Book Review: Romantic Hero by Kirsty Greenwood
As readers, we’re forever falling in love with fictional people and wishing we could pull them out of the pages so that we can meet them in real life. Kirsty Greenwood’s new novel, Romantic Hero, imagines that dream scenario, as a heartbroken writer suffering from serious writer’s block manifests the villainous character from her romance novel into existence.
Gertie Bickerstaff writes happy-ever-afters for a living. At least she did until her own love life fell apart. Now her ex is thriving, her deadline is looming and she can’t write a single word. When her eccentric neighbour cajoles her into performing a manifestation ceremony, Gertie unwittingly transports a confused cowboy into her London flat. But this isn’t just any cowboy. This is River Oakley, the rugged antagonist from her unfinished story. Somehow he’s real and just as devastatingly handsome as he is on the page. Oh, and he’s really not happy about being inexplicably uprooted from his Texas ranch.
With River stuck in Gertie’s world until she cures her writer’s block, the two strike a mutually beneficial deal. River will help Gertie win back her ex, and she will finish her novel so that she can send River back to where he came from. But as Gertie spends more time with the character she thought she’d conjured in her head, she starts to see the real man beyond the stock ‘bad guy’ she wrote him to be. And soon she’ll have to choose between the ending she thought she wanted, and the plot twist she wasn’t expecting but actually really needed.
Romantic Hero is, to put it briefly, a complete joy to read. From the moment we meet Gertie, it’s difficult not to feel her heartbreak and hope she’ll find her way through it. Her typically British, self-deprecating, Bridget Jones-esque narration is instantly endearing, and part of the fun of the novel is how very different she is to River. He’s a typical Texan cowboy, bullish and straight-talking and unapologetically assured of himself. Meanwhile, Gertie is soft and gentle and a little too agreeable. She’s terrified of offending or upsetting people (the reason why we discover later in the book), which makes her something of a doormat for her toffee-nosed ex.
This all makes for some delightful opposites-attract, forced-proximity interactions between Gertie and River with all the back-and-forth banter, sexual tension and will-they-won’t-they moments you could possibly want from a feel-good rom-com. Greenwood 100% delivers the swoony romance she promises but she also gives readers a protagonist with her own deeply personal – dare I say it – journey to go on. The Gertie we’re with at the end of the novel is a changed woman from the Gertie we meet at the beginning, offering readers an inspiring message about being the lead character in your own story.
Smart, sexy and effortlessly tender, Romantic Hero puts a magical spin on the classic fake dating trope. Even better, it goes all in on the happy ending that Gertie so desperately deserves, meaning you’re guaranteed to finish the final page – like our heroine does – with the fullest of hearts and the widest of smiles on your face.
★★★★★
Romantic Hero was published by Penguin on 4 June 2026
