I finished Any Trope But You by Victoria Lavine (ARC- release day: April 3)

“How can she write romance novels if she believes love is Satan’s pyramid scheme?”

4 ⭐️

Margot is a successful romance author known for her love stories that all end with happily ever afters.

But her own personal life has been quite the opposite. She writes alternative more “realistic” endings from her books as a private outlet for herself. But when these accidentally get out to the public, her readers turn on her.

Escaping to a remote location in Alaska to write her new novel uninterrupted, all of the cliché romance tropes start happening to her as she meets Forrest, the owner of the lodge.

Forrest is a broody lumberjack who encompasses all of the main male character energy she’s written about all these years.

Both Margot & Forrest have reasons to not believe in happily ever afters but soon enough, cannot deny their connection anymore.

What to expect:
🫎 Broody lumberjack MMC
📚 Romance tropes
🫎 Close proximity
📚 Slow burn
🫎 Witty & sarcastic
📚 Autoimmune disease representation

Thoughts:
The sarcasm & witty banter in this book were top tier! I was laughing so hard & probably highlighted way too many times. My only negative thing to say is that the third act break up frustrated me.

Thank you @atriabooks #partner for the most adorable gifted romcom.

I loved LOVED loved this book so much! Give me all the Victoria Lavine books moving forward! This was SO adorable! I cannot think of one thing I would change in this book! From the Alaskan setting, the wholesome and sweet nature of the sisters relationship (reminded me of my own relationship with my sister), to the most wonderful moments between the hot doctor that’s there helping his family….all perfect. 🤩 I simply adored the banter, the wittiness, the overcoming of struggles and even the side character relationships! I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys romcoms. It’s a fresh, fun, fine star book for me!

Any Trope but You is a heartwarming story between Margot, a romance writer who has lost her faith in HEAs, and Forrest, a doctor from Alaska who left behind his life to care for his father. What they have in common is that they are both caregivers and they share similar struggles related to this. Forrest is the perfect book boyfriend and ticks all the trope boxes, reminding Margot what romance can be. The family members are very sympathetic characters and very supportive of Margot and Forrest. This is one that will leave you smiling with how endearing it is.

ARC BOOK REVIEW

Any Trope But You by Victoria Lavine

Thank you, Artia, for the free eARC of this book. I am so grateful!

SYNOPSIS: “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.”

REVIEW: What a cute and delightful romance! I seriously cannot get enough of Margot and Forrest. A romance set in remote Alaska? I’ll take it! I knew from the get-go that I would love this one.

The tropes of the book were so perfectly heavy-handed in the very best way. It just worked. A great debut.

I was immediately invested in Margot’s story, and was even more intrigued as I learned more about Forrest and the rest of him family at the North Star Lodge.

Overall, it was a joy to read, and I look forward to many more books from Victoria Lavine!

Publisher: Atria
Pub date: 4/1/2025

I really wanted to love this more and I’m sad that it didn’t work for me. There are certainly things to like, the setting was such a fun escape and the side characters really brought this book to life. With tropes galore how could I go wrong?! Well, while I admire what the author was trying to do I think the book was spread too thin by trying to check too many trope boxes. It was especially hard for me to buy the enemies to lovers when from the first moment our characters meet they have absolutely no reason to loathe each other on sight and yet they do, but also they are simultaneously plagued by crazy attraction. This story line continues for a good portion of the book but instead of breathing life into the narrative, it pounds away-an unyeilding attempt to convince me what I already didn’t buy. It actually ended up hurting my perception of the FMC since she was so awful to the MMC for reasons not at all to do with him specifically. Some of the tropes definitely worked (forced proximity, one bed, fish out of water) but the foundation of the plot was shaky at best.

The spicyness of this book will work for some people but it was too much for me. I want more emotional connection, less physical obsession. I want the spice to enhance the connection, this was spice purely for the sake of spice. The language was also completely unnecessary and over the top, to the point that it was distracting.

I wanted to love this, but there were too many hurdles to over come. Sadly, it was not for me.

After her Happily Never After file was leaked, a popular romance author Margot got cancelled. Her sister, Savannah, who suffers from an autoimmune disease and relies on Margot as her sole caretaker, signs her up for a six-week retreat in Alaska. There, Margot meets the charming Dr. Forrest, who might just help her believe in a Happily Ever After again.

