Book Review: A Novel Love Story | Ashley Poston

A contemporary romance with a dash of magical realism makes Ashley Poston’s A Novel Love Story a fun and unique love story.

What is A Novel Love Story about?

A professor of literature finds herself caught up in a work of fiction… literally.

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 to 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.

What did I think?

This was a fun surprise for me because I not only hadn’t read anything by Ashley Poston before, but I also didn’t really reread the blurb when I started. The concept is fun. A bookish theme can feel overdone sometimes, but in this case it felt fresh and dare I say, novel? A woman who loves a happily-ever-after (don’t we all) but who has found herself robbed of one. Her chance for her own HEA may finally arrive when she finds herself in the fictional town of her favorite books.

“There once was a town, and it didn’t exist.”

Once I got started, I was surprised to find this story is more emotional than I expected. The concept had a lot of levity, but as a character I found Eileen to have more depth than expected. The entire book gave me Gilmore Girls vibes in a sense (I’m not alone in dreaming of living in Stars Hollow), but also a dash of The Wizard of Oz.

Eileen Merriweather is unhappy. Her fiance broke off their engagement only a week before their wedding, she’s unhappy in her job, and she can’t help but compare everyone else in her life finding happiness while she is alone and lonely. She loves to escape into her favorite fictional town, Eloraton, where her favorite romance stories take place.

Eileen spends all year looking forward to her week-long retreat to a cabin in New York with her book club friends, where no one judges her for her smutty taste in books (the same can’t be said for the English department where she is a professor). But this year, everyone backed out. Eileen is already on her way when the last holdout—her best friend Pru—ditches the trip as well to head to Iceland with her boyfriend.

A wrong turn leads Eileen to a small town she’s never been to before, and a near accident with a handsome man leads her car to breakdown. She stops in a bar, finds herself staying in the loft of the handsome stranger, and in the morning it dawns on her. Eileen knows where she is. She’s in Eloraton. But the question is, how is it possible to find oneself in a fictional town?

The town of Eloraton charmed me! There’s something fun about a town in a book modeled after what a town in a book should be like. Does that make sense? The people live the same day over and over until Elsy (Eileen) causes a shock to their universe. Suddenly, things begin to move forward. It was as though the town was waiting for her to arrive so her story could propel them into motion.

Elsy is in the middle of a romance novel—one that the author never finished because she passed before it was complete. Perhaps Elsy is the one who can unfreeze them by living out the rest of the story. That gorgeous stranger is named Anders, and he is a grumpy bookstore owner (of course). Anders doesn’t appreciate the ripples caused in his town by Elsy’s arrival, but perhaps she is just the person he didn’t know he was waiting for.

A charming story, a delightfully fun premise, and an entirely novel…love story. This is a book for those of us who dream of our own happily ever after some day. Elsy is on her own journey to find herself, and ironically she may do just that in this fictional town. I hope it’s not too obvious to point out that Elsy was just as stuck in her own life as the town of Eloraton was reliving the same day on a loop.

This book is an absolute delight!

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my copy. Opinions are my own.