as we call it, but not quite) along the lake. However, January heads to her dad’s hidden beach house in northern lower Michigan (almost the Upper Peninsula, or U.P. She’s had writer’s block because normally she writes romance and after all she’s been through, she’s having a hard time thinking about anything remotely romantic.

Obviously, January’s life is a mess, and she has a book due to the publisher at the end of the summer. January’s grief at losing her dad and this revelation are too much for her long-time boyfriend, Jacques, who breaks up with her while they’re in a hot tub. Her mom knew, and didn’t want to talk about it. At the funeral, January finds out her dad had been having an affair for years. January is a best-selling author, who is still reeling from the death of her father some months before. I’d enjoyed the story so much at that point that I bought the book and finished it. I went to the book’s page on Amazon and discovered that this best-selling summer hot read was only $1.99 on Kindle right now. I got 80% through the book before my Kindle loan was returned. When I started reading Beach Read, I only had 3 days left before it would be returned.

I thought I had more time with it, as I had several other books I was reading before it. I got Beach Read through Overdrive, the library’s digital lending library.

When other writers ask me what Beach Read is about, I tell them it’s about writer’s block.” Really.”įrom the author’s notes: “When friends ask me what Beach Read is about, I tell them it’s about a disillusioned romance author and a literary fiction writer who make a deal to swap genres for the summer. Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. 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). 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. 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.

Books like beach read by emily henry