Lovely. Emily Henry never disappoints. This second chance story gets the yearning just right. And those summertime vacation vibes, too.
We really enjoyed interviewing Ms. Henry on the #amwriting podcast!
https://amwriting.substack.com/p/very-serious-about-fun-reads-ep-333

This book was extremely well written. I enjoy Emily Henry's writings very much and this was no different. I enjoyed the depth of the main character - which gave it a slightly different feel than Henry's other books. I would definitely recommend this book to others!

It's quite possible that Emily Henry will never top BOOK LOVERS for me, as it is a pitch-perfect romance that contains everything I love most about the genre... that being said, I loved reading HAPPY PLACE! I'm very impressed that Henry managed to make my least favorite plot device ('we're keeping a huge secret from our friends/family and also lying to them about it') into a compelling and utterly charming book. No one does banter like Henry, and I definitely swooned over Wyn at many different moments. The third act in particular sold me!

Emily Henry does it again! Readers who love her witty banter and adorable characters will love this story of second-chance love and friendship. I particularly enjoyed the latter--Henry deftly explores the second coming of age we experience as our friendships of youth change in adulthood.

Harriet’s life is a mess. But it doesn't matter because she is on her way to her happy place—the beach house in Maine where she and her best friends Sabrina and Cleo visit every summer since that first year they met in university. This year is different. This year Harriet is trying to the long hours at the hospital, her lonely apartment, and her bitter feelings about her ex fiancé behind her. But when she arrives, her plans go right out the window because there he is. Wyn was also invited for the summer and the worst part? Their friends didn’t know they have broken up.

Harriet and Wyn try to muster up the courage to tell their friends the bad news when Sabrina shares hers first—her family was selling the beach house. This would be there last summer there together. Losing her happy place is bad enough, but to keep Sabrina in good sports Harriet and Wyn pretend to still be together just long until the vacation is over.

Happy Place is another Emily Henry classic—witty and heartfelt and full of romance that makes your heart ache. Emily Henry never disappoints!

I really enjoyed this one, it’s not my favorite emily henry book as beach read and book lovers remain my favorites, but I still really loved this one!! wyn 🧎. I love harriet and wyn plus the found family in this book made me so happy. this book was kind of fake dating ish since they had to pretend to be together for the trip after breaking up so that was interesting. I’m not a huge fan of second chance but I liked this one. I wish emily henry would giving us the mmc pov because I would die to know what wyn was thinking at times. Overall really loved this one and emily henry will forever stay one of my top authors.

Win and Harriet are the ultimate couple---until they aren't. They are geared up to spend a week together with their best friends in Maine but their best friends haven't yet learned that they broke.up. Now they have to spend a week together acting like a couple in their "Happy Place".

This book was funny, clever and a fun summer read. I chuckled at some parts and literally sobbbbbbeeeeddd at others. But it wasn't a traditional exes back together book.

While I didn't love it as much as Book Lovers, I still loved it!

Happy Place is the perfect beach readl for summer 2023.

College sweethearts, Harriet and Wyn were the perfect couple. Engaged to be married, they broke up five months ago and still haven’t told their family or friends. Their college crowd is scheduling the annual get-together in Maine and Wyn and Harriet are keeping up the charade of their romance. When they find out this may be the last year of the Maine house, they decide to fake their relationship for one more week instead of adding more bad news. But faking a romance isn’t easy when feelings are still there.

Emily Henry’s writing transports the reader with a fast paced and heartwarming story about romance and friendship. The characters are likeable and realistic. You will feel like you are on vacation with the crew. Happy Place is a steamy must-read for fans of romantic comedies.

Thanks to Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for the advanced copy in return for my honest review.

Happy Place by Emily Henry was just okay for me. I really loved the wit and character interactions in Book Lovers.by the same author so I was looking forward to reading this. However, I felt this one struggled to really develop the characters and their interactions of the friend group. There was very little history of how the group of friends met, and their history. A majority of the book focused on the history and relationship of the love interest.

