Wow - this was a different read. Starts out like a Hallmark rom-com movie, and even mentions the Hallmark style a ton -- but then it turns and gets really heavy with grief and feeling broken.

It has a good concept and I really wanted to enjoy it more. I love the cheesie pink flamingo motel setting, the dive-in movies and the family of interesting characters that live in the motel. I was pulling for the MC, Amelia ran away from her broken life and ex to run the motel and Nathan is trying to get over his wife's death. It's way too wordy, like 100 pages too long and I started to lose interest in the middle.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for a temporary digital ARC in return for my review.

I really, really, enjoyed this. It was like a picture of what a romance writer would write while someone is falling in love. The main character is a romance author, but also runs a wonderfully quirky hotel with quirky guest. The hero is a moody, tragic figure. Together they find some joy after experiencing so much tragedy. It really was a wonderful book! Great first read of the year!

How could a book this cute make me cry so much?!?!?!?

Amelia leaves LA to start over in a small, desert town running a motel while she writes romance novels. Her life is fine until Nathan walks into the lobby to check in. He's grumpy and reclusive and completely her type of tortured romance hero. But her gorgeous guest is off limits. He comes back every summer for three years like clockwork, and then shows up for the month of December, just as her life is about go get messy. Her ex is coming to town for a charity event and Amelia isn't sure she can face him. Is Nathan just the distraction she needs?

Read if you like:
-Starting Over
-Not Taking Yourself Too Seriously
-Grief
-Just Once to Oops we're in Love
-Figuring it Out Together
-Found Family

I loved that both Amelia and this book didn't take itself too seriously and that both leaned into classic romance novel tropes in a way that toed the line of breaking the fourth wall. It was very clever and tongue in cheek. I was so caught up in how cute it was that the emotions and grief caught me off guard. I was crying my way through the last quarter of the book in the best way. It was so raw and so real, made all the better for the humor.

Amelia left Los Angeles after a bad breakup. She ends up in Rancho Encanto because she found a real estate listing for a hotel for sale. Owning the hotel gives her time to spend time writing romance books. She becomes part of the Rancho Encanto community and builds a little family with the people who live in the hotel full time. She doesn’t want romance. She just wants peace. Nathan comes to the Pink Flamingo hotel for the summer. He is standoffish and snarly. Over the next three years, Nathan returns again and again. He is on a mission and it doesn’t include romance. Maybe two broken people can help each other heal.

The author chose to write a story that takes many years to come to fruition. The slow reveal of Amelia and Nathan’s backgrounds was a slow drip punctuated by periods of getting to know the people at The Pink Flamingo. The beginning of the book was a bit slow as the author set all of the pieces into place. Then, as the characters reveal parts of their history, the story develops a heart and soul. The author did a great job developing the characters to the point that they felt real. When there is a fire in the town, I cried. When the town is working on recovering, both Amelia and Nathan reveal their secret author identities to the town to help the town raise money. I like the catalyst the author used to force Amelia to confront her past and reveal the details to Nathan. I’m not going to say exactly what made Nathan come to Rancho Encanto in the first place BUT I will say that when he reveals what is driving him and his decisions, I cried. It was just so much!

In the end, there was something that I wanted to have happen that didn’t happen. It would have made this a sappy Hallmark level romance. This author took the book in directions I didn’t expect so this particular thing missing from the end was okay. (DON’T READ THIS SPOILER: Nathan’s in-laws from his prior marriage did not attend his wedding to Amelia and that made me sad. You’ll understand when you read the book.)

This story takes place in Rancho Encanto, California (close to Bakersfield) in the desert. This is a story about two broken people healing and finding each other and a community of people that need each other. This is a stand alone novel. I don’t do this very often but….I recommend this book to anyone. Period. Yes there is a romance. But this is also a women’s fiction story. It’s also a quirky small-town story. This book has a ton of heart! I will read more from this author in the future.

I love Maisey Yates books, and while this one is a different theme from others I have read, it does not disappoint. We follow Amelia as she relocates from her life in LA to a small town, so she can start over. Watching her make a home, deal with grief and find real friendship through this journey is lovely. Her connection with Nathan is difficult and they navigate it beautifully.

Thank you netgalley for an arc of Happy After All by Maisey Yates

3.5 stars
I enjoyed this story, and how Amelia and Nathan ended up being just what each other needed. I loved the setting of the motel Amelia buys out in the desert near Palm Springs, and how it's the permanent home for a fun bunch of elderly ladies who become stand-in mother figures for her. The pink and flamingos and the Christmas/holiday event in the town were nice backdrops.
However, there were some aspects of the storytelling that I felt detracted a bit. The book is entirely from Amelia's POV, and I was yearning for at least a few chapters of Nathan's. Especially in the first half, it's so hard to tell what he's thinking or his motivations. This was probably on purpose to keep from having to divulge his background too early, but I still wanted little glimpses into his character. Many of the chapters start with a definition of a romance novel trope as a header- which in some cases was a bit of a spoiler as to a general idea of what was going to happen in that chapter. And the first few chapters jumped a year in between each of them, which felt a little chaotic when reading those. Once it settled in to the current timeline and bulk of the story, this resolved.
Also, I would not refer to the book as "funny" like the description does. It is heartfelt, but there is a lot of heavy stuff in here. I would put a content warning (some of these happened prior to the story's start, but still are significant aspects of the book as they deeply impacted characters) - cheating, death of a spouse, death of a child, narcissitic and/or absent parents, and a significant wildfire (specific caution to those in California).
Overall, it was a good book, but it is not a light romance novel.

