A love story that will be deeply and uniquely personal to each reader, instigating an interesting and timely debate about escapism, happiness, and what it means to live our best lives.

In just a few years, Emily Henry has become one of the most influential romance writers we have ever seen. Her success has a lot of factors, one of them being, of course, her superb writing skills. But, her books always have that something extra. What makes them stand out is usually a combination of relatability, a complex cast of characters and/or locations that bring her story to life, and a promise of well-developed storylines.

Happy place is her debut in a trope that can be very tricky - a second-chance romance. The beauty of this trope is that it is not about a couple falling in love, but rediscovering a love that was lost. It’s usually complicated and messy and full of angst and longing.

And the romance is indeed spectacular. We meet Harriet and Wyn, and are taken on a journey that crisscrosses from their first meeting to their first years of dating, then living together and getting engaged, to the ultimate fallout of their relationship. All while moving backward and forward to the present time, where they share a bedroom together in a friend’s cottage and pretend to still be together.

And although this is very much their story, it also about growing up, about understanding that dreams change, that plans are interchangeable, that you can grow apart from people you love, that it’s difficult to live up to expectations, that is painful to find yourself and to please people as you understand more and more about yourself.

Happy place is raw. A book millennials will definitely see themselves in, but that can also reach across generations, tugging at a space we all carry in our hearts.

To summarize, if you are a romance fan, do not miss this book. But also, if you are a fan of refreshing, well-plotted, hilarious, and authentic stories, this will be the book for you.

Expect to see a lot more about Happy Place in the media, and making top charts on all sorts of lists.

Emily, keep at it. I can’t wait to see what you will bring into the world next.

Another stunning read from Emily Henry!! Very grateful to be sent the advance copy in time for my 4hr flight, and I smashed out most of it! I love the character development, and how unique and intricate they are - and I loved every second of the journey!

Getting this advanced copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review made my day!
At this point in time, Emily Henry can do no wrong, I loved everything I read by her and this one is no exception.
Harriet and Wynn broke up 6 months ago, but they haven't told anyone, especially not their closest friends. And now, they don't want to ruin their annual vacation with their best friends, so they decide to pretend they're still together.
There are unspoken truths between them and feelings they are trying to ignore.
I loved the friends relationships and the found family aspect of this story. I wished I was among this group of people, soaking up the coastal air.
I appreciated both Harriet and Wynn's individual journey to find their own internal happiness and their journey as a couple.
This story made me emotional, it made me laugh and cry, it made me happy. I absolutely loved it.

Thank you to the publisher for reaching out and offering me this advance copy. They clearly knew from my previous reviews that I have loved all of Emily Henry’s previous books. So when that email popped up in my mailbox, I hit the download link straight away & couldn’t wait to get stuck in!
Harriet & Wyn split up 5 months ago but haven’t had the guts to tell their friendship group in fear that it will change everything. So when they both get invited for one last trip in the groups sacred Happy Place, they are to keep up appearances for their friends until the end of the week - not without a few ground rules of course.
Ex-lovers, one bedroom & one week of fake romance had me expecting the usual steamy scenes were used to, however I am extremely sad to say I did not get what I was expecting. And having read a lot of the comments on Goodreads of peoples anticipation for this book next year, I’m sad to say I think many will be disappointed.
That’s not to say it’s not a good book, it was a lovely story and you really feel for Harriet and Wyn as they so do love each other but are in very different places (literally), however you’re still rooting for them the whole time. The characters each have their own personalities & all have their roles in their little friendship group.
It’s just this is a very different book to Emily’s previous and I feel a lot of fans are going to be missing the flirty, steamy, teasing chapters were used to.
🌟🌟🌟

In Emily Henry's upcoming novel we follow ex fiancés who have yet to tell their mutual friendship group that they have broken up so when stuck together for a friend's holiday, they decide to keep up the ruse that they are still together. This book also explores long terms friendships and the consequences of growing up or growing apart. As is common in Henry's books, there is also a family element.

This is the second of Henry's books to make me tear up while reading. While there was at least one trope that was not my favourite, I thoroughly enjoyed the reading experience overall and it had enough of an emotional impact on me by the end that I guess I still kinda loved it.

first of all I AM SO GRATEFUL TO HAVE READ THIS EARLY. THANK YOU TO EMILY HENRY + TEAM AT PENGUIN FOR THIS.

i am going to be bold and argue that this is emily henry's best book to DATE. it was absolutely stunning and i literally did not put it down from the moment i started reading it. the characters were so insanely well written, and so VIVID? harriet was so relatable and loveable that i cried for her so many times. i just wanted to reach through the book and give her a massive hug because so much of what she was going through and how she coped with the things in her life were exactly the same for me. her relationship with her friends warmed my heart so much and literally made me YEARN for a group of friends who love and support each other like this. massive shout out to sabrina for being an absolute icon, i was so obsessed with her.

