A Novel Love Story

Description

A professor of literature finds herself caught up in a work of fiction…literally, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Year Slip and The Dead Romantics.

Eileen Merriweather loves to get lost in a good happily-ever-after. The fictional kind, anyway. Because at least imaginary men don’t leave you at the altar. She feels safe in a book. At home. Which might be why she’s so set on going her annual book club retreat this year—she needs good friends, cheap wine, and grand romantic gestures—no matter what.

But when her car unexpectedly breaks down on the way, she finds herself stranded in a quaint town that feels like it’s right out of a novel…

Because it is.

This place can’t be real, and yet… she’s here, in Eloraton, the town of her favorite romance series, where the candy store’s honey taffy is always sweet, the local bar’s burgers are always a little burnt, and rain always comes in the afternoon. It feels like home. It’s perfect—and perfectly frozen, trapped in the late author’s last unfinished story.

Elsy is sure that’s why she must be here: to help bring the town to its storybook ending.

Except there is a character in Eloraton that she can’t place—a grumpy bookstore owner with mint-green eyes, an irritatingly sexy mouth and impeccable taste in novels. And he does not want her finishing this book.

Which is a problem because Elsy is beginning to think the town’s happily-ever-after might just be intertwined with her own.“A romance lovers dream of a book. Whimsical, romantic and packed with charm, Ashley Poston is the queen of high concept love stories.” 
—Sophie Cousens, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Part

“Ashley Poston has done it again. I fell into these pages just as effortlessly as Eileen tumbles into Eloraton. Whimsical, emotional, and tender, A Novel Love Story is another enchanting romance from Poston.”
—B.K. Borison, author of Business CasualAshley Poston is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Dead Romantics and The Seven Year Slip. She writes stories about love and friendship and ever afters. A native to South Carolina, she now lives in a small grey house with her sassy cat and too many books. You can find her on the internet, somewhere, watching cat videos and reading fan-fiction.Reader’s Guide
A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston
Discussion Questions:

1.   Elsy loves the Quixotic Falls series because it has been with her through much of her adult life. Do you have a special series or standalone novel that you reminisce fondly about?

2.   Ruby Rivers’ original ending in her Quixotic Falls book is a happily-ever-after, but who does that HEA benefit the most? Do you think her new ending is more satisfying to the readers, or her original one?

3.   Why do you think bookstores and cats go together like peas and carrots?

4.   Elsy fondly remembers reading her first romance. What was the first romance novel you ever read?

5.   Think about your favorite tropes—the boy next door, enemies to lovers, grumpy/sunshine, secret royalty, hot priests, bodyguards,
hurt/comfort, among hundreds of others. What draws you to those tropes? And what books would you recommend to someone looking for
them? No judgments!

6.   If you could spend a day in your favorite fictional place, where would that be, and what would you do?

7.   Elsy realizes her dream is to open a bookstore focused on romance. If you opened a bookstore what would it look like, and how would you curate it?

8.   Rachel Flowers lives on in her series, but her readers are perpetually left without a proper ending. Would you rather read a book series that will never have an ending, or a book series with a disappointing end?

9.   What will you read next? And where did you hear about it?US

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