I requested for this book from because the cover caught my eye. As I read the synopsis, it was screaming Hallmark movie all over and had me so interested!

Thank you so much to Netgalley, Putnam Books and author Annabel Monaghan for sending me a finished gifted copy of this book that comes out 6/7/22!

Nora is a screenwriter for a romance channel and when her life is upended by being left by her husband, she decides to write about it. Surprised about how much success it garnered, her life story is picked up to become a movie and film in her very own home. Actor Leo Vance who plays the lead role in the movie offers to pay to stay here in the hopes of the simple life curing his busy life after their shooting wraps up. Things just turn out much more interesting than they both imagined mixing romance and real life complications.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5. This book made me smile so much and even got my eyes wet! It was such a raw rom-com and I really liked how the book depicted the realistic conflict that comes with dating a single mom. I adored Leo and how he blended well with her kids and how effortless it was for him to fit into their cute and cozy lives. Bernadette and Arthur were such delightful kids and they were another highlight to this story! And even though miscommunication tropes irks the life outta me sometimes, I wasn’t too displeased with how the story panned out. I highly recommend this one if you’re looking for a cute, cozy, quick and closed door rom-com!

𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚: 𝘏𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘴, 𝘳𝘰𝘮-𝘤𝘰𝘮 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘴, 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘮 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴, 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘤𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺

Nora Goes Off Script was such a delightful read! I was instantly sucked into the world of Nora and her movie that she had written based on her life. Leo was an absolute delight and I craved more of him. The way he gets Nora to open up and leave her world of rules behind is absolutely endearing.

I finished this book in one sitting!
First, I would give a shout out and big thank you to Putnam via Netgalley for my ebook file and PRHAudio for the audio book which was narrated quite wonderfully by Hillary Huber.

Nora Hamilton just came out of a divorce, a little broke financially but emotionally stable. She has two children Bernadette and Arthur. Nora is a scriptwriter and she just close a great deal with a movie production by writing her own life and her own ugly divorce. She offered her home as a filming location and she met the actor Leo , he who will play her the role of her ex-husband and this is where the magic started.

I really like the character building of this book. Strong main female characters that are realistic in presentation. Yes, she gets too emotional but thats just how every normal woman can be. Yes, she can be flustered juggling mommy duties because that is the reality. Inter-character dynamics were very heart warming- for Leo and Arthur specifically. The romance is clean yet full of swoon worthy content. I enjoyed the thought of having love that is sweeter the second time around!

Nora Goes Off Script
Annabel Monaghan
Romance
2022
4.5⭐️

Nora is a screenwriter, she made her career as a writer for The Romance Channel. She sells stories that have happy endings. Those stories that we are familiar with, the ones that the plot rings a bell but the characters are different and sometimes the roles are reversed. You know which ones I’m talking about. She settled in life for a marriage that was the opposite of what she wrote. She was with a man that would constantly put her hard work down like it was nothing but, for the years they were married, never actually tried to provide for his family. It was very easy to spend her hard-earned money, that’s for sure. When he finally decides that have has had enough, he leaves without even thinking twice about the kids he is leaving behind. Nora, not giving three damns about him, just says goodbye and handles the situation like a complete badass mom. One that makes lemonade when life gives her lemons. That puts her family first before everything else.

She decided to tell her story. She wrote a badass script and she was planning to sell it to The Romance Channel, but her agent said No Way José, this is worth money. She goes ahead with it and sells the script for a lot of money and the movie promises to bring only good things to her life. The filming of the movie ends up happening in her own house. Even when she was expecting them, it took her by surprise when the crew and cast show up at her front step, bringing their mess and drama.

She tries to play it cool when she meets the most famous and well-paid actor in Hollywood when clearly everyone in town is starstruck by the amazing Leo Vance.

After the crew is gone, they forgot the hot shot star behind, and the next morning Nora finds Leo sitting on her porch waiting for the sunrise she bragged about in one of their conversations. He asks her to please let him stay for a few days, he'll pay her of course, but he wants to get away for a while.

A few days turn into a couple of weeks and months. What started as a friendship develops into something much more exciting for both. They declare their undying love for one another just for something to come along and screw things up for them.


