It’s an Emily Henry world and I, for one, am just glad to be living in it. Book Lovers might stand the test of time as my absolute favorite read of hers. I refuse to rate it on a numerical scale because it shouldn’t be confined to such a system.
Nora Stephens is a literary agent who is damn good at her job, so she knows her archetypes. She knows she is “the other girl” in the story. The one who is ambitious, and career driven, who doesn’t upend her life for romance and refuses to lower her standards. And, since she’s living as the Meredith Blake of her own story; all her past flames go on work trips or on vacation or away for school and meet a small-town baker or the daughter of a couple who owns a Christmas tree farm or the small-town girl next door single mom.
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See that’s the thing hallmark doesn’t tell you; all the love stories suck for the woman who gets left behind. So, when her sister Libby, decently far along with her third pregnancy, decides they need a month-long vacation to the setting of her favorite author’s new book (who just so happens to be Nora’s star client) Nora is helpless to do anything but agree.
Enter the typical small-town tropes. Enter the dark, broody, sullen and downright gorgeous Charlie Lastra, an editor Nora met years ago who turned down her star client’s book without even a “hello, how are you? My name is…” Libby says he’s her arch nemesis and yet Nora finds herself wondering “is it possible for the career driven woman archetype to have a happy ending?”
As summer approaches, this is THE beach read. The banter is exquisite, and the characters are much more complex than your average romance.
If I haven’t sold you on this one yet, I’ll say this – two words: Bigfoot Erotica.
