I'll admit, it took me a little bit to get hooked into this story, but once I was there, I couldn't put this book down. I thought it was slow-going at first, but it all came together in the end and I totally adored this book.

ashley poston is hands down one of the best romance authors out there. this book was whimsical, funny, and dreamy. i loved every moment of it!!

thank you so much to berkley and netgalley for the arc 🥰

I loved this! I mean, who DOESN'T want to spend time IN their favorite book series? Sign me up! It was a great twist on things and I adored every word. It was nice to see Elsy come into her own and the support of friends made it better. I love "literary" titles and this one did not disappoint!

This author has become an automatic read/buy/sell for me. If you are a lover of all things bookish you will appreciate the way the author weaves books, literature and the publishing world into her stories. The characters are relatable and lovable. I find myself rooting for all of them. I love the element of magical realism in her writing. This book was so good and lovely. I will be recommending it to all my rom com friends.

thanks Netgalley and Berkeley for the ARC!

this book took me on a ride!!! many tears, many plot twists! it’s definitely more women’s fiction with a great mix of romance in it. i really do enjoy ashley postons books and will read anything she writes! her books are romance with a mix of fantasy and it’s just the right amount for me personally.

my only gripes: i was a little bored at times and i was worried this wasn’t a romance at points towards the end. i don’t wanna spoil anything so i’ll leave it at that. maybe the romance was a bit flat at points too like i didn’t feel the connection but it wrapped up perfectly and i feel satisfied!!

This book is for the readers. For the people who wanna lose themselves in someone else’s story when their own gets to be too much. I cannot tell you how comforting this book was for a fangirl reader like me.
Imagine you’re driving to a cabin for a reading retreat with all your books besties for a week, but your car breaks down on the way, you’re trapped in a rainstorm in the middle of nowhere for the night. You almost hit a strange man who was just standing in the rain, but he’s nice enough to let you stay in his spare loft above his bookstore (!!!)… only for you to wake up the next morning and see that in the light of day, you stumbled into your favorite book’s fictional town, and the book characters who you know like the back of your hand… are real! Nothing ever changes in the small fictional town of Eloraton until Elsy comes along. She has to find a way to make sure her favorite characters stay together and get their happily ever afters while also trying to find one of her own with the grumpy (sexy) bookstore owner!!

I was teary eyed and so EMOTIONAL when Elsy is having a heart to heart with her comfort character, Junie. If I could hang out with Aelin Galathynius for a day?? My life would be MADE.

This book was a love letter to the hopeless romantics who fall in love with words and daydream about book boyfriends.

Ashley Poston has done it again with her creative writing style and unique plot lines. Her stories are so memorable because of that fact. I read so many romance books that most of the stories just run together, yet I can still remember the storylines of “The Dead Romantics” and “The Seven Year Slip” easily. Thank you for this story. I will carry it in my heart forever. 🩵📚🥹🫶🏻

This book releases on June 25, 2024 and I cannot wait for everyone to fall in love with Elsy & Anders. 🤭💌 thank you so much @netgalley for the arc!!

A Novel Love Story brilliantly invites the reader into the safe, cozy, never-changing town of Eloraton. It is in this setting, so familiar to readers of romance, and yet lovingly new, that Poston encourages readers to listen to their own hearts and seek out their own happily ever afters. I adored it.

4.5 ⭐️

“Sometimes, a book can change your life. It's hard to explain that to someone who doesn't read, or who has never felt their heart bend so strongly toward a story that it might just snap in two. Some books were a comfort, some a reprieve, others a vacation, a lesson, a heartbreak. I'd met countless stories by the time I read a book that changed my life.”

This book is a book lover’s dream!!!! Nothing beats the feeling of reading an Ashley Poston romance. I had the best time reading this — it was whimsical and the writing is so beautiful.

“She made me remember why I loved to read. I'd heard of books doing that, but I always figured it was metaphorical, a nice sentiment. I never thought it actually happened.”

A Novel Love Story discussed so many things that I connected to as a reader — finding a community of likeminded people who just get you & the dream of actually meeting your favorite characters (I would cry). Ashley Poston is also the best at writing about heartbreak.

This also highlights how special romance books can be, despite the hate the genre receives.

It was funny & dreamy and incredibly creative, with lots of twists I was not expecting and it felt like a women’s fiction book intertwined with a romance (which is my favorite vibe)!! One of my favorite plots I have read!

Thank you to Berkley & NetGalley for the advanced copy.

i knew i was going to love this from the first time i read the synopsis, and i am beyond happy that this book did not disappoint me in the slightest.

