Book review, full book summary and synopsis for Book Lovers by Emily Henry, a will-they-or-won't-they romance between a cutthroat literary agent and brooding book editor.
Synopsis
In Book Lovers, Nora Stephens is a workaholic, cutthroat literary agent living in New York who is dragged into a monthlong trip to the picturesque small town of Sunshine Falls, North Carolina by her younger sister. Nora is very familiar with all the tropes about small town transformations and rom-coms featuring protagonists giving it all up for a simpler life, but Nora likes her life and job in New York.
But when Nora runs into Charlie Lastra -- a handsome, no-nonsense book editor she knows from New York -- in Sunshine Falls, she finds herself questioning many aspects of her life and realizing that she doesn't know where this story is headed...
(The Full Plot Summary is also available, below)
Full Plot Summary
Section-by-Section SummarySee the Section-by-Section Summary of Book LoversQuick Plot SummaryNora Stephens is a cutthroat literary agent in New York whose younger sister, Libby, convinces her to spend the entirety of August on a vacation to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina. Nora and Libby were raised by a single mother, who passed away when Libby was in high school. Nora has spent her whole adulthood making sacrifices for Libby's sake to help provide for Libby.
Sunshine Falls turns out to be the hometown of Charlie Lastra, a handsome book editor that she knows, who happens to be in town. He's also running the local bookstore, which his parents own, in order to help them out.
Together, Nora and Charlie end up editing a book written by one of Nora's clients, Dusty Fielding, while they're there. As they work together, Charlie helps Nora to be considered for an editor position, which is the job Nora originally wanted to pursue in publishing. Nora and Charlie fall for each other, but it turns out the Charlie is planning on staying in Sunshine Falls to help out with his family since his father is in poor health. Nora thinks a long-distance relationship would be too hard.
Meanwhile, Libby reveals to Nora that she's actually planning on moving to Sunshine Falls, and the trip was initially meant to try to convince Nora to move there as well. However, Libby ends up encouraging Nora to pursue her dreams of being a book editor in New York instead, not wanting Nora to make any more sacrifices for her.
The trip ends and Nora returns to New York. However, a few months later Charlie reveals that Libby has offered to take over running the bookstore and his father is doing better. He moves to New York and the book ends with him about to propose to Nora.
For more detail, see the full Section-by-Section Summary.
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I loved this book! Big Emily Henry fan. Ps your blog is one of my favourites and I check it often :-) thanks for the incredibly thorough summaries!!!
Loved it! And love your blog as well, I kind of miss it!
What is the smut scale like in this book?
there’s a decent amount of fairly explicit scenes