About the Book
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.
My Review
As both a published writer and a voracious reader, I love reading books about writers. Call me kooky, I know. But I knew this was one I couldn’t pass up, and while the title and cover had me thinking something else might unfold with the plot, I still really enjoyed myself while reading it. We follow January and Augustus (excellent names) college acquaintances who are reunited under less than stellar circumstances. Immediately on each other’s nerves, they decide to swap literary genres for the summer to help kick start them out of their respective slumps. I loved seeing both writers attempt to take on something new, learning about a different way to create characters and put them on their unique paths, and of course – the underlying romance beneath it all. The setting was very sweet, there was plenty of twists thrown at us, and overall I had a really good time reading this one. I would recommend it not just for a beach read, but a cozy fall romantic comedy as well!
4 stars
