Great Big Beautiful Life

It’s funny because the criticism around this book made me most excited to read it. Emily Henry’s latest book has a mystery (still, within a romance) with Evelyn Hugo vibes. I don’t entirely understand the criticism, because the book is still a romance, written with Henry’s signature (charming!) cozy warmth. It still feels like an Emily Henry novel, with a mystery inside the romance. And that is what I loved about it! Alice is a writer: an eternal optimist, looking for her big break. When she tracks down Margaret Ives (the now eighty-something heiress and former tabloid princess), she thinks that maybe she’s finally found her big story. Writing Ives’ biography would be the opportunity of a lifetime! But when she arrives, she meets Hayden Anderson: a Pulitzer-prize winning author. The two are to compete for the chance to write Ives’ biography. After a month, she’ll choose the person to tell her story. The only thing? Alice can tell that Margaret is lying. She’s only giving each of them pieces of the story. And they can’t swap stories because they’ve both signed ironclad NDAs. As Hayden and Alice grow closer, they can’t tell what story they are supposed to tell. I loved this. I read it in a few sittings and passed it to my mother when I finished!