I have never felt the way I felt when reading this book, you know when someone is nervous and they don’t stop talking or fidgeting? That’s how this book made me feel. There is a lot of words and not enough action/happening. This would have been a lovely little hallmark novella / short story if the author didn’t have a word count to reach. I was really unable to enjoy this book.

Maisey Yates’ Happy After All follows the lives of Amelia Taylor and Nathan Hart as they grapple with the ghosts of their respective pasts and discover love and what it's like to open up to each other. On the run from a cheating ex and a life she wasn't happy living, Amelia finds solace in a desert motel where she spends her days writing romance novels and tending to her guests. When Nathan Hart, famous writer and a brooding, emotionally reserved man, walks in with a reservation their lives are changed, as they struggle to not fall for each other while unearthing each other's secrets. With a vibrant cover and an opening line that hooks you in for a tumultuous romance, the story, with all its ups and downs makes for an intriguing read.

The initial emphasis on how attractive Nathan was seems amusing at first, but it soon becomes repetitive thereafter. As the story progresses and important confessions come to light, the communication between the protagonists is riddled with therapy speak, and their self-awareness and ability to rationalize major life events is almost unsettling. I adored some of the side characters, was especially invested in Elise and Ben's friendship (which could've been hyped more in my opinion) and generally appreciated the humor and warmth some of the older characters added to the story. The musings on grief, while insightful at first, become too repetitive as the story progresses, and I found the resolution hurried and lacking in whimsy. All in all I enjoyed the story, the attempt to explore loss and the characters’ efforts to rise above their grief, and the setting and pacing of the novel makes for an intriguing read. 2.5/5

I was super into this during the first 40% but then I started to feel like things got repetitive. I might’ve enjoyed it more with Nathan’s POV? I just felt like it was way too wordy and repetitive about Amelia’s reasons for being in the desert. Like I understood her pain and need to get away- I didn’t need to read paragraphs about it every single chapter.

This was pretty heavy with grief and that's not usually something I go for, I thought it wouldn't be this heavy but both main characters were dealing with significant loss. It was about grief and the journey to healing with some romance. I honestly started to skim a bit because it was getting a little repetitive after a while and so much monologuing. They were both good main characters, don't get me wrong, but I was hoping for more romance than what we got and that's just a me thing. I did love the whole community Amelia built with her motel and how supportive and fun they were.

A review, in two parts:

Part One: The actual book

I really, truly loved this book. I wasn’t expecting to come across my first 5-star read so early in 2025, but this book really resonated with me. Good writing, I find, will often articulate a feeling I haven’t yet been able to put words to, and this book did that several times. I loved the contrast between the frivolity of common romance tropes and both of the main character’s grief. There was so much in this book that could have become cheesy, but instead had a surprising amount of depth.

Amelia’s journey was inspiring, especially her resolve, in the end, to be okay, regardless of how things work out with Nathan. If I have any issue with this book, it’s that I wish we’d seen a little bit more of Nathan’s emotional journey.

Part Two: The other reviews

I was initially skeptical about reading this book because of very mixed reviews. As best as I can figure, the bulk of Maisey Yates' body of work has been Harlequin-type category romance. Not my cup of tea, but I’m not here to say what other people should or shouldn’t read. It’s just not for me. However, if I were a previous fan of this author and expected another category romance, I could see the confusion.

This is solidly a contemporary romance, more in the style of Abby Jimenez, Annabel Monaghan, etc.—NOT category romance by any means. So yeah, if I were expecting a fairly formulaic, short, sweet, and to-the-point romance, I’d be confused. This book has depth. It’s melancholy. It deals with some heavy subject matter. I cried, but I also felt inspired.

This departure from her previous sub-genre makes me wonder why this author didn’t release this book under a different pen name. Is this going to be a permanent shift for her?

So, to sum up: Awesome book. Confusing choice to release it under the same pen name was hundreds of category romances.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Montlake for this book, provided in return for my honest and unbiased opinion.

This was SO much more than I was expecting. An incredibly deep story between two author MCs, FMC owns a motel where MMC is a guest. While Amelia’s internal monologue was long, I think it was necessary to truly understand her perspective. This is a romance, which leans more towards literary fiction in my opinion. I loved the supporting characters, the old ladies had my heart.