This is where I stop because you seriously need to read to fully appreciate it. I fell in love with this book. With Nora. Her kids. Leo, of course. The little town where she lives. Her simple yet fulfilling life. Everything was out of a Hallmark movie. I loved every minute of it. If you like a simple, fast-read romance, this is it for you. Can I have this physically in my hands now, please?


Thank you Netgalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the opportunity. ❤️

Read this if you like: One POV, Hallmark movie vibes, instalove

Nora Hamilton is a romance channel screenwriter, think Hallmark movies. Everything gets flipped upside dowbmn when her husband leaves her and their two kids. Nora turns her marriage's collapse into cash and writes the best script of her life. No one is more surprised than her when it's picked up for the big screen and set to film on location at her 100-year-old-home.

Former Sexiest Man Alive, Leo Vance, is cast as her crappy husband. The morning after shooting wraps and the crew leaves, Nora finds Leo on her porch with a half-empty bottle of tequila and a proposition. He'll pay a thousand dollars a day to stay for a week. The extra seven grand would give Nora breathing room, but it's the need in his eyes that makes her say yes. Seven days: it's the blink of an eye or an eternity depending on how you look at it. Enough time to fall in love. Enough time to break your heart.

I loved it so much. I don't want to give too much away because this book shocked me a little. I laughed, I cried. I am not usually of instalove type books but this one was so believable. The characters are very well developed and realistic. Highly recommend! Preorder it now as it comes out June 7th!

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Penguin Group Putnam for the gifted copy! ❤️

I truly loved this one! I found it to be witty and smart. The dialogue between the characters is great and also has a realistic feel to it. In addition, the characters themselves also felt very authentic. There is just so much to love about this story! I know it will make a great beach read.

Currently:⁣
🔸Ebook = Nora Goes Off Script⁣
🔸Audiobook = Jane Eyre ⁣
🔸Physical = Women, Race, and Class⁣
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I think the first rave I saw for Nora Goes Off Script was @jaylamm.reads - shortly there after I requested it from @netgalley and despite wanting to read it immediately, I waited. This is our first COVID free weekend in what has felt like forever (my daughter and I hopefully bypassed this round) and I am ONE HUNDRED PERCENT enjoying Nora. I love when author's nail banter so well, don't you? I also love when humor is injected into these witty romance-y books 💜⁣
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Is Nora Goes Off Script on your list?? It's out June 7th! Thank you #netgalley for this free copy.⁣

*After finishing*
Absolutely loved this one. Nora was an amazing character and watching her navigate a decent man was delightful and HOT!

Nora had me hooked right from the beginning. She's funny and had a no-nonsense way of looking at the world that was relatable and really fun to read. When Leo showed up and they started to interact and spend time together I couldn't get enough. I loved the slow way their relationship developed, how awkward he was a normal life, and how good he was with the kids. Not to mention how kind and considerate he was to Nora.
Then he left and all my preconceived notions about this being a fluffy romance went right out the window. I had not been expecting that to happen but it felt strangely right for the book. And as Nora picked herself up and put herself back together I thought I had just misunderstood what kind of book it was. And Nora's process of grieving and recovery was just as good to read as the romance had been.
But then there was the twist at the end and I was blindsided again. The ending didn't go in the direction I thought it was going to, but it was so much better than I'd anticipated. I loved every minute of this book and I will be keeping my eye out for another book by Monaghan.

4.25 out of 5. This book gave me Bridges of Madison County meets Hallmark vibes and that is actually a fabulous thing. I enjoyed the characters, the setting, and the little kids! I Loved the meta of it all of me reading a book about a writer who wrote a book who becomes a movie who gets filmed back where it was written - its so random it actually kind of works. And I was even happy to suspend my disbelief that the hottest and most famous male celebrity shows up in the middle of nowhere and falls in love with the country girl, because its cute, and why not? You believe it because it is beautifully written and it makes you go through all the feelings and when is that a bad thing. Also it is an incredibly fast read which I appreciated. Highly recommend getting this one for your beach reads!

UGH this book is simultaneously adorable and infuriating. If you’re not into the miscommunication trope, this one might not be for you.

Warning: spoilers ahead!

