Author: Emily Henry
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: May 19, 2020
A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.
Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.
They're polar opposites.
In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.
Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.
"Oh, damn. I was a bunny."
Beach Read is a must-read!
What do a disillusion romance novel and a literary fiction author have in common? Not much at first glance but as the story progresses, it's clear why they are meant for each other.
January Andrews is licking her wounds. At twenty-eight, she had everything she wanted. She believed in romance. She believed in love. Her parent's marriage was an example to her. She had a wonderful boyfriend of many years and she was accomplishing everything she wanted in her professional life too. As a romance writer, she had successfully published several novels.
Then twenty-nine hit her in the worst possible way. She losses everything she has cared for including her writing. She is on a deadline but unable to write a single word. Without anywhere else to go, she decides to go to the lakehouse to start over.
On the first night, she is there, her new neighbor has a party with loud music playing and January wants to be able to sleep. When the music persists, she makes the decision to confront the neighbor. She makes an impression despite meeting in the dark but the next morning, they meet again. This time in full daylight and January realizes that she knows who he is. She has known him since college!! They had a rivalry but also one memory of a time where there could have been something more.
"Because you're the bright light."
August "Gus" Everett didn't have a happy childhood or adolescence. The only thing that gave him any type of satisfaction was his writing. His books are well-known and successful. He, however, is reserved and distant. While January was a happy person who wrote about happy endings, he was all about the dark truth about the ugly world out there. Yet, this new January who's living next to him, it's not the same woman he remembers. When January offers a change in their genres, he accepts the challenge. The rest is history.
I loved this one so much. The banter with intelligent dialogue and the slow-building romance was very creative. Their chemistry was through the roof and the attraction to each other smoking!
"When I watch you sleep," ...
I feel overwhelmed that you exist."
Kudos to Emily Henry for writing Beach Read. Definitely a much deeper story than what the title offers.
Cliffhanger: No
4/5 Fangs
A complimentary copy was provided by Berkley via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
No comments:
Post a Comment