him). Courtney Starling was a child star in the Christian music industry, but now she's ready to relaunch her career on her own, secular terms as Kestrel. Unfortunately, a migraine flare on stage at her debut concert derails this plan and sparks rumors of a drug problem. Courtney retreats to her best friend's critter-filled Kansas bookstore, Menagerie Books, to lick her wounds, unsure if she wants to perform again. Enter local piercing artist Thea Quinn, whose terror at encountering one of Menagerie's lizards among the stacks leads to an indelible first encounter with Courtney. Sparks fly--especially when the women end up snowed in at the bookstore through a twist of fate and small-town scheming. Their budding relationship is complicated by Thea's struggle to escape the pressure and expectations placed on her by her proper Southern family and Courtney's decision to keep her past to herself. Burke brings her complex heroines vividly to life and creates an electric dynamic between them. The ending feels somewhat rushed and convenient, but it's a joy to see these two get their happily ever after. Readers will be pleased. (Sept.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Cellist Courtney Starling was performing for a crowd with her rock band when what should have been a career high point turned into a medical emergency. Hiding her debilitating migraines had become habit, but ignoring this particularly nasty one led to a catastrophe that has derailed her music career. Now Courtney is hiding out in Kansas, working at her best friend's bookstore and ignoring her bandmates, the record label executives, and everyone else from her former rock star life. Hobby photographer Thea Quinn has also recently moved to Kansas, to create some space and boundaries from her family while doing piercings at a tattoo studio. Thea's problem has always been that she loves and shows up for her family members, while they rarely return the favor. Sparks fly when Courtney and Thea meet, but neither is in the right headspace to pursue a romantic relationship. They become friends instead, even as their chemistry builds. This character-driven small-town romance has lovable, quirky, fully realized characters who provide the foundation for Courtney's and Thea's new lives. VERDICT Readers will savor Burke's (Fall for Him) engaging and heartwarming latest.--Heather Miller Cover

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Two women artists on individual journeys of self-discovery find each other in a Kansas bookstore. Thea Quinn is working at a tattoo store while developing her art photography and getting some distance from her family. When she meets Courtney Starling, the cute bookseller next door, she falls hard. Though Courtney is powerfully drawn to the dimple-sporting Southern charmer, the singer-songwriter-cellist is hiding away from a stalled music career after a severe migraine foiled her first concert as a headliner. The cause of her migraines is unresolved, as is her trauma from being exploited by her family as a child performer on the Christian music circuit, as well as her divorce from a blackmailing manipulator from the same community. The two women start bonding over romance novels and art, with their chemistry strengthening over months of intimacy. But Courtney is hiding her past, which eventually spills out as expected. The novel is conscious of its own genre, and as the two women talk books, they make references to plot elements like the slow burn and the third act breakup, which Burke then dramatizes, not always well. We also get the requisite assortment of best friends and small-town quirky characters as well as the villainous ex and some charming episodes, such as a date in a field at night. The adherence to rom-com tropes and types could make for easy reading, but a narrative that alternates between Thea and Courtney's first-person points of view, plus Courtney's many names and personas, can be difficult to follow. A sapphic romance in a small community for those who like secret identities and low-key melodrama. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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