That being said, I think this was infuriating in the best way possible. I found myself smiling and laughing to myself throughout the majority of the book. Nora’s husband has left her, and she’s not upset about it one bit. Why would you want someone to stay if they really don’t want to be there? She takes all of her feelings about their relationship and creates The Tea House, which is refreshing in that the female lead isn’t heartbroken over her husband leaving her. During the filming of the movie at her house, in the real tea house, she meets Leo, who stars as her ex-husband in the movie.

Leo essentially moves himself into Nora’s family’s home (and into their hearts!). He has a cute relationship with her two children, and is sincere and genuine with her despite being an actor who is famous for smoldering women. Their relationship continues to progress until Leo gets a call about a potential new role and has to fly back to LA. Leo promises to come back, unlike her ex-husband Ben who said he would and never has, not even to see his children. Everyone believes that Leo will come back. Heck, I believed Leo was coming back. But Leo doesn’t come back, and Nora is left picking up the pieces of her life and trying to move on. She uses the pain and hurt from their breakup and turns in into another hit screenplay.

Just when things sort of return to normal and Nora is mostly fine with Leo essentially ghosting her, they’re both nominated for Oscars for The Tea House. Spoiler alert, they win of course and they’re face to face again after 10 months apart. Not long after, Nora’s son, Arthur, runs away to New York and Nora calls Leo for help. As it turns out - and here is literally the most annoying part of this book - Arthur had texted Leo and told him that Nora’s ex was back in the picture and they were all really happy. All because Arthur was upset and hurt about Leo leaving just like his dad had (I get it, he’s a kid but ugh). So Leo and Nora were both hurting this entire time thinking that the other had moved on when they could have been happy together. They do get their happy ending, though, which is nice. Overall, a great book!

I'm buying this book for my mother. Translation - this is a story for those who believe in love.
Nora Goes Off Script is a romance for people who wait for the hydrangeas to bloom, those who know there's a happy ending, and those who know that good things come to you if you do good things.

Nora's first marriage was a disaster, but her two kids are amazing. Now that she's on her own, she's written about the experience and the script is being made into a movie with an all-star cast. And the leading man, well, he's taken to her kids as well. But Mr. Hollywood can't stick around in Nora's upstate small town forever - not with the Oscar buzz around their movie.

He says he'll be back, but in Nora's experience, that's just a line. Could the hottest man alive be different from the others? It doesn't fit the plot, but maybe Nora can rewrite the script.

My thoughts while reading this book:

First 50% - aww, cute, hehe
Next 40% - THIS IS FUCKING TORTURE
Next 9% - seriously? Are you kidding me? Are you seriously for real?
Last 1% - awww

If you like small town romances I'd give this a go - it's very meta which I found enjoyable and funny. Nora was a great character who was easy to root for and her two kids were just the best. This is one of the more well done single mom stories I've read in a WHILE.

I’m gonna rate this 3.5 rounded up to 4 because I binged it in a day and it definitely made me feel things. But holy hell am I angry that these grown ass adults acted like middle schoolers when dealing with real life. I know this wasn’t realistic at all, but just the chance that it could be makes me so angry.

Fav romance of 2022 so far! Nora, her family, their small town, and of course the Tea House (IYKYK) will stick with me for a long time!

In this novel, single mon Nora is a screenwriter of tv romance movies, who turns her abandonment by her husband into a more serious movie script which is being made into a big screen movie - which leads her to meet Hollywood leading man Leo when a few days of filming are done on location on her property.

Well, I love mom coms and I love rom coms, so no surprise I loved this book which is both - a mom rom com perhaps? 😉 But I didn’t just love it, I LOVED it! I loved Nora, I loved her kids who were precocious while also being realistic, I loved Leo, I loved the story which was both predictable and surprising in all the ways you would want such a book to be, and I loved all the feels it gave me!

Let me put it this way - my favorite romances of the year so far are Emily Henry’s Book Lovers, Abby Jimenez’s Part of Your World, and the forthcoming The Bodyguard by Katherine Center - all big books by big name authors. Well, this one was right up there with all of them!

4.5 stars.

Nora is an up and coming screenwriter who is essentially writing the same script over and over again (think Hallmark). When she decides to take inspiration from her own life and write something original, it gets picked up by a major studio and her dreams are on their way to being fulfilled. She thinks she’s got it all, and then comes Leo, the main actor.

