A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

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.

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. 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). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really. -

I’ve seen this book floating around for a while, and I’m ashamed to say that it took me this long to read it. I read it all in one sitting. I could not put it down. From start to finish I was hooked. From the love story to the complicated family history, I was here for it all.

This isn’t a cute romcom, easy beach read. It deals with a wide variety of subjects, and there were several times where I felt like I was going to cry. Trigger warnings: for death, abuse, cults, infidelity.

It’s told in the POV of January. And her POV is so raw and real. And I felt every word.

As for the characters? Well, they are two writers who are polar opposites who make a deal to help each other with their next book. What more is there to ask for? There was banter. It was funny. It was sad. It was a nicely packaged book; one that when I finished, I couldn’t wait to start from the beginning.

Both January and Gus were great. They both had this complicated past that had made them who they were and influenced their style of writing. Heartbreak changed the course of January’s writing and she’s stuck. Unable to write those optimistic romance books anymore. Unable to believe in happy endings again. Enter Gus. Her temporary neighbor. Her rival from college, who writes more serious things. She’s annoyed by him, and at the same time very attracted and drawn to him.

They bounced out of each other very nicely. And there is no better way to put it—than I’m obsessed. I loved their conversations about writing and about how they see things differently. And as they worked on their books together, it was interesting to see them develop individually and romantically.

Final Analysis

Beach Read is a raw and emotional tale with a great and engaging romance.

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