Summer is about to get even hotter.

Bolu Babalola is finally returning with her previously announced sequel to her 2022 bestseller and Reese’s Book Club pick, Honey & Spice. The novel, previously titled Sun Under Skin, now renamed Sweet Heat, is coming to shelves on Sept. 2 (originally the book was slated for a 2024 release) — and Entertainment Weekly has your first look at the cover.

It features a sun-soaked city vista and the silhouette of a naked woman in a bedroom. “I am so so pleased and proud of this cover,” Babalola tells EW. “The whole team worked meticulously with my vision for it and Tishk [Barzanji] is such a phenomenal, evocative artist. It so represents the mood and texture of Kiki’s journey in Sweet Heat and I’m so excited that this is its visual presence in the world!”

Sweet Heat returns to the world of Kiki Banjo and Malakai Korede, who went from enemies to lovers as a result of a fake dating scheme in Honey & Spice. The sequel picks up several years later with a second-chance romance between the former college flames.

“Second-chance romance is so uniquely beautiful because it takes a lot of courage and belief to go back to a place and hope it works out again,” Babalola previously told EW. “It takes immense vulnerability but also faith — that’s at the core of love generally.”

Kiki is now the host of popular podcast The HeartBeat, where she solves relationship drama and offers up life advice. But things get messy when a major broadcast deal falls through and her latest relationship implodes. Enter Malakai, the ex-boyfriend who stole her heart and then broke it to smithereens.

Malakai is now on the rise as an up-and-coming filmmaker, and to save her career, Kiki has no choice but to be on her best behavior around him. The two are forced to work together for a summer, and they’re hell-bent on ignoring the still-smoldering chemistry between them. But it’s not long before their attractions flare back to life and they have to consider what they’re willing to risk for another chance.

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As for why, Babalola broke Kiki and Malakai up only to bring them back together. “They’re kids in the first book!” she said when first announcing the sequel. “And as much as their love is very much real, I wanted it to be grounded in reality — they’re going to grow up, mature, figure out who they are apart from each other, and I really wanted to see how their romance and love would fare in that context, as adults who have lived a little more, know themselves a little more. Does their love grow too? Did they need to grow apart in order to be together properly?”

Check out the cover above for more.