WYN!!! WYNNNN !!! ): WYN <3. i loved wyn so much. so so much. i literally closed the book and immediately decided that yes, he is what i want. i have never read such a sensitive, beautiful, GENTLE man in all my life i literally weeped for him. and HIM AND HARRIET. THE DEFINITION OF SOULMATES. from the moment they were in the room together i immediately needed them to be together. like the YEARNING WAS INSANE. i would get emotional from the love i could feel that they had for each other. and namely in the little things. and that is testament to what an absolutely fantastic writer emily henry is. nobody writes romance like she does. the way her books make you feel is unlike anything i can explain.

the themes of friendship and growth within friendship was done so well, and in such a way that felt so relatable to someone coming out of university and feeling uncertain on how to maintain relationships. i thought a really fantastically done part were the conversations around conflict and how our family really teaches us how to deal with arguments (i admit, i am a harriet when it comes to this. and i need a wyn in my life like her). the found family dynamic of this book was gorgeous and i didn't expect to love absolutely everyone, and root for them all too.

i really thought book lovers was going to be my favourite romance book of this year, but no. it is this. by a mile. i love it so much and it's for sure a book i know i will come back to again and again. there were so many hard hitting quotes that i literally gasped at reading. emily henry you are wonderful. and this book is perfect.

I was so excited when I saw an email to let me know this book was available for me to read and review. This is one of my most anticipated reads of 2023 and I am so happy to have the opportunity to read an early copy. I have loved all of Emily Henry's books and this one is no exception. There is just something so magical and captivating about Emily Henry's writing that translates so well into contemporary fiction. The characters had great chemistry and banter which I think is always present and so well done in Emily Henrys books. I loved the extended friendship group and the found family aspect to this story as well. This book focuses on Harriet and Wyn's relationship but also excellently tackles the topic of friendship and how both platonic and romantic relationships evolve over time. There is so much love and emotion in this book and I honestly could not put it down. Emily Henry has quickly become one of my favourite authors and I cannot wait to read whatever she writes next.

Thank you to Netgalley, Penguin Random House and of course Emily Henry for giving the opportunity to read this book early.

You guys, I’m literally speechless. This was better then anything I could have expected after reading the synopsis. Harriet and Wyn dated for years and even got engaged, the perfect couple. Until they broke up. Now they’re forced to spend a week with their college friends and decided to hide the news of the breakup from them.

In my personal opinion exes are exes for a reason, you shouldn’t go back there. So I was skeptical whether this could work. I don’t want to spoil anything so I’ll just say that the way Harriet and Wyn ended things wasn’t to ugly for a second chance to feel icky in anyway. Life as an adult can get complicated. Tbh I kind of think the familiarity and history between the two made the book even better. It’s hot, I’ll leave it at that.

I loved the dual timeline between present and past, back from the start of their romance. If you’ve read any of Henry’s other books I would say this is most similar to how People we meet on vacation is structured. Even though the contents are very different.

Aside from the romance the rest of the storylines are also really interesting. Life, friendship, communication. I really enjoyed how it all came together in the end. Everything is done with purpose.

Other things I loved, the friend group is just to fun, the vacation vibes and the message it sends. Do things that make you happy, keyword - YOU. We all know this but it’s a nice reminder. I can’t recommend it enough!

Thank you so much to the publisher, author and Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review

I was both (over)excited and scared to be so lucky to receive an ARC for Happy Place by the beloved Emily Henry. I loved Book Lovers, which made me laugh out loud and happy and all kind of feels, so I was caught in the middle of desperately wanting a similar reading experience and wishing to be surprised and blown away by a total different novel.

Well, I can now say in all honesty to NEVER be careful for what you wish for, because I ended up having it all. Happy Place is totally different from Book Lovers but in the best sense of being different PLUS I laughed, I cried, I was happy, sad, and everything in between PLUS astonished and surprised and blown away PLUS really happy in the end.

Happy Place is a character driven second chance, angsty, slow burn and I loved every minute of it. The main characters Wyn and Harriet (‘Harry’ for friends) couldn’t make it work, despite loving each other so dearly. As the story unfolds, we get to see how they fell in love and how deeply they loved each other ever since. Still, loving each other wasn’t enough to be happy. And now they need to pretend to still be together (and happy! And engaged!) for a whole full week.

I really liked how Emily Henry took some romance tropes and turned Happy Place into a meaningful romance. I mean, the one bed trope, fake dating, forced proximity and whatnots were all there - but Emily Henry deployed them in such an unpredictable way, it made me smile all the time.

Another winner for me!

