Page 14 of A Novel Love Story

Rain? But it had been clear just a moment ago. I held out my hand, and another raindrop landed in my palm.

There was apop, and I glanced up just as the bookstore owner navigated a large umbrella over my head. Rain drummed on the open fabric, loud and hard. There were questions—so many questions—right on the tip of my tongue.

And he already knew all of them.

“Every day is about the same here,” Anders said after a moment. “A storm blows in around noon, and then another in the early evening. The inn is always under renovation, the burgers at Gail’s bar are always slightly burnt, the honey taffy is always sweet, and the starlings always make their nests in the eaves.”

I stared at him, unsure of what he was getting at.

“The clock tower is always three minutes behind,” he went on, “and Lily’s book is always losing its pages, and Lyssa always pines over Maya when she passes the flower shop. Nothing ever changes. Nothing ever will.”

The rain had begun to let up a little already. Bits of sunlight broke through the clouds.

“If I ask you a question,” I said, scooting to the edge of the bench to look up at him, into those bright mint-colored eyes, “will you promise to tell me the truth? The actual truth?”

His hard expression softened a little. I tried to place him—somewhere in all the pages Pru and I read. White-blond hair and green eyes, a strong jaw and a nose that looked like it’d been broken at least once, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember. The last I recalled, the bookstore had been for sale. In want of a new owner.

“I promise to tell you the truth.” He surprised me, because he sounded as sincere as he had with the girl—Lily. Who was she to him? A niece? A cousin? She called him uncle, but I didn’t remember Lily Shah having an uncle.

Anders, Andie,Anderson—I didn’t remember the name in any of the books.

He was the only part of this town, this story, that wasn’t familiar. Maybe he had been hidden somewhere in the pages, some strong-jawed man sipping tea at the Grumpy Possum Café, and I’d just skimmed over him in search of the happily ever after.

“Is this really …” I hesitated, because it couldn’t be, itcouldn’tbe—

The clock tower behind me began to chime noon in that bright, distinct song that hummed across the buildings, so loud I vibrated with it. I closed my eyes. Let the hum pass over me, through me, around me, until it faded into the sounds of the town again: birdsong and bug noises and the distinct chatter of life.

He inclined his head and tilted the umbrella back. The rain had stopped, and the way the afternoon sunlight danced across the town reminded me of light at the bottom of a fish tank. Down the street,shop owners propped open their doors and set out their chalkboards again, waving to each other in that small-town way, as if they were perfectly happy with every day being the exact same, one hour bleeding into the next, into days and weeks and months, where nothing ever changed, ever transformed, until the turn of the page.

“Welcome,” he said, closing his umbrella, “to Eloraton.”

5

Beginnings of a Book Club

SOMETIMES, A BOOK CANchange 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 are 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.

At first it didn’t reallyfeellike anything special. It was a romance, one I’d picked up at my local independent bookstore because it had a fun cover, and I liked small-town stories, and I’d been in my hardest year of undergrad. The world felt gray, and just the sight of a book made my stomach turn from all the anxiety of late-night essays and GPAs and scholarship funding. And the book was just sitting there. It was the copy on the shelf, wedged between Brontë and Gabaldon, on a single bookcase set aside for romances.

The book had just come out, but it was already 50 percent off,and I figured with the change I could get a cup of coffee across the street at Starbucks, too.

The moment was so unassuming, sonormal.

Sometimes, that’s how it happens. Sometimes your favorite book just hits you out of the blue like a bolt of lightning.

Daffodil Daydreamswas a paperback original. First in a series of five called the Quixotic Falls Quintet. It was written by a woman not much older than me. I imagined we could’ve been friends in high school, maybe classmates in college. I’d sidle up beside her and casually tell her that she wrote a novel that changed my life.

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.

And because of it, I went on to grad school to study library and information science, and I took an adjunct job at my alma mater, and that was how I wound up as an English professor, where more than a few of my mutuals questioned my taste. Then again, they always lied when they said their favorite book wasLolitaorFight Club. (There was one guy who said his favorite wasThe Hobbit, and I believed him, at least.)

So when Pru came to my windowless office one autumn day four years after I first readDaffodil Daydreams, bringing with her a pumpkin spice latte and a warm cookie she’d freshly baked at home, and told me about a romance book club, I was intrigued.

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