Book Review: ‘A Novel Love Story’ by Ashley Poston (bookish magical realism romance)
Ashley Poston’s ‘The Dead Romantics’ remains one of my favourite romance books of recent years; the combination of swoony romance, charming settings and a really fun magical realism twist make them really stand out in the romance market and I think they’re pretty special. While I enjoyed ‘The Seven Year Slip’ a lot, it didn’t quite hit the heights of ‘The Dead Romantics’ for me, ‘A Novel Love Story’ was right back on the top.
This is a book written for book people, and I am book people.
Have you ever found yourself lost in a good book … literally?
Eileen Merriweather loves a good love story. The fictional kind, anyway. After all, imaginary men don’t break your heart.
That’s why she’s so excited for her annual book club retreat – instead, when her car breaks down en route, Eileen finds herself in Eloraton. A town where every meet is cute, the rain always comes in the afternoon, and the bookshop is always curated with impeccable taste.
It feels too good to be true … because Eloraton is the setting of her favourite romance series. And Eileen is sure she must be here to bring the town its storybook ending.
But there’s one character she can’t place. The grumpy bookshop owner with mint-green eyes, and an irritatingly sexy mouth. He does not want Eileen to finish this story, but how else can she find her happily-ever-after?
It’s like book people catnip.
I think that you’d be hard-pressed to find a reader that hasn’t wished to step inside their favourite books and meet the characters, explore the settings and help to right some wrongs of the novel, and Elsy gets to do just that. I loved the way that she occasionally slipped up, revealing way more than she should know about the inner-workings of the town and the characters, and the focus on the power of books and stories that we love. Elsy is a firm believer that books can change your life and they do change hers.
There’s a lot of focus on this as she recovers from heartbreak and learns to be a full person on her own again. There’s a passage on this topic that really resonated with me as a single woman in her 30s who lives alone and it made me feel a bit emotional seeing it written down in that so I’m going to be a bit vulnerable and share that in case it’s something that you’re grappling with too:
“You don’t realize how much of life is built for relationships until, newly single, you find yourself with a broken ankle, cooped up on the couch in your one‑bedroom apartment, and you need to go to the restroom. The problem is, you’ve knocked your crutches over and the pain prevents you from moving too much at all. You go through the Rolodex in your head of whom you can call, and every one of them has someone more important than you in their lives to take care of. You have to weigh how much of a bother you’re going to be, and how much you can rely on them. (Obviously you can rely on your friends. Obviously I’m not saying you can’t, but there is always a limit of how much before you’re a burden.)”
Ashley Poston did that same gut punch with grief in ‘The Dead Romantics’ too. The emotion is so vivid and real in her novels and she writes characters with such care and depth that they become very real. That focus on characterisation did potentially come at the expense of the romance a little in ‘A Novel Love Story’ as while I really enjoyed Elsy and Anders’ relationship, it felt a little rushed at times and their chemistry didn’t jump off of the page in the way that I have come to expect from Poston’s novels.
Absolutely nothing was lacking from the setting, however. Eloraton is perfectly rendered; it’s a Hallmark movie town and setting, and I fell for it completely. I already know that if these Rachel Flowers novels existed, I’d be obsessed with them. It has all of the tropes: the small town inn being renovated, the charming cafe that everyone flocks to, the product or industry that sets the town apart, the friendly rivalry - it’s all there and it’s utterly charming.
Ashley Poston’s swoony, emotional, funny romances have become auto-buy for me and I’ve already trawled the internet looking for any murmurings of what’s next from her…
Thank you to NetGalley and HQ for the review copy.
Written by Sophie