This was such a delightful romance novel! It was steamy, funny, heartwarming, emotional and everything in between.
You can find almost any trope in this book, and I loved how Margot, being a romance author, could identify them as they unfolded.
It was just a little too sweet for my taste, but overall a great debut novel! I can’t wait to see what Victoria writes next!

Thank you so much NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC!

A beautiful story! Romances about authors can be tricky with the “meta” aspect of it, but Any Trope But You was so well done. There’s a healing aspect to the book that I appreciated.

Oh my goodness, I loved this! I love romances featuring authors, especially romance authors. And I love hot and sexy, yet soft and supportive book boyfriends. Check and check! "Meta" type books can be tricky to pull off, but this author nailed it. Margot was humored and frustrated that she was basically living in a romcom after escaping to Alaska to avoid all things romance, yet, the plot did not reply on this. The familial sub-plots were so well fleshed-out and I loved little sister Savannah almost as much as Margot and Forrest! This book is gem and it's hard to believe it's a debut.

What a clever, enticing, and sweet debut novel! I was hooked pretty immediately and felt connected to these characters throughout. The constant referencing and calling out of specific tropes got a little old, but that's also kind of the point of the whole thing. I was DEEPLY invested by the end and could not stop reading until I saw how things ultimately played out. The payoff was perfect and had a touching call back to the start of the story.

Any Trope but You comes out on 1 April 2025, and I recommend you check it out!! Thank you to the author Victoria Lavine, publisher Atria Books, and NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Social post to @bostonkatreads will be up over the weekend on Instagram!

Any Trope but You was great. My first time reading a story from Victoria Lavine and it definitely won't be the last. I loved Margot and Forrest. They were perfect together. I loved how so many tropes were thrown today in this story! Forced Proximity, enemies to lovers and more. I always enjoy when stories are told in duel POV! This one was great!

Love love love this book. It's genius throwing every trope into one to create an unwanted romance. I've finally found a new author to obsess over.

Tropes:
Cool destination: Alaska
Only one bed (my fave!)
Forced Proximity
Enemies to lovers
Slow Burn
Chronic illness rep

This was a good read.

I loved that Margot secretly wrote other endings for her characters. I think that is hilarious and I love that you learn that about the character. Margot and Savannah's relationship is so supportive, and you love that about a sister duo!

And then Forrest and Margot? Their meet cute was 10/10, and the evolution of their relationship was awesome.

I really enjoyed this book, and think others would too.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5

This was such a good read! It reminded me of Emily Henry's vibe, yet the writing is still unique in its own right. I found myself often rereading the way Margot and Forrest describe their feelings, in all their metaphorical goodness, because the writing was so beautiful is made the feelings pang in my chest. In the same way, moments of love and laughter made me feel so lighthearted- my favorite part of reading the romcom genre.

I'll definitely be watching for Victoria's next book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC copy!

4.5⭐️If this book feels like it’s a little too on the nose it’s because it is. And that ends up being what is so charming about it.

Margot is a jaded romance author in need of break. Her sister sends her to Alaska to reinvent herself as a murder mystery writter. She meets Forest who checks just about all the check marks of the perfect leading man in a romance novel.

Forest is really too good to be true and I swear I tried really hard to not fall for this one but I did. It’s lighthearted, heart warming and fun and I found myself completely charmed by it.

Really solid debut novel. Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the advanced reading copy. All my opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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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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Oh, what to say about this book? I was very excited to get to read this ahead of print because the premise sounded so much fun. I am a huge romcom fan, and the idea of a book that was made up of all the tropes that contemporary romance fans loved sounded really promising. And there were a lot of things I really enjoyed about this book. The setting was great, and I really liked the sort of found family aspect that was touched on when Margot found herself in Alaska. And it was a good story. However, this wasn't the kind of book that I found myself rushing home from work to pick up and read before I did anything else, and I have to admit I set it aside a couple of times in order to read something else. That being said, I never considered DNFing it, and I was happy with the conclusion, so I would definitely recommend it to people who enjoy romance, and I do think that I will check out this author as she continues to write more in the future. It just maybe turns out that you can have too many tropes crammed into one book, and for me, it was not as much fun as I thought it was going to be.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
🌶️🌶️🌶️/5

Holy wow! I was not expecting to love this book as much as I did!

