❥ Thank you for the free audiobook, PRH Audio.
Synopsis
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.
Thoughts
The Dead Romantics by this author is one of my favorite romance books, so this was one of my most highly anticipated books of 2024. Sadly, I didn’t love it. I thought the concept was phenomenal, but I found the execution to be lacking. The word “minty” was used so many times that I found it distracting. I also felt like the characters’ personalities were lackluster and the twist wasn’t a surprise at all.
I listened to the audio and felt that Dorothy Dillingham Blue’s voice, while lovely, sounded a bit too mature for this role. I was quite bored throughout the audiobook. I may circle back to it in the future to see if I feel different about the story after reading the physical book.