Reviews

As someone who has watched many a hallmark movie, I know the trope. I’ve been a part of the tik tok memes where people are fighting against being changed or how weird things are in the small town they go to. I find it absolutely hilarious because the Hallmark Movies don’t see anything wrong with their small town life and it’s just always so innocent and sweet and you find a man or woman to love and then stay.

The way this book starts is with a woman talking about how a man visits, moves back to, or just moves in general to a small town and it’s supposed to be temporary, and has a powerhouse girlfriend he leaves in the city who he ends up breaking up with for his new life in the small town. Nora, our FMC, is that powerhouse, workaholic girlfriend. She’s been broken up with this way a few times now and is over it. She loves her life in New York and loves her job, so can’t understand why you’d want to settle down in a small town. Nora is a literary agent and pitches a book to an editor, Charlie Lastra, who rejects it, but she ends up pitching it to someone else and it becomes a best seller.

We jump ahead to 2 years later. Then, Nora’s younger sister by 4 years, Libby, plans a trip to the small town Once In a Lifetime, the book that became a bestseller, is based in. She is pregnant with baby number three with her longtime husband she met when she was 20 and settled down with right away. Together, Libby and Nora agree on a list of things to do while they are there, like saving a local business, going on 2 dates with a small town farmer, ride a horse, go skinny dipping, etc.

Nora feels like she doesn’t know anything about Libby anymore, who she used to be so close with. Their mom died when they were both decently young and Nora has done everything she can to make it so that Libby is taken care of, at the sacrifice of several relationships of hers awe well as putting dreams on hold. So they agree to spend time together and while the summer is the slow time for the publishing industry, she does still have work to do. While she goes in search of wifi, she walks into a coffee shop and sees a hot mountain man exiting. She gets in line and sees another hot man in the front of the line and realizes it’s Charlie Lastra, the editor who rejected Once In a Lifetime. She decides to email him to confirm and watches him email her back. They strike up a witty banter, which I do love a good witty banter in books.

She eventually runs into him in the bookstore he runs for his mom and they begin to hang out and hook up. Libby fights that because he’s not a small town pig farmer, so Nora has to cut it off, even though they make so much sense. She eventually goes on a date with a hot guy who ends up being Charlie’s cousin. His name is Shepherd, for real. There’s just no spark for Nora, but she does give it a try. Libby is being a bit secretive as well and Nora ends up accidentally calling a phone number that sounds like a family lawyer, so she thinks that Libby is divorcing her husband. I feel like the miscommunication trope between family members might honestly be worse than miscommunication between love interests. Libby doesn’t want Nora to be working at all, but Nora works so hard to provide for Libby and her family and they just aren’t actually even communicating about what they have done or haven’t done for each other in the interest of keeping the other one safe. They do finally have a big blow out and actually have a conversation, which I do love when that actually happens and things do get resolved.

We also find out that Charlie has decided to stay in the small town to help his family out, despite wanting to go back to New York quite badly. On paper, everything with Nora and Charlie should work because they both love New York so much and work so well together. So they enjoy the time they have while Nora is still there, which we love. Charlie even wants to try long distance, but Nora knows that just won’t work, so they “say goodbye” which is very sad because they totally could have worked.

When Libby’s family comes into town too, Nora finds out that Brendan, Libby’s husband, got a job in Asheville, which is very close to Sunshine Falls and they are planning to move to a very cute house there. Their money goes a lot further in Sunshine Falls than it does in New York, so it’s what’s best for them. Nora is, of course, devastated, but understands that this is what’s best for her sister and her family. And Libby wasn’t calling a divorce lawyer and wasn’t avoiding Brendan, she was looking for a house for them and Brendan was checking in with Nora to see if Libby had told her yet. Yet another miscommunication/withholding information “for the good of someone else” which I hate because I feel like I just don’t do that that often.

So Nora moves back to the city and ends up getting an editing job that she didn’t think she should get because it didn’t pay as much as being an agent and she wanted to have more financial security for Libby. This editing job is actually the job that Charlie gave up to stay in Sunshine Falls, but she’s so incredibly happy and also sad about the changes happening in her life. The ending is so sweet because they have a bookstore in New York that they used to go to all the time as children and still go there on their mom’s birthday to celebrate her. This is Nora’s very first time doing it without Libby and she’s sad but also okay with that. She goes in and even finds a book from an author from Beach Read, so that was a cute little Easter Egg. However, when she grabs the book she wants, so does someone else. And it’s Charlie!! Which is soooooo cute. And he’s just moved back to the city because Libby now owns the bookstore so he can come live in New York and try things out with Nora and it’s just the best “re-meet cute” and I love stuff like this. It’s happened in another book before where it was how they said they met when they were fake dating and then when they have their third act breakup, it’s how they get back together and it’s just such a good remeeting between characters. This is still my favorite EmHen, so it’s on to Funny Story, which I hear is LOVELY, so I’m excited.