January Andrews is a bestselling romance author and she should be on top of the world. But her world shattered when her father died and left her with unanswered questions. With her next book due soon and writer’s block in full force, January decided to escape to her father’s beach house and get it ready to sell while hoping to unlock her creativity. On January’s first night in town, she is annoyed by her new neighbor and the party scene she hopes is not the norm. That neighbor is Augustus Everett, a best-selling author in his own right. Living in his beach house offers him the solitude he craves while being close enough to his family that he doesn’t feel so alone when it suits him. It doesn’t take long for them to realize they know one another and hated one another in college years ago. As the animosity heats up a challenge is proposed. He will try his hand at writing romance, she will tackle literary fiction with no happy ending. Who will win? And will it bring peace to their feud and their lives?
BEACH READ is not your typical rom-com but it is still oh-so-sweet. This novel has a little bit of everything, from deeply buried family secrets, grief, celebration, friendship, and research into a death cult. Really. No issue really goes untouched here, but it all blends together perfectly somehow. Readers will laugh and cry and be outraged and circle back again. The writing is brilliant. The story flows effortlessly. The relationships between January and Gus and their families are real and raw and relatable. If you are looking for a romantic comedy that is all sweet and cozy, this isn’t it. If you are looking for something that is at times hilarious, heart-wrenching, and real, this is the one. There is a reason BEACH READ is on so many must-read lists this summer because the journey it will take you on is a roller coaster of emotions that we didn’t know we needed to be on. I will be adding this book to my reread list because I think reading this the second time around will be even better than the first time.
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.
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