Book Title: A NOVEL LOVE STORY
Character Name: Anders and Elsy
What are your names, and do they have any significance?
Elsy: Eileen Merriweather, but everyone calls me Elsy. (rolls her eyes) In the delivery room, “Come On Eileen” was on the radio, so my mom thought it’d be fun to name me after it. My best friend’s name is Prudence. So, I might’ve gotten the better end of the stick there.
Anders: Anders.
Elsy: Really, no last name?
Anders: Book boyfriends need to be enigmatic, sweetheart. What fun would it be if you knew everything up front?
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
Elsy: Oh, it was full of books. My mom was a librarian, so she was a huge reader. On my summer breaks, I’d hole up in a quiet part of the library and read everything.
Anders: Everything?
Elsy: What, do you think I just read Romance, Anders?
Anders: Perish the thought, I just can’t imagine you reading about The Great Emu War.
Elsy: Please tell me it was about two faction of emus warring over a farm.
Anders: Ah, so you haven’t read everything.
Elsy: How was your childhood, Anders?
Anders: Perfectly normal. My parents took me on trips in the summer. My dad loves camping, so regrettably I was dragged along to that…
Elsy: Where you camped out in your tent and read about The Great Emu War, right?
Anders: See? You get me.
What was your greatest talent?
Elsy: I am very good at getting lost. Though I’m not sure if that’s something I should brag about…
Anders: Well, if you hadn’t gotten lost we would’ve never met. I think that’s pretty great.
Elsy: (smiling at him) Yeah, I guess you’re right.
Significant other?
Elsy: Ugh, this question? I was almost married once, and the break-up blindsided me. I don’t want to talk about it. It was—well, it was a bit hard. It still is. [pauses] I think he’s getting married now, for real this time. I guess he just didn’t want to marry me.
Anders: (shakes his head) I’ll pass.
Elsy: Aw, did a pretty girl break your heart?
Anders: Very much so. Irreparably. You could say it’s why I moved to Eloraton.
Elsy: Oh…
Biggest challenge in relationships?
Elsy: Bookshelf space.
Anders: What to eat for dinner—really, bookshelf space?
Elsy: What can I say? I like my books and I like men who read. I think they’re sexy.
Anders: You don’t say…
Do you have any enemies?
Elsy: My GPS navigation.
Anders: You would pick a fight with an inanimate object.
How do you feel about the place where you are now? Is there something you are particularly attached to, or particularly repelled by, in this place?
Elsy: Eloraton is beautiful. I wish I could stay there forever.
Anders: It would get boring eventually.
Elsy: (rolls her eyes) Only if you don’t have an imagination.
Do you have children, pets, both, or neither?
Anders: I have a cat named Butterscotch. I’m rather partial to him.
What do you do for a living?
Anders: Bookstore owner.
Elsy: Professor of Literature, but it’s getting a little boring.
Anders: (arches an eyebrow) Oh? What about that imagination of yours?
Greatest disappointment?
Elsy: No one from my book club could make it to the reading retreat this year, so that was pretty disappointing…
Anders: (silent for a long moment) I’ll pass.
Greatest source of joy?
Elsy: Have you ever read a book so good, you knew the moment you finished it the words would stick to your soul like honey? I love that feeling. I love that book. Whenever I feel tired or sad or hopeless, I just take it off the shelf and open it, and… everything’s perfect. There’s really nothing like it.
Anders: (listening to Elsy endearingly) No, there really isn’t.
What keeps you awake at night?
Anders: The overwhelming endurance of being.
Elsy: Wow. You okay there, bud?
Anders: Yes, why?
Elsy: Because normal people would say, like, a possum in the walls or a ghost.
Anders: Why would I have a possum in the walls?
Elsy: I hear they can get anywhere.
Is there something that you need or want that you don’t have? For yourself or for someone important to you?
Elsy and Anders glance at each other again, both having answers but neither of them wanting to put them to words.
Why don’t you have it? What is in the way?
Elsy and Anders: Ourselves.
A professor of literature finds herself caught up in a work of fiction…literally, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Year Slip and The Dead Romantics.
Eileen Merriweather loves to get lost in a good happily-ever-after. The fictional kind, anyway. Because at least imaginary men don’t leave you at the altar. She feels safe in a book. At home. Which might be why she’s so set on going her annual book club retreat this year—she needs good friends, cheap wine, and grand romantic gestures—no matter what.
But when her car unexpectedly breaks down on the way, she finds herself stranded in a quaint town that feels like it’s right out of a novel…
Because it is.
This place can’t be real, and yet… she’s here, in Eloraton, the town of her favorite romance series, where the candy store’s honey taffy is always sweet, the local bar’s burgers are always a little burnt, and rain always comes in the afternoon. It feels like home. It’s perfect—and perfectly frozen, trapped in the late author’s last unfinished story.
Elsy is sure that’s why she must be here: to help bring the town to its storybook ending.
Except there is a character in Eloraton that she can’t place—a grumpy bookstore owner with mint-green eyes, an irritatingly sexy mouth and impeccable taste in novels. And he does not want her finishing this book.
Which is a problem because Elsy is beginning to think the town’s happily-ever-after might just be intertwined with her own.
Romance Paranormal | Women's Fiction Contemporary [Berkley, On Sale: June 25, 2024, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593640975 / eISBN: 9780593640982]
Who Doesn't Love a Book About Books?
Ashley Poston writes stories about love and friendship and ever afters. A native to South Carolina, she now lives in a small grey house with her sassy cat and too many books.
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