Happy After All by Maisey Yates

 

"It's a truth universally acknowledged--at least, in a romance novel--that the moment the main character has her life in order, the exact person she doesn't want to meet will come along and knock all that careful order into disarray. For example, when a respectable motel owner who has decided to focus on her writing career and her own personal happiness is beginning to feel satisfied with the way she's rebuilding her life, a disastrously gorgeous man will walk in and disrupt everything."

Amelia fled to Rancho Encanto to rewrite her life. She's not looking for romance. Then Nathan Hart comes to her motel to write for the summer. He's aloof and keeps to himself, but Amelia can't help feeling a spark of attraction between them. Not only are they both writers, they're both grieving loss and trying to move forward and heal. But heartbreak is hard to overcome. 

"We would never have met if our lives hadn't crashed and burned. But it doesn't feel like something that happened because of tragedy. It feels like a small miracle. An oasis in the middle of the desert, which in many ways is what Rancho Encanto is."

This is such a good book! I loved how Yates starts each chapter with a romance trope, and how Amelia, a romance writer, uses that framework to narrate her own story. I thought it was very clever and fun. But this is not a simple summer romance. There's a range of emotions in this one: laughter and loss, hurt and hiding from that sadness, grumpiness, joy, lots of tears, and love. Both Amelia and Nathan had to navigate their own grief in order to find healing and hope. I also loved Amelia's found family full of quirky characters living in this small desert community. They made me smile. 

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happy Reading!