The more novels by Emily Henry I read, the more she cements her spot as my new favourite author. After loving her previous three books, I was THRILLED to be offered the chance to read Happy Place six months before it is released to the world! Life was busy this week and I was slow to start, spending nearly a week reading the first half but I have just spent my Sunday morning in bed sobbing through the last quarter! Emily has managed to write an epic story about love, friendship and most importantly, being happy. As soon as this is released, I can guarantee I will be buying this for everyone I know!

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy.

On a dreary Sunday I sat down to read Happy Place (big thanks to the Publisher and Netgalley for sending this book). I did not put it down til I'd read the very last page. Sob!

It was a bit of a challenge as the format I received has numbers on every second line and is a bit distracting, BUT it didn't deter me form getting through this wonderful book, If it's not one of the releases of the year for 2034 I don't know what will be.

I am always a little shy with things dubbed a "tikTok sensation' I have to say, as I've been bitten before and found they weren't for me, but I do think Emily Henry's books just keep getting better and better. There's a maturity of characters and emotions, that are just right I think, and Happy Place is no exception.

Across time lines spanning the past and present, Happy Place chronicles the lives of three college (and unlikely on first meeting) friends who holiday at one of the girls' summer homes periodically during their college years, and at junctures since their graduation. This time they plan to meet with their respective "others" two of whom are already a part of the group. Harriet and Wyn are the primary couple this book focuses on, and they have a predicament in that they split up months before the get-together but don't know how to break it to the friendship group. They think they have it figured out with Wyn supposedly not going to attend, but when Harriet arrives - ta da! Wyn is (apologetically) present and accounted for. So, fake togetherness abounds and makes for a potentially disastrous holiday, namely because Harriet doesn't even know why they aren't together anymore - they just aren't.

"This is killing me. Every second of every day. I feel like I'm living with a piece of me torn out, and I didn't even see it happen. I have this gaping wound, and no idea how it got there".

Happy Place isn't all about the happy. It's a powerful look a parent-child alienation, loss and grief, mental health, fertility, abandonment, and so much more. It's about families, and the ties that bind with biological families and the family you choose. It's also about life choices, and what shapes us to become the people we are.

"Want is a kind of thief. It's a door in your heart, and once you know it's there, you'll spend your life longing for whatever's behind it"

Loved it, loved it, loved it.

Please can someone tell me how I get to be a character in an Emily Henry book? I need to be in this book and have Sabrina, Parth, Cleo, Kimmy, Wyn and Harriet as my best friends. I should be lucky friend number 7. I want to eat lobster rolls with them and listen to Parth’s playlists. I want to play Grocery Gladiators. I want Knott’s Harbor to be a real place so I can visit and smell the brine of the sea and go to the Lobster Festival. I have friend envy. I want my own personalised holiday itinerary.

This book had me laughing and crying and more wound up than a thing that’s been wound up too many times, you know like when you bend over the seat of a swing and turn around lots of times and then lift your feet up and it spins you around really fast? That’s how wound up I was. I almost broke the rule of looking at the final chapter because I was so discombobulated. The poor husband had to put up with me full on ranting about what I thought was going to happen and how I was so scared because, my new best friends were in an unhappy place, when I just needed everything to be right in their world. I don’t care that they aren’t real people, they are real to me.

I love Wyn and Harriet. I love that he always calls her by her full name. Never Harry or Har or H, always Harriet. I love how he plays with her curls. How he can’t stop touching her. I just love him. I was so invested in their relationship that I was thinking I should write a petition that’s said, if the ending did not have me singing happy songs and skipping merrily as I went about my day, that I could force Emily Henry to change it.

I should have had faith. Happy Place left me in a happy place, skipping and smiling and wishing that I could be a potter. A happy place isn’t just about a location, it’s about finding the people who make the happiness and the contentment of everything else around that. It’s about doing the things that make your heart happy and not compromising that because you feel obliged to follow someone else’s dream.

On that note, I have a dilemma; can I put this book on my top reads of the year when technically it isn’t going to be published until next year? Whatever it is most definitely, absolutely, undeniably one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Emily Henry NEVER fails. I always love her work, but she really did outdo herself with The Happy Place. This book was written for Taylor Swift fans and more specifically the mirrorball girlies. For the people that feel like they have to be different versions of yourself in order to be around different people.

Character description of our beautiful girl Harriet, written by Taylor Swift (super official)
I'll show you every version of yourself tonight
I'll get you out on the floor
Shimmering beautiful
And when I break it's in a million pieces

I just cant stop obessing over this book, it was everything and then some. The actual writing is Emilys BEST work. It feels like someone is opening up their mind and allowing you to see every single flaw and imperfection of them, but all you see is their beauty :`)

Wyn and Harriet are the ultimate definition of the perfect trope. College-romance, fake-dating, forced proximity, second chance romance. THEY HAVE IT ALL AND DO IT SO FREAKING WELL!!!

I know everyone is super excited about this book, and your expectations are probably sky rocketing. Grab your tissues and a friendgroup and head up to Maine for the perfect glittering and shimmering novel.

