A professor of literature finds herself caught up in a work of fiction… literally.
A NOVEL LOVE STORY by ASHLEY POSTON
Series: n/a
Publication date: June 25, 2024
Published by: Berkley
Genre: contemporary romance, magical realism
SYNOPSIS
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 to 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.
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Praise for A Novel Love Story:
"“A romance lovers dream of a book. Whimsical, romantic and packed with charm, Ashley Poston is the queen of high concept love stories.”
—Sophie Cousens, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Part
“Ashley Poston has done it again. I fell into these pages just as effortlessly as Eileen tumbles into Eloraton. Whimsical, emotional, and tender, A Novel Love Story is another enchanting romance from Poston."
—B.K. Borison, author of Business Casual
“This slow-burn love story from Poston is as much an ode to romance novels and friendship as it is about romantic relationships. Fans of small-town contemporary romance will sink easily into quaint Eloraton.”
—Library Journal
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ashley Poston is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of The Dead Romantics.
After graduating from the University of South Carolina with a bachelor’s in English, she spent the last decade working in the publishing industry before deciding to pursue writing full-time.
When not writing, she likes trying various arts and crafts (she’s currently addicted to building miniature rooms) and taking long walks as an excuse to listen to Dungeons & Dragons podcasts. She bides her time between South Carolina and New York, and all the bookstores between.
REVIEW
A Novel Love Story by Ashley PostonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
When I read the synopsis for this novel, I couldn’t wait to read it. It’s a gloriously original plot which is hard to come by nowadays. More importantly, it’s every book lover’s fantasy with a bibliophile heroine we can all see a little bit of ourselves in. What’s not to love? But let’s be real, I absolutely adored Ashley Poston’s The Seven Year Slip, so I would have read the follow-up with zero hesitation regardless of the synopsis. Once again, Poston weaves magical realism into this love story that takes place in the fictional town of Eloraton that has come to life right out of a romance novel series.
This reader had many questions along the way: how did Elsy transport herself into this place that only should have existed in the pages of her favorite book series? Why is Anders there if he wasn’t in any of the books? How does he seem to know more that the townspeople do about the curious things going on, and how is any of this happening? These things, among others, were running through my mind while reading but it wasn’t an urgent mystery that needed to be solved. My main focus was on the charm of the small town characters and Elsy’s budding interest in a certain grumpy bookstore owner. One of the things I loved was that we get to jump right into the quirky town of Eloraton almost immediately without having to wade through intro chapters of heavy character background first. The action begins simultaneously with the character development making it very easy to get settled in.
My story wasn’t that interesting, anyway.A three-star read at best. I could imaginethe trade reviews—Though she tackles themundane of her life with aplomb, nothinghappens to Eileen Merriweather. Angst-riddenbackstory told in deeply regrettable prose.An utterly skippable read.
Elsy has just gone through a pretty heartbreaking and brutal two years after a nasty breakup. She’s been feeling stuck, depressed, and unable to move on after being blindsided by the man she thought she’d be spending the rest of her life with. Now that he has officially found his happily ever after with someone else, she’s been clinging to hope that the retreat with her best friend and their book club will help bring her a little happiness. After all, the book club dedicated to all things Eloraton and the love of reading is her true happy place. As a teacher of English 101, she gets to work in a classic literature related career, but romance novels are where her true passion lies.
When everyone backs out the trip, she ventures off on her own to the cabin where they had planned to meet-only somewhere along the way, her GPS blanks out and she somehow enters a town that seems oddly familiar. Everything, that is, except Anders, the man she almost ran over on the way into town.
That didn’t exactly start them out on the right foot, and her upbeat personality didn’t exactly mesh well with his prickly attitude. She never let him get to her though, I don’t see how anything could when she was reveling in meeting all of the fictional places and characters that she knew so well. It was fun imagining myself in her shoes as she swept through town giddily taking in every familiar detail. She was surrounded by some mysterious magic that for a little while helped her to forget her problems. Unfortunately, she soon started to see that all of the couples’ HEAs weren’t as perfect as they appeared to be in the books, and some were suspended in time-frozen. All of her efforts to solve everyone’s problems only seemed to make matters worse as she waited for her car to be repaired so she could leave town and back to real life. But the closer she grew to Anders as they got to know one another, the less she wanted to leave. Could she stay here in her ultimate happy place, or start on a new path that led her to being the main character in her own story in the real world?
She was the main character, and I was alongfor the ride to bask in her glow. Her heartnever led her wrong—not once. Iwished I could say the same about my own.
I enjoyed the premise of the book very much, and it wasn’t without its charm, but I just didn’t feel the chemistry with Elsy and Anders that I should have. Anders is left quite mysterious (for a reason) and I didn’t quite understand who he was or his motivations because of that. When his history was finally explained later on, at that point an emotional disconnect had already set in for me because it took so long to understand him. Even though they were very sweet together in the end, there was something missing for me. When it came to Elsy’s self-exploration that was addressed well, and I think her character in general was wonderfully three-dimensional. Overall, it was a good read, though it did fall a little below my very high expectations. I think many would still love this one for its unique storyline, and I’m excited to see what this author has in store for us next.
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