There’s fun banter, adorable scenes, and tons of emotion in this romance!

Sometimes you want a cheesy love story. And at first I thought Nora Goes Off Script was that cheesy love story. But it was soooo much more! Nora and Leo have a slow burning short romance. When it seems to fall apart the reader is waiting for the wonderful romantic reunion. I did not predict the ending- not even close. I love all of the real conversations in this story and the jabs at the cheesy romances.

I enjoyed this one so much! One of my favorite romances of the summer! It's the dry humor and the banter but most of all it's how self sufficient the heroine is. She's a screenwriter that turned heartbreak into money but writing her story. When the hero of the film decides to stay a few extra days, her life turns into her movies. I loved the angst, the slow growth of the love between these two and Nora's kids. There were plenty of moments where I laughed and it made for a real page turner because I was enthralled by the story. It's a summer read I highly recommend.

I have this one friend who I trust implicitly when she says that she loved a book. She recommended Nora and I requested. Then I made her hold my hand as I read it. It's very rare that I get deeply emotional about a book. My own personal claim is that I am a cold and heartless reader. Tears are not how I roll. But this book came close. Nora Goes Off Script was so honest and relatable in so many ways. I loved her relationship with her kids. Nora and her kids had conversations that I would have with my own. I hated the conflict in the relationship because it broke my heart, but appreciated how honest that was as well. The whole book was what I have been looking for. It was the emotional ride that my heart needed and that my shelf is holding a place for.

Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan is one of those books that you just don't want to put down. A beach read, a book club read, a hide in the closet in the middle of the night with a flashlight read. It is such a pleasant, warm, inviting story by an astoundingly talented author we are sure to see much more of in the future. This gem of a book was a pure delight.

Nora, a formulaic romance script writer emerging from a less than ideal marriage decides to "go off" her normal "script" writing genre to write a true and meaningful film script, one that she pulls from her personal trials and tribulations and her broken marriage to a narcissistic ex husband. She lives in Laurel Ridge, an idyllic small town with a local town market and a main street where everyone knows your name (as well as any gossip that goes along with it!). The sunrises there are magnificent and powerful. Some of the most poignant moments in the book take place watching the magical sunrises.

Nora's film script gets sold and low and behold they decide to film some of the movie in her home in Laurel Ridge. Enter the film crew and actors that are hired to play her and her ex husband. Leo, a well known bonified movie star plays her ignoramus husband. He is a moving thing of beauty, but also a big hot mess. And there the tale begins in earnest. It is a story of love and loss, of power and depletion, of strength and beauty.

The details and layering that the author unfolds truly draws you in. You are sitting right there on the porch with Nora and her kids, wrapped like a burrito with soft comfy blankets while they share thoughts, tears, laughter and lessons over the sunrise. The everyday back and forth is a warm and inviting place to be. You watch Nora grieve, grow and love. The commonplace becomes magical. I want to just sit in the teahouse on her property and chat over a cup of coffee with Nora. Yes, coffee in a tea house, I know.

One of my favorite passages from the book reflects the simplicity and beauty of the prose within as Nora ponders, "Something is happening over chicken and rice and green beans. Wisdom is being exchanged. Some might call it parenting. I marvel at the fact that this moment was created by someone besides me." Doesn't that make you just want to sit there at the table with them? To devour the aromatic chicken, soft fluffy rice and fresh green beans while soaking up all that wisdom. But who is there are the table imparting such wisdom?

You'll just need to read the book and find out. Well worth the read. Plot twists and finely sculpted characters abound. Dive in...just do it! Big thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for the ARC. Loved every bit of it!

I loved this book. I started it one night and was halfway done before I knew it…I couldn’t put it down. It’s like a hallmark movie but without all the cheesiness. It’s heart warming and endearing. I love the banter between Nora and everyone in her life…her kids, Leo, Penny, Mickey, Kate..everyone! I love how Nora’s character never strays far from her convictions and how she is real and honest. I think most woman have had her experience of someone leaving that you never really loved and/or losing the one you did love but being slightly okay with it. This is a beautiful story of second chances with wonderful and relatable characters. I wish I could give it 10 stars