Any Trope but You
A Novel
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4.6 • 12 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A bestselling romance author flees to Alaska to reinvent herself and write her first murder mystery, but the rugged resort proprietor soon has her fearing she’s living in a rom-com plot instead in this earnestly spectacular debut by a stunning new voice.
Beloved romance author Margot Bradley has a dark secret: she doesn’t believe in Happily Ever Afters. Not for herself, not for her readers, and not even for her characters, for whom she secretly writes alternate endings that swap weddings and babies for divorce papers and the occasional slashed tire. When her Happily Never After document is hacked and released to the public, she finds herself canceled by her readers and dropped by her publisher.
Desperate to find a way to continue supporting her chronically ill sister, Savannah, Margot decides to trade meet-cutes for murder. The fictional kind. Probably. But when Savannah books Margot a six-week stay in a remote Alaskan resort to pen her first murder mystery, Margot finds herself running from a moose and leaping into the arms of the handsome proprietor, making her fear she’s just landed in a romance novel instead.
The last thing Dr. Forrest Wakefield ever expected was to leave his dream job as a cancer researcher to become a glorified bellhop. What he’s really doing at his family’s resort is caring for his stubborn, ailing father, and his puzzle-loving mind is slowly freezing over—until Margot shows up. But Forrest doesn’t have any room in his life for another person he could lose, especially one with a checkout date.
As long snowy nights and one unlikely trope after another draw Margot and Forrest together, they’ll each have to learn to overcome their fears and set their aside assumptions before Margot leaves—or risk becoming a Happily Never After story themselves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Lavine's often humorous, sometimes heart-wrenching debut, a jaded romance author navigates a slew of rom-com tropes. After bestseller Margot Bradley's secret folder of alternate drafts where she breaks up fan-favorite couples leaks to the public, her sister, Savannah, sends her to a resort in Alaska to ride out the outrage. Upon arrival, Margot's shocked to learn that the retreat is entirely off the grid and that she's expected to participate in weekly wilderness excursions. Worried about leaving chronically ill Savannah with no way to contact her, Margot panics, but Savannah's left her a letter explaining that Margot must go on the excursions each week to learn how brave she is. After completing each outing, she'll receive another letter. Margot isn't sure what terrifies her more: the excursions or the man leading them, who seems to have stepped out of a romance novel. Forrest Wakefield, a "doctor for a worthy cause" with "muscles for days," is in Alaska caring for his ailing father. As he and Margot repeatedly end up in rom-com scenarios—forced to share only one bed, for example—she realizes that the situations she always scoffed at writing really might lead to love. It's sweet to watch the leads bond over their mutual understanding of caretaking and sacrifice. Readers will have no trouble rooting for this pair's happy ending.