I felt like my frontal lobe fully developed while reading. The character growth was 10/10. I’ll definitely be reading more from Maisey Yates.

Overall I enjoyed the book, however it dragged a bit for me, some of the monologs went on far too long. Both characters are writers and I liked that.
The FMC talks about meeting a word count in the book and this book also felt like the author needed to meet a word count, a little editing could have helped.

OK. Wow. I've read this author before and have loved her books. I was looking forword to this book and then I opened it. SO. MANY. NEEDLESS. WORDS. I almost quit mid-way through the first chapter. I put the book down for a day or two and crept up on it again. Finished the first chapter and began the second. That one was a bit better, although the dialogue was drawn out.

I don't like to not finish a book I've begun and especially an author I've enjoyed before, so I pushed on. About mid-way through the book, the pace picked up and got much more interesting. Emotional trauma and excruciating loss in the past for both main characters allowed this reader to understand where they were coming from and the things that terrified them. Getting those issues out in the open and facing thier fears helped the story.

I absolutely LOVED the matchmaking tricks of the geriatric set who live at the motel! So much fun and some laugh out loud moments. Three stars because the first part of the book was so unglued.

I wish I had a different word for it but- cute. It's kind of fun but mostly just a cute book to read for some light fun

I don't know how she does it, but with each novel she writes, Maisey Yates just gets better and better, especially at character development--if I was still teaching English, I'd use this novel as an example of how to create and build characters so empathetic and so well developed, who, by the end of the novel, seem as if you've known them forever. This was an amazing, unforgettable, 5-star read.

First the triggers, a hero widowed way too soon and trying to deal with his grief, a heroine who found the man she loved cheating on her, and, as if that wasn't enough, a miscarriage and the emotional devastation and grief that followed it. However, I wouldn't recommend taking a pass on this novel because of these triggers; since the manner in which the main characters deal with these issues is what makes this such a standout read.

Amelia needed a new start after the man she loved cheated on her, and who was also emotionally absent when she loss the little girl she was carrying 3 weeks before her due date--the reason why they couldn't save her is the one glitch I found in this novel. She bought a run-down motel in a small town and refurbishing and running it kept her grief at bay, as did many of the elderly, long-term residents she came to learn from and love. .Her other therapy is writing romance novels. under a pseudonym.

Then, one day, a man checks in--he's gorgeous but emotionally and verbally distant, and he spends his first 2 summers there, barely communicating with Amelia or anyone else. He turns out to be a bestselling author, living there under a pseudonym, and it's Amelia who recognizes from the photos on his book covers, but it's not until his third summer there, and a surprise check-in at Christmas when their relationship begins to develop and does it ever!

Having myself experienced grief and loss at a very early age firsthand, this novel rang so true to this reader. The journey from grief to healing is a long, slow, and painful process, and while the pain of loss changes over time, living and dealing with it and it's something Ms. Yates demonstrates so poignantly, since so much of the novel and our understanding of the issues these characters are dealing with through their own inner dialogues. I also found the fact that Ms. Yates is herself a novelist gave us additional insight on the process of writing as a form of therapy for both her characters.

At the center of this wonderful novel is the process of healing and daring to have hope for the future that both of her main characters slowly come to understand, and that the older and wiser, elderly motel residents encourage it. And don't we all have hope for our own futures? I know I do, and because of that, and how brilliantly and deeply Ms. Yates portrays these characters is the main reason I strongly recommend reading this novel. It's a gem of a read, from an author I've met and have been reading for some time. This may just be her best novel yet.

I voluntarily read an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions expressed are my own.

Happy After All is the first book that I read by author Maisey Yates. I like discovering new authors and I look forward to reading more of her books.
Amelia Taylor is the owner of The Pink Flamingo motel in Rancho Encanto which is home to several feisty women in their 80's and 90's as well as others. Nathan Hart is a curmudgeon who appears yearly to work on a book he is writing.
Amelia is attracted to Nathan who does not reciprocate. Instead, he seems to be irritated by her attention.
As the story unfolds, they discover that they each have personal wounds that need to be dealt with.
It is interesting to read Happy After All to find out how each learns to accept and resolve their own emotional wounds. The characters are relatable.
I recommend this book.

Flirting with womens fiction, a tiny bit.

Still plenty of steamy times and enemies to hooking up.
Amelia is running a motel and a also a romance writer.
Nathan checks into room 32 and piques Amelia's interest.
I had a hard tine getting into Amelia's head and her first person narrative.
Packaged like women's fiction, first person like YA, but still a romance.

A very quirky and angsty book that had me intrigued from the start. I liked seeing the main characters grow with one another and take that risk for each other.

I do think at some points the writing lost me but not enough to not enjoy it.

I liked the breakdown of how romance novels work and how the author used it as a framework for the novel. At times it dragged on and was a bit angsty for my taste but I enjoyed Amelia’s growth and perception. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.