First of all, right off the bat this book had me rolling with laughter! Immediately I was hooked as a wiped away tears from laughing so hard.

But if the humor wasn’t enough to sell me, the writing style definitely sealed the deal. For a second there I thought I picked up the wrong book because I have never read a romance so intellectually worded. It was like a nice scratch of the brain.

The characters were absolutely amazing! Both hilarious and genuinely selfless people. Their backstories were so similar that it was easy to see how they meshed together so perfectly. Honestly, I have never come across two characters who were more perfect for one another.

Forest is THE perfect book boyfriend and nobody can convince me differently. He is everything we want in our very real men and then some. He definitely is unrealistically perfect but let’s be honest, I loved every bit of it.

Like the title suggests, there were a ton of tropes. Enemies to lovers, forced proximity…. Etc. As if the book couldn’t be any more perfect, it was a fun little extra bit to spot all of the different tropes. I honestly doubt I found them all but I definitely enjoyed trying.

As for the spice, there definitely was some and it was delicious! This book wasn’t riddled with smut but the parts we do get are utterly perfect and go along perfectly with the story line. I never felt like there were added scenes for the sake of the smut gods. The story line never faltered and the spice was perfectly in line with the chain of events.

Specifically though…. I wouldn’t say this book was kinky by any means but the spice is definitely a bit spicier than average. It certainly doesn’t come anywhere close to dark romance or BDSM.

Hands down, I would read this again without hesitation.

I personally recommend this book to anyone looking for a romance with a great storyline and some genuine characters. Especially if you are looking to literary laugh out loud.

I will say, there is mention of a parent abandoning their children and another parent dying of cancer so if you are sensitive to either, I would proceed with caution.

Acclaimed romance author Margot Bradley has a secret—she doesn’t believe in true love. While her readers swoon over her happily-ever-afters, she secretly writes alternate, cynical endings for herself. But when a hacker leaks her private notes, exposing her disillusionment, she faces a brutal social media backlash.

To escape the fallout, Margot retreats to Alaska, determined to reinvent herself by writing a murder mystery. What she doesn’t expect is to meet Forest—a doctor who seems ripped straight from the pages of her own novels. He’s in town to care for his ailing father, and his kindness, intelligence, and undeniable charm make Margot question everything she thought she knew about love.

The banter in this book is top-notch, full of wit and chemistry, and the secondary characters bring even more depth and charm to the story. A must-read romance with heart, humor, and a touch of fate!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was ADORABLE and should be expedited to the top of your TBR lists.
This grabbed my attention and my heart from the jump and it was hard to put down. The way Victoria utilizes popular romance “tropes” but somehow makes it work so perfectly with the story without seeming overdone or redundant.
The main characters were incredibly well developed and I truly felt connected to them through both of their individual stories as well as their story together.
The banter was hilarious and was a great balance between some of the heavier moments in the story. The will-they-won’t-they chemistry was palpable and the physical chemistry whoooaaaaaa boy. 🔥
Way more than just a cute giggling-and-kicking-my-feet romance novel; this had a lot of depth and truly showed how well rounded Victoria is as a writer. I laughed, I cried, I giggled and I overall loved this so much.
This was her DEBUT novel!

If you are fans of Abby Jimenez and Emily Henry - you will LOVE this one.

Thank you to Atria and Netgalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️.5

Yall this book was so damn precious and had me teary eyed a handful of times 🥹

Margot & Forrest were such a breath of fresh air in all the best ways. I fear nothing was better than a pessimistic romance author enduring all the classic tropes of a romcom in real life with a classic book mmc who just happens to be that great of a guy.
The pace of this book was absolute *chefs kiss* and that ending???? Victoria you are clever for that I must say 🤣

Thank you again Atria from the gifted e-arc 🫶🏼

In this cute romance novel, a popular romance author retreats to rural Alaska after being "cancelled". She has a meet-cute with the resort owners son, Forrest (this name was kind of lame...sorry.) A very much enemies to lovers, slow burn romance with secret pining and lots of tension. Although it was steamy, the emotional connection just between the mc's was not clicking for me. Plot development felt very slow, but the writing wasn't bad. Very tropey.