Quick Synopsis

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 everafters.

Publisher’s Synopsis

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.

Book Review

Beach Read is a fun, engaging romance about two rival writers that end up living next door to one another. If you like a good enemies-to-lovers story, you will like this book.

Emily Henry managed to write a romance that had enough depth to interest me. It was compulsively readable. I was easily invested in Gus and January’s story and wanted to find out everything that happened in their love story. Moreover, I thought the narrative was full of insight and emotion.

My favorite part of Beach Read was without a doubt the witty banter between the two protagonists. But I also enjoyed the bits of family drama, cults, and purse-wine drinking. What more could you ask for?

Some may find the title a bit misleading as this story is not all rainbows and unicorns. (The title refers to a part of the story, as most titles tend to do.) The fact that it tackles difficult emotions and subjects, like grief and childhood trauma, made it really work for me. Henry also discusses these subjects with thoughtfulness and care. I am not a typical romance reader and like stories to be a bit more practical over light and fluffy, and Beach Read hit those marks.

Overall, I really enjoyed Beach Read and definitely recommend it.

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