Emily Henry writes some of my very favorite summer beach reads. Happy Place was another great romance by her that makes you think of the choices you make throughout your life...are you making them because it's what you really want or is it to make someone else happy. Pick up Happy Place this summer and I'm pretty sure you'll fall in love with Harriet, Wyn and their friends just like I did.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review. All opinions are my own.

Publication date: 25 April 2023.

A fairly decent novel but unfortunately not my favorite by the author (none have been able to top Beach Read). I found the hidden agenda annoying when it as revealed because it smacked of selfishness and it was really hard to buy that such intelligent didn't understand that friendships and relationships do change over time but that doesn't lessen it at all. Plus I feel there were some aspects that were too long and drawn out.

𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬💭:
Thank God for EmHen! This book pulled me out of my slump and i’m so happy it did! Aside from it being all over Bookstagram, my bestie told me its tropes and I was sold! College best friends with a second chance romance? She knew me well enough to know i would love this book. Because, well, this is actually MY love story 😂 so thanks bestie for making me pick this one up stat!

Thank you Berkley Romance for my copy!

𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐛📝:
Wyn and Harriet have a yearly getaway in a cottage in Maine with their lifelong college best friends. When they find out the cottage is being sold, they’re invited back. Except this time, they broke up 6 months ago and haven’t told anybody.

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.💫/5. To be honest, I wasn’t a fan of her other books aside from PWMOV. But now, Happy Place comes a close second! The banter was A+, and the unresolved feelings intertwined with the fake dating made me smile from ear to ear. Wyn was sooo sweet and swoony he gave me butterflies🥹 there’s just something about vulnerable fictional men! The build up was so good and i found myself tearing up to the realistic conflict that really made my heart swell. I knocked out half a star though cause i was expecting a bit more at the end. In any case, it was an excellent romance read complete with depth and a bit of a mystery. You are gonna want to kick summer off with this one!

𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚: 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴, 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘧𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘤𝘰𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨

Henry is a very successful American author of rom-coms ("Beach Read", "Book Lovers" etc.) and is May's author of the month. This new one has the characters of Harriet and Wyn who met in college and eventually got engaged, but they broke up six months ago. The problem is they never told their four other best friends and now have to spend a week with the friends at the cottage in Maine that has been their happy place. When Sabrina (one of the friends) surprises them by announcing she and her boyfriend are getting married at the end of the week , Harriet and Wyn decide they must keep up the pretense to not ruin the wedding. The other problem is Harriet never understood why Wyn broke up with her and she still loves him. This is a fun read, with humour, romance and some surprising depth. It is a great recommendation for rom-com fans that like just a little spice.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Five snarky comment, gooey romance, enthusiastic stars!!

I love Henry’s work and this may be my favorite of hers yet. I loved the characters, the storyline, the humor, the tears, everything. I usually get annoyed in romance novels when they characters can’t make up their minds or are stereotypical romance novel tropes. None of that with Henry.

Love it and can’t wait for her to come out with another!!

4 stars for me!

This was a super cute book! Parts of it here and there reminded me of The Summer I Turned Pretty and Every Summer After which I loved! I thought it was really interesting and I’m a sucker for the fake dating trope! I loved how the timeline would go from Real Time to the “Happy Place” back when Harriet and Wyn were together. I loved the chemistry between the whole friend group. I’d love to read about Sabrina and Parth!! At first, it did start off a tad bit slow and I felt that sometimes when Wyn and Harriet would talk to each other sometimes things just got repetitive. Other than that I loved how things ended and watching both Harriet and Wyn have extreme character development was great to read. I also like how Emily Henry brings in a sub-theme regarding the importance of mental health and grief and loss as well. This is my second book my Emily Henry so far! I don’t think it was better than Book Lovers but I did enjoy it! I’m hoping to read beach read by her soon!!!