‘a novel love story’ fits in seamlessly with ashley poston’s other adult romances; it has the magical realism that leaves you wishing it was simply real, the well fleshed out characters that feel like friends you’ve had for ages, and the sweetest romance that makes you believe in the happily ever afters.

i ate this one up! i will admit it did take me a moment to get fully invested in the story, but i’m blaming my 85 university assignments that pulled me away from this book for that. because once i was invested, man. i was invested.

this plot is unlike anything i’ve ever read before. and reading about elsy felt like looking in a mirror for me, with her love of romances and library sciences degree and the struggle of putting herself and her wants first. her journey to finding what she wants her life to be like was quite inspiring for me. i loved the connection she had with anderson, even when she didn’t want there to be a connection at all. seeing them fall for each other was just too fulfilling!

while i absolutely adored this, i will say i do still have some criticisms. i was kind of surprised by the amount of grammatical errors in this arc, along with numerous repetitions of character descriptions and a few story discrepancies i noticed, too. i hope these get fixed before the final publication!

this book truly deserves all the love, and i cannot wait to add it to my bookshelves for future rereads!

“I cared for words with a reverence I rarely shared with anyone — how could you share them, anyway, when words were imagined things.”

There is something about Ashley Poston’s writing that tugs at my heart strings more than others. Not only does she write about love and relationships beautifully, but she also writes a character who is finding her way in life even better. This book is about relationships, friendships, and unconditional love for words on a page and the places on those pages, and she described it all perfectly. The way she describes a deep love for a fictional world and fictional characters, and the way stories can be such an escape was hitting home. I immediately felt so connected to Eileen in so many ways. This was a story about a girl finding space for herself among the others that she loved, and learning she deserved that space, the love, and happy endings that everyone else did. I also fell in love with Anders’ character (of course) and was sobbing probably 8 too many times!

Ashley Poston’s books all have such a unique storyline and she pulls it off SO BEAUTIFULLY every single time. Her mind is magical, and this one being so connected to books and reading made it all the more special. I am so in love with this.

“Sometimes people came into your life for brief moments, and changed you forever. I think he was my person.”

I have loved Ashley Poston's last two books; The Dead Romantics and The Seven Year Slip. I enjoy her writing style and her ability to cohesively use magical realism in a believable way. With that being said, this book just missed the mark. The premise was interesting, very similar to the movie, Stranger than Fiction. The idea of dropping into your favorite book is every readers dream. I wish there would have been more explanation of how the town appeared, and the rules around the magic. I really dislike when a large portion of the plot relies on the main characters inability to ask questions or demand answers. There were so many instances where any regular person would be asking questions; the main character was too chill and I think it hurt the overall story. Furthermore, the characters within the town were very one dimensional which is intentional as they are made up characters for a book, but there should have been a more distinct difference between the portrayal of the towns people and the main characters who were actual real life humans. At certain points it felt like the author was trying to hit a word count with all of the repeated descriptions i.e. Minty eyes. The writing felt forced and honestly didn't read as an Ashley Poston book to me. I still look forward to reading her future work.

What a dream to visit the world of your favorite romance book! What a cute but also very insightful book about life, love, and romance books. Another must read from Ashley Poston!

Gahhhh I really loved this. Ashley Poston has a way of adding elements of magical realism into all of her romances and they have all drawn me in and kept me captivated. This one was extra unique and I want to hug it.

Imagine a broken romance lover getting lost on her way to her book club’s cabin (where she’d be alone) and winding up in the small town that inspired her favorite romance authors series. And having the Wizard of Oz moment when she realized that all her favorite characters were there and she was living in the books.

This one was just next level for me and I can’t wait to get a hard copy of my own to share with my book club.

If I ever need to get lost in a cozy romance, A Novel Love Story will be THE go-to cozy book that I want to be transported to.

Have you ever wanted to run away from life and just get lost in your favourite book (or TV show)? Or better yet, have you ever dreamed about being able to visit your favourite cozy fictional world (like Stars Hollow) and befriend your favourite fictional characters? Well, that's exactly what happened to Elsy.

This Inkworld-meets-Gilmore Girls story is about Elsy who gets lost on her way to her book club retreat (in which she was the only one who could make it to the retreat anyways) and finds herself stranded in a lovely small town where everything and everyone seemed oddly familiar. She ends up taking up lodging with Anders, the grumpy yet alluring bookstore owner, and soon realizes that she has somehow found her way to Eloraton - the fictional town from her all-time favourite romance series, Quixotic Falls.

Everything and everyone in Eloraton was exactly like how she imagined except they seemed to be stuck. Ever since the author of Quixotic Falls died before the final book of the series was completed, the town of Eloraton and its residents were left in limbo. And so Elsy sets out to find out how all her favourite characters are doing and to get the closure that she needs even if that means meddling around and falling for a certain bookstore owner...