I want to start by thanking Emily Henry, the publisher, and everyone else who was involved for providing me with this ARC.
It’s honestly been one of the greatest honors to read the book so early on.

The day Emily Henry disappoints me, all the oceans with freeze over and the world will be knocked off its course around the sun.

This book has it all, the awe, the pain. Every emotion under the sun. I see so many traits of Harriet’s in me that it was sometimes very hard to read the book without delving into inevitable self-reflection. It’s also really helped me see myself and my actions differently.

I was so scared they really weren’t going to end up together that it made me feel physically ill at times. My stomach was in knots.

I love how their love. The love all of them have for each other, the entire family, felt so palpable and real to the reader. Made me ache for that kind of love and contentment.

I am so utterly in awe of this book and its authors. I will be a blubbering, sobbing mess for years.

Please, for the love of the universe, read this book. (It’d be kind of unfair if you didn’t get to feel like I am right now, huh?)

5 stars.

"Before I even see him, my heart starts singing its favorite song. You, you, you."

Emily Henry does it again! And firstly – Yes, this lives up to expectations. I've seen people on Goodreads promising to give up their firstborn child for this book, and it does not disappoint.

This book is original, wickedly funny and excruciatingly sad. It’s a book about second-chance love and friendship. It's also a book about not getting everything you want; about sacrifices, and the pain that comes with properly loving someone. It is unfailingly real, and hopelessly romantic at the same time.

Henry writes so incredibly well. There’s a lot of imagery in her writing – it’s so engaging. The feels float across the page and you can’t help but be fully invested from the outset. Her metaphors and similes capture perfectly what she wants to convey and it's just a joy to read her work.

To me an Emily Henry book is not a normal reading experience. The writing is so full of emotion that it feels like it adds an extra dimension to the reader’s journey.

It’s more like feeling a story than reading one.

I am so thankful to Penguin and Emily Henry for the opportunity to read this one so early.

Wow. Just wow.
I loved EH’s first 2 books but was less sold on the third. Happy Place is a true return to form for her in my opinion!
Harriet, Wyn and their friends are gorgeously written, beautifully real characters. I loved the Maine setting, and the flashbacks to earlier in the relationship which took place mostly in New York and Montana. I personally would read a whole book about their days at university, if Emily ever feels like writing a prequel!
A wonderful story, I can’t wait for her next work!

I am simply convinced that Emily Henry is incapable of writing a single bad book. Happy place is definitely one of the best romance books I've ever read and it will always have a special place in my heart. I loved how it wasn't all about romantic love but also about friendship and how hard it can be to maintain your friendships when u grow up and all go your separate ways. Wyn and Harriet are truly the loves of my life. This book made me cry and smile so much and the ending was just amazing. I adored every single page of it and can't wait for it to come out so everyone can read it and love it too.

As an Emily Henry "completist" (someone who has read and adored all of her books so far) I was over the moon to be sent an advance copy of her upcoming release, Happy Place.

This book came with the added pressure of living up to expectations, but it was full of everything Emily Henry fans old and new will adore. What I particularly enjoy about her books is that she can be relied upon to take some of the most familiar romance tropes and execute them unfailingly well and with a twist. This time, the premise essentially turns upon a "fake dating" scenario, but what's interesting is that the "couple" were previously engaged and are now pretending to still be together to avoid upsetting their friends (although it sounds implausible, the reader is eventually persuaded that this might be necessary!). The structure of Happy Place, flitting between "real life" and flashbacks to piece together what has led the characters to this unlikely scenario is clever and helps to build the plot. In this sense, this book reminded me of You and Me on Vacation. This author is skilled at building tension and creating a sense of longing that comes with all the best crushes.

The other ingredients are all there too: snappy dialogue, a few pop culture references, small-town quirks, a wonderful sense of place and a fully developed cast of characters that you learn to root for. This means Henry's novels are not simply one-dimensional romances: they come with plenty of serious introspection and even darkness. For example, I certainly appreciated that depression was addressed in this novel. That said, this is still ultimately a big dose of feel-good reading, which was just the ticket for me in the darkening autumn days.

Although this may not be my favourite of Henry's books (that title probably continues to be held by Book Lovers) it is still easy to give it five stars for another fantastic read. Thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for a free advance copy of Happy Place in exchange for an honest review.

I genuinely didn't think I could love an Emily Henry book more than Book Lovers, but surprise surprise I did. This was delicious. Harriet and Wyn are dreamy, the most gorgeous characters and even the friend group as secondary characters were better than some books main characters. It's cute, and romantic and funny and I just loooooved every second of it. SO SO good.

I loved this book SO much, being able to see both how the relationship developed through flashbacks as well as how obviously in love the characters still are was amazing writing. This book made me laugh and cry, and I can't wait to reread when it's released!