Spoilers:
First off, Emily Henry's books are supposed to feel like an escape. So, please tell me why, my heart was hurting for half this book. Do I know it's a romance with a HEA? Yes. Did that stop me from believing that these two idiots were going to stay apart when they are CLEARLY in love? No. this book has an adorable, happy, pop cover. It was supposed to be lighthearted and fun. There are a ton of humorous moments throughout the book that did make me giggle a little bit, but that did not stop me from raging against the 2 main characters anyway. I will say, I was surprised to find out that only 2 of here best friends were aware of the break-up instead of all of them. I had it in my mind the entire time that all 4 of the the others were creating this intricate scheme to make Wyn and Harriet get married instead.

Anyway, loved it, would recommend.

Emily Henry is an auto buy for me, so I was VERY excited to read Happy Place, her newest release.
Happy Place follows Harriet and Wyn, ex-fiancés who are stuck in a friend vacation where they have to pretend they are still together, 5 months after their engagement ended shrouded in confusion.
Y’all. I loved this. I read it straight through in one sitting. Henry delivers another hit! It has some of the vibes of People We Meet on Vacation in terms of lost relationship, forced proximity, and alternating timelines. It also touches on growing up, finding your voice, found family, and changing together.
While I was processing, I realized- this book is giving me real Taylor Swift vibes! (I love her) My feelings after reading this book really echoed how I feel after I listen to a Taylor Swift album. (I keep coming back to the Speak Now album specifically, but I think the overall journey of listening to any of her albums could be a fit!) I felt understood and seen. I felt connected to the material. I’m thinking of friends and love and self-exploration. There are bops and ballads. It was honest and relatable. The comparison is evident in their storytelling. Henry showed us she is also a master at marking the progression and ups/downs of a real relationship and life.
I will note, Taylor, Emily, and I (it’s like we’re friends who brunch!) are all in the early 30s bracket and that may also play a role in the relatability factor for me. Adulthood is officially here and it’s another transition of finding yourself and defining your relationships. It spoke to me.
Read this no matter what adult age you are. Read this if you like Taylor Swift or not. But defn read it if you relate to anything I shared.

As much as I love Emily Henry, this was just not for me! The second-chance-romance trope did not work for me, though Emily Henry's writing and characters were wonderful and charming as always.

Emily Henry has done it again, you guys (*pretends to be shocked*). With a second chance romance combined with a wonderfully executed fake relationship trope set against the backdrop of a delightfully escapist small town in Maine, this book will break your heart and put it back together again while also making you want to go take a vacation with your closest friends.

Told in dual timelines, the story follows Harriet and Wyn, college sweethearts, the couple that you look at and say “when is it my turn?” Or at least, they were. Each year, Harriet, Wyn, and their tight-knit group of college friends meet at a cabin in Maine for a week of partying, food, and fun. This year, Harriet is showing up alone and single. The only problem is, she and Wyn haven’t told their friends about their breakup, so imagine her shock when her friends decide to fly Wyn out to surprise Harriet. Before the pair can come clean, they learn that the cabin is being sold, making this their last vacation in Maine, the end of an era. Not wanting to upset their friends even more, Harriet and Wyn agree to maintain the ruse of their relationship for the week. Shouldn’t be too hard, right? Except the close proximity is bringing up unresolved feelings, no matter how hard they both try to ignore them, and they will be forced to address what went wrong all those month ago if they ever want to move forward.

We all know that Emily Henry books will always be firing on all cylinders. She knows how to deliver the angst as well as the romance, but this book really highlighted how well she does the supporting characters. As much as I loved Harriet and Wyn’s relationship (and I loved them a LOT, like they made my heart ache), I found myself so connected to their friend group as well. There were moments throughout the story that I saw myself in not only Harriet and Wyn, but also the supporting characters like Sabrina. I loved how she explored the platonic friendships with as much nuance and care as she did with the romance, and overall it became a story you cannot help but fall in love with simply because you love all the characters so much.

This one tugged on the heartstrings, and if you are looking for a fast-paced romance book that hits all the emotional notes, be sure to check this one out.

Emily Henry had my heart in my throat, but what else should I have expected from her!! I love the past and present chapters and this story really gripped me from the start.