I'll admit, this book and I got off on a bumpy start. I didn't really like Anders at first (but then, neither did Elsy) and I found the story to be quite predictable (C'mon, Elsy! It took you way too long to figure out the plot twist!) but then Anders started growing on me. Maybe it's because I've been obsessed with Dramione fics lately but Anders seemed very Malfoy-esque (white blond hair, minty green eyes, grumpy exterior, but actually a real softy who loves reading romance novels and hates peas! Is he even real? This is the Malfoy of my dreams!) I also found myself constantly wanting to slowdown and savour all the moments between Elsy and Anders. In fact, there were numerous occasions when I would flip back to early chapters and re-read previous scenes because I wasn't ready for the next chapter to begin or for the story to end (by this point, I've probably already re-read the book 3 or 4 times in the span of 2 weeks).

Elsy kept bringing up how great it feels to lose yourself amongst familiar characters and cozy, comforting moments when reading and re-reading your favourite book and that's exactly how I felt when I was reading (and re-reading) A Novel Love Story. I've never felt cozier than when I was reading this book. I don't remember the last time a book made me feel this way and for that alone, this book deserves 5/5 stars.

Ashley Poston really nailed it with this one. Like I am fully obsessed with the way she writes her adult romances, they're always so quirky and different from anything else I've ever read. This was no different. I loved the characters and the idea of falling into a storybook and wanting to stay forever. It also made me want to read this hypothetical made up series.... Anyway, I'm obsessed.

SUCH a cool premise. Elsy loves the Daffodil Daydreams romance series, which is cut short after the author's untimely death. On her way to a secluded cabin in the woods to partake in her annual romance readathon with her book club, despite being the only one to attend this year, she is waylaid in a town that looks suspiciously familiar. It is indeed Eloraton, the famous and entirely fictional setting of Daffodil Daydreams. But how is this possible? And why is she so drawn to Eloraton's grumpy bookstore owner who seems to be the only one who knows they're both in an impossible situation?

My love of the premise knows no bounds. How often have we wanted to slip into the fictional towns of other people's stories, fixing their problems or maybe causing chaos? It's the perfect set up. Elsy herself is a cute character--wanting desperately to see where her favorite characters have ended up and worrying over how they all see so stuck where the author left them. They're all so unfinished, tortured by will they/won't they relationships, perpetual renovations, and bad work schedules. Despite being warned not to cause ripples by Anders, our grumpy bookstore owner, Elsy does just that. But then she starts causing ripples with Anders, falling for him instead of trying to find his fictional heroine. Elsy has to leave--it's predetermined because you can't keep living in fiction. But what's a girl to do when she falls for an actual book boyfriend?

Super cute. Definitely oodles of points for the premise. The book feels a little unfinished/unpolished--lots of little continuity errors and far too many mentions of minty eyes and black tea breath. Like I get it, the man is a walking tea cup. I wish the book had spent more time developing Elsy's relationship with Anders rather than have Elsy get drunk with her fictional friends more often than not--that felt like a waste of time, so when Anders and Elsy finally have their sexual tension release the tension hasn't tensed enough for it to make sense to me.

Anyway, my ultimate verdict is it just felt like it needs another round of edits.

AHHHH


That was very different from what I normally read. I loved it.

5 stars
SO GOOD

THANK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU to the publishers for approving my request

This was such a charming read! I absolutely loved Ashley Poston's previous book, THE SEVEN YEAR SLIP, so I was very excited to pick up A NOVEL LOVE STORY. And it did not disappoint! I have yet to encounter an author who's able to merge contemporary fiction and magical realism so seamlessly.

A Novel Love Story is a DREAM COME TRUE for book lovers! AHHHH! What a well-crafted and cozy story!

Read if you like:
* bookish books
* grumpy bookstore owners (that smell like black tea + old books)
* quirky book club characters
* bookstore cats
* small towns
* FMC on a journey of self-discovery

🩶 Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for this e-ARC!

Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group for the ARC.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 5/5 stars

Ashley Poston is just on another level. She consistently combines romance and magical realism flawlessly. In her newest book, A Novel Love Story, she writes a storyline absolutely perfect for book lovers everywhere. Elsy is at a standstill in life and decides to go on a road trip alone after her book club cancels on her. She somehow stumbles into a small town that is eerily familiar - it is the small town from her favorite romance series. And the grumpy bookstore owner she can’t stand? She’s never read about him in the books. Who is he and how is any of this possible?

I highlighted this entire book basically. Poston’s keyboard was on fire with this one. I adored all of the characters and just couldn’t get over how perfect the premise was. Elsy and Anders were perfectly flawed and I was invested in the mysteries of their town. Gah just the best. Ashley Poston can do no wrong.

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.