Publication Date: October 20, 2026
A commitment-phobe finds herself stuck spending Hanukkah with her childhood best friend turned nemesis, only for holiday chaos to ensue and complicated feelings to resurface in this emotionally resonant debut romance.
Norah Gold is a bolter. She avoids emotional situations at all costs, doesn’t do meaningful relationships, and when things get a little too real, she runs. She hasn’t let herself fall in love in nearly a decade, not since her whole world fell apart when her dad suddenly passed away. Desperate to escape a friends-with-benefits situation gone clingy, she returns home to Chicago for the holidays. Her one goal? Avoid Henry Cole, the boy who blew up her life and broke her heart back in high school. Easier said than done when she discovers that their mothers are dating and insist on celebrating the holidays together.
A decade later, Henry Cole is all custom suits and condescension. He is order to her chaos and absolutely insufferable about it. When Norah and Henry get snowed in together and learn just how serious their moms’ relationship is, they call a truce to make it through all eight nights of Hanukkah without setting each other on fire. As they begin to rediscover the foundation that made them so close growing up, Norah is desperate to keep her distance—the last thing she can handle is reopening decade-old emotional wounds. But even though they’ve tried to escape the past, Norah and Henry have unfinished business too pressing to ignore. Can Norah shake off her deep-seated impulse to bolt, or are they destined to flame out just like they did as teenagers?
Rachel Pologe’s debut novel, Now That We Don’t Talk, is a holiday romance set at Hanukkah.
Norah and Henry unexpectedly meet on a flight from New York to Chicago and are thrown together eight years after graduating high school. They were next door neighbors growing up, and their moms are now in a relationship. Could this be a second chance romance for them?
They have a lot of history, and one event senior year destroyed their friendship. But they seem to be working through their issues and acting like adults, except for a few childish incidents on Norah’s part. There are plenty of flashbacks to their past interspersed with current interactions, and they seem like they’re finally on the same page, but are they? There’s romance and some steaminess as they are both all in. Will all go as planned when they fly back to New York and real life intrudes?
The story moves at a good pace, with multiple storylines woven together. There are issues to work through, along with plenty of discussions and revelations. Romance is abundant, along with some steaminess, until Norah runs scared. A happily ever after is in the offing, with some closure, but I wish the epilogue from twenty months later had gone on a little longer.
Now That We Don’t Talk is a holiday romance with a lot of introspection and the fears Norah must face to find her happiness and her lifetime of love. 
Rachel Pologe writes swoony, character-driven contemporary romance novels about messy but relatable people you can’t help but root for. Rachel has spent her career working in television writers’ rooms, but books were her first passion. In sixth grade, a popular boy said something nice and unprompted about her creative writing assignment, and she’s been riding that high ever since. Originally from Baltimore, Rachel now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. Now That We Don’t Talk is Rachel’s debut novel.
