Another belter of a book from Emily Henry. I love the way she writes; her humour, her turns of phrase, her insights, her knack for banter, and this story is another book of gems, with a fabulous nod to the world of books. Faultless - A perfect romcom.

This is a rom-com with a difference. For a start, the romantic leads actually talk honestly to each other; the plot doesn't hang on a misunderstanding due to lack of communication. And it is funny! Emily Henry uses language brilliantly to define her characters and Charlie and Nora come alive off the page.

For different reasons, Charlie and Nora find themselves spending time in small town America instead of their usual lives in New York. Nora and her sister Libby are there to spend more time with each other but Libby also has an ulterior motive. Charlie is also spending time with family, albeit more reluctantly.

There are no easy solutions for any of them and they all have to accept that life is tricky and compromises have to be made.

Emily Henry appreciation post ❣️ she’s the master of the romcom, with all them being sweet enough without crossing over into cheesy territory. I loved all three of her books but I think Book Lovers might have been my fave. It was super cute, but all of the characters had a bit more substance to them than earlier books, so it wasn’t just all about the love story (although the romance was a lovely cherry on top). It even made me shed a little tear which is unusual for me and romance books. All in all, Emily Henry needs to continue writing and I’ll absolutely continue buying and devouring her words.

Romance is not a genre I am overly familiar with but, having enjoyed Henry’s ‘people we met on vacation’, I was eager to request this book.

We meet an unusually large ensemble of characters for a romance story - Nora, a career-driven, ambitious woman who works twelve hour days in six inch heels with a steely determination, Charlie, an editor at the top of his game thriving in the big city after small town life; and Libby - Nora’s younger sister who Nora feels maternal responsibility for.

I cant explain this book other than something just fell flat. It was nice, it was an okay romance - but it was nothing exciting. I didn’t fall in love with the characters, or the love story - there was so much going on that I felt the author often spread herself too thinly. The real love story was really the relationship between the sisters.

Thanks to netgalley for an ARC in exchange for my unbiased review :)

Thank you to NetGalley, Emily Henry and Penguin for this advanced copy.

I LOVED both of Emily Henry's previous contemporary romance novels, but I think this may have just taken the top spot out of the three. I adored the small town vibe, and the absolute rollercoaster of emotions it took me on. This is my first 5 star read of the year and is incredibly deserving of it! A must read for any contemporary romance fan.

Omg omg omg! I could not believe my eyes when I got the email for this one, especially as I hadn’t even requested it :)

This book was so cute, I love the work rivals turned lovers theme and the banter between Nora and Charlie was just 10/10. I laughed, I cried, and I fell head over heels with Emily Henry’s writing all over again.

The family, the mysteries with Libby, the checklist, the city girl in a small town vibe, they were just immaculate and I cannot get the race car bed out of my head!

I will read every single one of Emily’s books, probably forever! I loved it more than I can accurately express here. Eeeeee! Or should I say (Sp)aaaaaaaa! ;)

Thank you so much to the publishers at Penguin as well as Netgalley for my gifted e-ARC xxx

Emily Henry's last novel, "You and Me on Vacation", was one of my favourite books of last year, so I approached "Book Lovers" with equal parts excitement and trepidation (could it live up to such a high standard?). I'm so pleased to report that I LOVED this book!

Book Lovers is not just a classic enemies-to-lovers rom com (although it does this really well). It is elevated by genuinely funny, sparkling dialogue, highly believable and relatable characters and a quirky setting. The book gave me the feeling I get when I watch the TV show "Gilmore Girls": a small-town setting with town hall meetings and eccentric locals and bucketfuls of warm, fuzzy feelings.

It was one of those rare books that made me laugh and cry and I couldn't stop turning the pages. If I could give it more than five starts, I would.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read a free early copy of Book Lovers in exchange for an honest review.

I go for any novel I can find that is book related and for me this was one of the very best. More literary than the usual romance novel, Emily has taken all the tropes associated with them and turned them on their heads. Characters both major and minor spring from the page they are so well written; a heroine, Nora, who is a literary agent at the top of her game known as the shark meets her match in an equally prestigious editor who can deliver witty banter as good as hers. The humor is wonderful all the way through but in parts is poignant enough to bring tears to your eyes. The dynamics of the sisters rings true; Nora has been looking after her sister since their mother died : a loss neither of them have recovered from years later. Libby is now married with children but Nora still feels responsible for her.The heart of the story evolves gradually and is absorbing. I finished it all too quickly and absolutely loved it.
Thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest opinion.

