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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.
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Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for honest feedback.
It’s hard for me to believe that this is a debut novel. The story is so well crafted that it hits everything you want in a romance. You’ve got all the tropes (which she pokes fun at), a little comedy, a nice pinch of spice, some emotional angst and the all-important HEA. Did I want to smack Forrest and Margot a few times for playing coy with one another, absolutely, but isn’t that the fun of the classic enemies-to-lovers tale? Anyways, I digress…
Here’s what I loved: The book has more than just romantic hijinks and while Margot had become jaded she wasn’t so far gone that she didn’t see what was right in front of her. The banter and relationship building between her and Forrest was fun, but not mean and it was easy to envision a relationship between them.
I also loved that the book poked fun at all of the romance tropes. Us romance readers love them in a book but we might side-eye the universe if they happened in real life so it was fun to see Margot react the same way.
What I didn’t like: For a tiny bit mid-book it felt like Forrest and Margot were going to be stuck in this “will they/wont they” holding pattern. It wasn’t long enough to lose my interest but it was one think I noticed.
Hoping that Victoria Lavine is already hard at work on book 2 because I AM going to need another one!
0A big thank you to Atria Books, Simon & Schuster, and Victoria Lavine for this eArc via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Where do I begin? The beautiful navigation of an enemies-to-lovers arc, the fiery connection between Margot and Forrest, or the fact that this book had me in tears with that third act conflict? Any Trope but You is an addictive rom-com, with the perfect combination of a slow burn love story and simultaneous fast pacing. Fully fleshed out characters that are impossible not to love, and a story that will keep you interested til the end.
This book has made it's way onto my list of anticipated releases of 2025, and there's no way I won't be yearning for a physical copy.
(This little note is for the author, if she ever sees this; I adored this book, truly. You've gained a fan for life out of me, and I hope your career blossoms with the publication of this book.)
0My rating: 3.75
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