Book Lovers - Emily Henry

["She turns the page anyway.","Every time I write a book, the list of people I need to thank grows while the odds of me hitting everyone who deserves a heartfelt mention shrinks. But I\u2019m going to try anyway, because the truth is, I wouldn\u2019t be here in this book you\u2019re holding without the essential help of so many people. Thank you first and foremost to my beloved Berkley family: Amanda, Sareer, Dache\u2019, Danielle, Jessica, Craig, Christine, Jeanne-Marie, Claire, Ivan, Cindy, and everyone else. I love being a part of this team so much, and genuinely feel like the luckiest writer on the planet to have landed among such smart, talented, passionate, driven book lovers like you. Huge appreciation also to Sandra Chiu, Alison Cnockaert, Nicole Wayland, Martha Cipolla, Jessica McDonnell, and Lindsey Tulloch. I also have to thank my incredible UK team over at Viking, especially Vikki, Georgia, Rosie, and Poppy. Immense gratitude to Taylor and the whole Root Literary team\u2014including but not limited to Holly, Melanie, Jasmine, and Molly. You all are the more organized, more savvy, more pragmatic half of my brain, and I would be lost in this business without you. Huge thanks also to Heather and the rest of Baror International for getting my work into the hands of readers all over the world, and to my tireless film agent, Mary, as well as Orly, Nia, and the rest of the UTA team. Publishing has a lot of fairy godparents, and I want to thank a few of mine from the past handful of years: Robin Kall, Vilma Iris, Zibby Owens, Ashley Spivey, Becca Freeman, Grace Atwood, and Sarah True.","Additionally, I wouldn\u2019t be where I am today without Book of the Month Club and my local independent bookstore Joseph-Beth Booksellers, not to mention all the other indie shops across the US and beyond who\u2019ve so graciously supported me and hosted virtual events over these last two strange years. You\u2019ve worked so hard to find ways to connect authors and readers in the midst of a global pandemic, and I couldn\u2019t be more grateful. One of my absolute favorite things about getting to publish in this space is how many kind, generous, funny, smart, empathetic people I\u2019ve been lucky enough to cross paths with. Some (but certainly not all) of those include Brittany Cavallaro, Jeff Zentner, Parker Peevyhouse, Riley Redgate, Kerry Kletter, David Arnold, Isabel Iba\u00f1ez, Justin Reynolds, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Cam Montgomery, Jodi Picoult, Colleen Hoover, Sarah MacLean, Jennifer Niven, Lana Popovi\u0107 Harper, Meg Leder, Austin Siegmund-Broka, Emily Wibberley, Sophie Cousens, Laura Hankin, Kennedy Ryan, Jane L. Rosen, Evie Dunmore, Roshani Chokshi, Sally Thorne, Christina (and) Lauren, Laura Jane Williams, Jasmine Guillory, Josie Silver, Sonali Dev, Casey McQuiston, Lizzy Dent, Amy Reichert, Abby Jimenez, Debbie Macomber, Laura Zigman, Bethany Morrow, Adriana Mather, Katie Cotugno, Heather Cocks, Jessica Morgan, Victoria Schwab, Eric Smith, Adriana Trigiani, and (my absolutely perfect audiobook narrator, friend, and fellow author) Julia Whelan. The rest of my friends and my family: You know who you are, and I love you so much. Thank you for your love, support, and patience. There\u2019s no one I\u2019d rather be quarantined with. And lastly, the biggest thank-you ever to everyone who\u2019s read, reviewed, bought, borrowed, lent, and posted about my books. You have given me an incredible gift, and I will never stop appreciating it.","","I love the quaint settings. I love the excessive number of sweaters and knee-high boots. I love the aspirational level of commitment to seasonal d\u00e9cor in every home. Most of all, I love the happy endings. And having seen enough of these low-angst, made-for-TV delights (Hallmark and otherwise), I found myself fascinated with one particular iteration of the small-town romance. It goes like this: an uptight, joyless, career-obsessed main character gets shipped off from the big city they call home to conduct business in Middle America. They don\u2019t want to go! They don\u2019t even have the right shoes for this kind of setting! But once they\u2019re there, not only do they manage to fall in love with one of the sweet, small-town locals, but they also manage to learn the true meaning of life. (Spoiler alert: it\u2019s not a high- power career in a major metropolis.) And everyone ends up happy. Well, everyone except for the ex. The woman (or man) left behind in the city, whose entire role is usually to call the lead character and bark at them over the phone, remind them that they went to Smalltown, USA for business\u2014to conduct a mass layoff, or to crush the local toy emporium so Big Toy can open its 667th location in the heart of the town, while maybe bulldozing a gazebo or two on the way. She is an obstacle to the real love story, the meant to be relationship. Or