4.5/5

I loved it! But I feel kinda ruined for real life after reading this, I should cut back on romances cause my standards don’t need to go any higher based on fictional characters..

BUT
Just imagine, having a boyfriend that you could discuss pages from a book and it would be like your type of foreplay.
I could never!
My friends already think I’m either constantly trying to outsmart them just cause I enjoy reading or I’m a freak because I prefer staying inside with a book rather than spending time on social events I know I’m gonna hate.

Seriously tho this book was something else.
It had just the right ratio of realistic/unrealistic romance tropes + I couldn’t never say no to sarcastic enemies to lovers, I had a smile plastered on my face the whole time I was reading this (except from the parts that I was sobbing).
Also a lot of great commentary about some interesting topics of cliches in books, stereotypes and modern society.

The only thing that holds this back from being a true 5/5 for me is the texting-dialogue format.
I don’t know if it’s only an issue in my review copy, but since the rating of the book takes into account the whole reading experience and not just the plot, it was hard to keep up with the messy unformatted way the dialogue was presented and this was something that really needed more work to be readable so I can’t overlook it.
Hopefully it will be fixed in the final copies.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin General UK for the digital ARC.

Good. Another wonderful story from Emily Henry. Shows how we can stereotype certain types of books and that we should look beyond the cover. The characters are so well written and you are willing them along their journey all the way through.
Also you can see just how much this author loves books as the way that she writes about how readers behave and how they get captivated by the world of books and everything to do with it.

I loved this book. Its a romance with a difference, and lots of huour, as Emily Henry sets about debunking the usual tropes and characters found in romance novels as she follows apparently hard-hearted and cut-throat literary agent Nora Stephens on a holiday with her sister. Libby, Nora's sister, loves romance novels and wants them both to embrace all the cliches, from skinny dipping to camping outside. Libby's five months pregnant, but also wants Nora to try dating a local, and has 'save a local business' on the list of activities for the trip too.
The book kept me reading from start to finished. It is fresh and funny, and you really want Nora to get her happy ending :).

Four and a half stars.

I love, love, loved the start of this book. Nora is the other woman in every Hallmark movie, she's the high-powered, cut-throat executive in a thousand dollar suit who probably skewers puppies with her four inch stiletto heels. She doesn't want kids, or to leave New York, or a dog, or anything with a white picket fence. She's the villain that the hero dates until he falls in love with someone with a cutesy name like Daisy in a small town. You just know that Daisy is wholesome, never wears make-up and looks so dargone cute you could barf. Nora knows this because she's been dumped three times (and about to be four) by carefully chosen boyfriends who have all left New York and fallen for some small-town girl. Oh, and everyone calls Nora 'The Shark' behind her back and her boss refers to her agent approach as "smiling with knives".

Charlie Lastra is a brilliant editor, Nora's equivalent in his all-black designer outfits, and her nemesis when he refuses to edit Dusty Fielding's (her biggest client) latest book about a small-town called Sunshine Falls in North Carolina. Despite Charlie's distain, the book becomes a bestseller, selling over 500,000 copies.

Nora may put her career first in everything, but there is someone she would willingly die for, her younger sister Libby. Libby is the yin to Nora's yang, soft and gentle, a real homebody who married young and has two small children with a third on the way. So when Libby comes to see Nora, heavily pregnant and desperate to get away on a sister's road trip she doesn't hesitate. Libby has booked flights to North Carolina, she loves Dusty Fielding's book and wants the two of them to spend a month mooching around the town taking in the sights and living the small-town life.

Nora can tell that there is something amiss between her and Libby and she'll do anything to fix it, just like she's always fixed everything for Libby ever since their mother died, so when Libby brings up a ten point To Do list of small-town romance for them to complete Nora barely protests (think buy a plaid shirt, pet a horse). But Libby's attempts to win Nora a small-town romance are thwarted when Nora's nemesis turns out to also be visiting town.

This book doesn't hesitate to bring in every small-town cliché, but against all that are Nora and Charlie, surely the biggest fishes out of water ever. It was funny, sexy, sweet and a great read from cover to cover. One minor gripe. (view spoiler)

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

LOVE an Emily Henry book! And this haters turns to lovers beauty did not disappoint!

I loved all of the characters and thought even the side characters were very well written and I enjoyed reading about them all and their lives.

