Oh, this was so much fun. An opposites-attract rom com where both protagonists are authors (write what you know, I guess!).
January has inherited a house from her dad – the titular beach house – where he had a second life, with a second wife. She would not be here if she had any other options, but she’s between novels with zero inspiration, and the bills won’t pay themselves.
Gus is your standard New York Lonely Boy (thanks, Girls 5Eva), a Franzen/Eggers style writer who of course scores staggering advances, and despite having written only one book, is set for life (funny how that happens for white dudes).
Henry neatly juggles the meet cure and contrivance to have the authors switch genres – January will write a miserable work of epic genius, and Gus will write a romance. Whoever gets published first wins.
January and Gus decide to use date nights to take each other through the tropes and/or research points they’d usually hit when writing their own novels. Of course, one things leads to another…
They of course live HEA, but the journey is well played and well written; I loved it.