Love Is a War Song

Nava (The Truth According to Ember) pairs a disgraced Native American pop star with a hardworking ranchhand in her appealing sophomore rom-com. Muscogee rising star Avery Fox has been acting and singing since she was a baby, urged on by her mother and manager, Harriett. Now she’s hit it big, albeit with a song she feels no connection to. After an ill-advised Rolling Stone cover featuring her in a war bonnet and little else, the internet turns on her, going so far as to accuse her of faking her Native heritage and even sending credible death threats. As damage control, Harriett ships Avery off to her own childhood home of Broken Arrow, Okla., to stay with the estranged grandmother Avery has never known. There, Avery meets and falls for gorgeous Lucas Iron Eyes, who works on her grandmother’s ranch. The chemistry between them crackles—and only intensifies after an awkward dinner with Lucas’s protective parents reveals that they share similar familial struggles. But once the internet firestorm dies down, Avery has a celebrity life to get back to, while Lucas’s home is on the ranch. Nava approaches her protagonists’ differing relationships to their shared culture with empathy and skill and has a talent for making even the prickliest characters, like Avery’s mother, redeemable. The result is a nuanced and entertaining rom-com with plenty of heart. (July)