I also really loved the setting/job roles of the main protagonist - the publishing world is a common setting for Emily's books and I love seeing that world vicariously!

Wow, what a discovery Emily Henry has been! I read her first adult book, Beach Read, about a year ago and I enjoyed it immensely. I then had the change to read an early review copy of her second, People We Meet on Vacation, and it surpassed all my expectations. It was even more joyful, addictive, romantic and interesting than her previous book. So, as you can imagine, when I got my hands on Book Lovers I was over the moon but also a bit afraid of it not living up to my expectations.

But gosh, wow, I mean, wow! I have just finished it and I am speechless. This book! It is perfect. At least for me: It is perfect for me. I really don't want to give anything away so you can enjoy every single detail of this story. The main characters are not your usual main characters, in fact, they describe themselves as more the secondary characters, even the villains, in your usual rom com. But somehow, this makes them the perfect main characters for this story.

Plus, this book is an ode to book and book lovers everywhere. How books help us through difficult times, how books shape us, how books even save us sometimes. And book shops, of course.

All I can say to all book lovers is: read this book, you will love it. I am thinking of re-reading it immediately.

This book!

Loved this one from the start! Couldn’t put it down just wanted to carry on reading to find out what happened. Loved how finally Charlie & Nora got together!

This was my first Emily Henry read and definitely won’t be my last! After starting my journey into the rom-com genre of books I’ve had so many recommendations for this author and Book Lovers has definitely lived up to this hype.

I loved the characters and enjoyed the time spent building the relationships so I felt truly connected to them by the end. It’s definitely not a predictable read and had me thinking to the last few pages which was good fun!

I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a lighthearted, sweet and funny romance with a little more depth than others in this genre.

Thanks to Netgalley for the chance to read this in exchange for an honest review.

Well, to borrow a phrase from the book: "..some books just have that inevitability from the beginning...". and I knew from the first few lines that I was going to be gripped by Book Lovers. Henry gives us such interesting and complex characters and takes us along with her as she gradually unfolds the glitches in their lives. Will Nora have a life of her own as she is consumed by work and family responsibilities? We are kept guessing right to the end!

5 stars!

I finished this book a few days ago and have been having a hard time coming up with ways to describe how much I love it.

This book is simply fantastic. It’s fascinating. It’s incredibly entertaining. It’s romantic. It’s full of emotions that people need to see on paper.

This is quite possibly Emily Henry’s best work and I hope that when it’s released it gets all the claim it’s worth, because this is simply a fantastic rendition of the ever so loved enemies to lovers trope.

A romance book about people who love books? YES PLEASE!

Long story short, Emily’s storytelling is still magical and engaging, her writing is transportive, and her characters are some of the best I’ve ever read.

Everyone absolutely needs to pick up this book. Even if you don’t know what it’s about, go into it blindly and you really won’t regret it.

I loved the first book by the author and I enjoyed the second story she published.

Somehow, though, this one felt a bit more flat for me. Not sure if it’s because I couldn’t feel any chemistry or actually relation between the main characters or because 80% of the book is focused more on her taking care of her family and the struggles of dealing with ailing family members and scary moments that you know inevitably will come sooner than later.

It felt more on the women’s fiction side than actual romance genre for me. And that’s totally fine. It’s a great story overall if you go in with the knowledge about what to expect.

Very grateful to the publisher for my review copy

A love story to love and books, this was an utter joy to read.

Emily Henry knows her audience well, starting with a brutal look at tropes in romance novels - the heartless work obsessed city woman, the cute out of town country girl who wins the stranger's heart - and uses them brilliantly, in a very knowing and heartfelt way.

Nora is the city woman who works tirelessly as a book agent, supporting her sister Libby and her family after their mother passed away. Nora's latest author's best seller is set in a mid-west town called Sunshine Falls; its taken the country by storm.

Libby plans a break for the two sisters to visit Sunshine Falls so they can have time together before Libby's third baby arrives. Libby prepares a checklist of small-town movie clichés for the two of them to tick off whilst they're away - ride a horse, date a stranger, skinny dip - and the sisters work their way through the list whilst settling in to the town for their break. On their first morning in town, Nora spots her city nemesis, big time book editor Charlie - who is also in town, and the book follows them as they realise they both might have got each other wrong at first. Perhaps the two of them arent hard hearted as they might have thought?

Cute, funny, packed with literary references, a dream to read. Thanks to Netgalley for the chance to read it

I loved it,