A Winter in New York

Silver (One Night on the Island) offers a middling contemporary rom-com full of manufactured drama and pointless miscommunication. London chef Iris Raven flees her abusive relationship, leaving Britain for New York City. There, she discovers that her mother’s signature gelato recipe is the same as the top-secret recipe of a local gelateria, Belotti’s. With the chef and Belotti family patriarch in the hospital, the recipe is lost and Gio Belotti, a handsome widower, struggles to keep the business afloat. Gio also believes Iris is a widow due to their snappish first meeting at a bookstore during which she lied to win an argument. Instead of explaining the situation and offering her mother’s recipe, Iris embarks on a convoluted scheme to secretly steer Gio toward the correct recipe over the course of months. Their slow-burning romance is interspersed with flashbacks to her mother Vivien’s time in 1980s New York—and her own love affair with a Belotti man. Iris is the maudlin author of her own misery, propelling the paper-thin plot forward through a series of bizarre choices. All but Silver’s most devoted fans can skip this one. Agent: Nelle Andrew, Rachel Mills Literary. (Oct.)