she\u2019s a foil to the local sweetheart, there primarily to show how much better the other woman understands the lead. Or she\u2019s the not-evil-just-out-of-touch little devil on his shoulder, trying to lead him astray from this new, better life.","Again, it has to be said, I love these movies, and plenty don\u2019t play out exactly like this, but enough do that I found myself asking, Who is this woman? Where does her story go from here? Does she go on to have her own small-town life-changing experience? Does every uptight city person have to leave the city and fall in love with a carpenter to get their happy ending? Or does her happy ending even look like her ex\u2019s does? What does she crave? And, possibly most exciting to me of all: why does she so badly want her boyfriend to take care of business and do his job to begin with? Those were the questions that created Book Lovers, a book whose working title was, in fact, City Person. It wasn\u2019t just an homage to all those fish-out-of-water stories I love so much, but also to the women who feel like fish out of water, the ones who aren\u2019t sure whether they\u2019re cued up for a happy ending. The Devil Wears Prada\u2019s Miranda Priestly. The Parent Trap\u2019s Meredith Blake. You\u2019ve Got Mail\u2019s Patricia Eden. The designer-wearing, stiletto-donning, red-pen-wielding, treadmill-using, salad-eating women with very little time for, or interest in, baking, camping, or watching sunrises. This was my exploration of who those women really are, and what a happy ending might look like for them. Not a perfect ending, but an apt one. A happily ever after that\u2019s as messy, complicated, and ultimately irresistible as I find Book Lovers\u2019 city-dwelling, designer-wearing, Peloton-riding, red- pen-wielding lead characters.","So whether you\u2019re a small-town sweetheart, an ambitious careerperson, or a different kind of character entirely, I hope you love Charlie and Nora. And I hope their story reminds you there is no one right way to be, no one-size-fits-all happy ending, and no one else on earth who can be exactly who you are.","1. Nora sees herself almost as the villainess in someone else\u2019s love story. Who are some of your favorite villainesses\u2014whom you either outright love or love to hate? 2. Nora reads the last page of a book first. Libby likes to go in knowing as little as possible. How do you prefer to read? 3. What was the book that made you fall in love (or fall in love again) with reading? 4. Would you rather spend a month in Sunshine Falls, or in Nora\u2019s New York life? Why? 5. Have you ever felt like different places brought out different parts of you? 6. As Libby and Nora grow, they have to accept that life is carrying them in different directions. Have you ever been through something like that with a friend or family member? 7. Nora and Libby grew up together, and yet they experienced their childhoods very differently. Why do you think that is? Have you ever had this happen with a family member or friend? 8. Charlie initially set out to write and wound up editing. Nora wanted to edit and became an agent instead. Have","you ever pursued something that led you in a different direction? 9. As children, Nora and Libby would change the endings of stories if they didn\u2019t like them. If you could change the ending of one book, what would it be and how would you change it? 10. All of Nora\u2019s exes have ended up with partners who were seemingly totally different than them. Nora and Charlie, however, are peas in a pod. Do your favorite fictional couples tend to fall in one category or the other? Do you feel the same about real-life relationships? 11. One of Nora\u2019s biggest struggles is finding the balance of how much to compromise in her life for those she loves. What role do you think compromise plays in love? What, to you, is uncompromisable? 12. What is your idea of a happy ending?","Incense and Sensibility by Sonali Dev The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala A Special Place for Women by Laura Hankin A Thorn in the Saddle by Rebekah Weatherspoon Just Last Night by Mhairi McFarlane An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole The Editor by Steven Rowley The Siren by Katherine St. John A Lot Like Adi\u00f3s by Alexis Daria Verity by Colleen Hoover The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang Portrait of a Scotsman by Evie Dunmore The Fastest Way to Fall by Denise Williams So We Meet Again by Suzanne Park By the Book by Jasmine Guillory Payback\u2019s A Witch by Lana Harper A Week to Be Wicked by Tessa Dare","Photo by Devyn Glista\/St. Blanc Studios is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of People We Meet on Vacation and Beach Read. She studied creative writing at Hope College, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the part of Kentucky just beneath it. EmilyHenryBooks.com EmilyHenryWrites",""]