Happy Place

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Happy Place

Knott's Harbor, Maine

A cottage on the rocky shoreline, with knotty pine floorboards and windows that are nearly always open. The smell of evergreens and brine wafting in on the breeze, and white linen drapes lifting in a lazy dance. The burble of a coffee maker, and that first deep pull of cold ocean air as we step out onto the flagstone patio, steaming mugs in hand.

My friends: willowy, honey-haired Sabrina and wisp of a waif Cleo, with her tiny silver septum piercing and dip-dyed box braids. My two favorite people on the planet since our freshman year at Mattingly College.

It still boggles my mind that we didn't know one another before that, that a stodgy housing committee in Vermont matched the three of us up. The most important friendships in my life all came down to a decision made by strangers, chance. We used to joke that our living arrangement must be some government-funded experiment. On paper, we made no sense.

Sabrina was a born-and-raised Manhattan heiress whose wardrobe was pure Audrey Hepburn and whose bookshelves were stuffed with Stephen King. Cleo was the painter daughter of a semi-famous music producer and an outright famous essayist. She'd grown up in New Orleans and showed up at Mattingly in paint-splattered overalls and vintage Doc Martens.

And me, a girl from southern Indiana, the daughter of a teacher and a dentist's receptionist, at Mattingly because the tiny, prestigious liberal arts school gave me the best financial aid, and that was important for a premed student who planned to spend the next decade in school.

By the end of our first night living together, Sabrina had us lined up on her bed watching Clueless on her laptop and eating a well-balanced mix of popcorn and gummy worms. By the end of the next week, she'd had custom shirts made for us, inspired by our very first inside joke.

Sabrina's read Virgin Who Can't Drive.

Mine read Virgin Who CAN Drive.

And Cleo's read Not a Virgin but Great

Emily Henry is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book Lovers, People We Meet on Vacation, and Beach Read. She studied creative writing at Hope College, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the part of Kentucky just beneath it. Find her on Instagram @emilyhenrywrites.

"Henry's new novel is a slow-burn romance and an ode to the chosen family we need when everything gets too complicated...The beach-read master hooks us again."
People

Blur[s] the lines between women s and literary-leaning commercial fiction, departing from the fantasy spaces of bodice rippers and misty moors to depict a world that looks a lot more like, well, our own Henry operates at the top of her and her readers intelligence, telling sophisticated, heartfelt stories that are conscious of the romantic comedy conventions without being overly meta about them Henry s dedicated readers know what to expect: wit, charm and heart, satisfying to the last page.
The Washington Post

With tender insight and quick wit, Henry delivers prosecco and sea breezes alongside startling mediations on friendship, loss, and adulthood.  
Oprah Quarterly

"Just in time for summer, Henry's latest rom-com is a charming, heartwarming read about second-chance romance." 
USA Today

Here she is at last, a reigning queen of beach reads Henry returns with another of her surefire-hit romantic comedies this spring, this one about a forced-proximity fake relationship Expect to see it on vacationers Instagram feeds all summer long, and deservedly so.  
Elle

For the last couple of years, Emily Henry has been the queen of romance novels, and that is not changing any time soon.  
Cosmopolitan

The queen of beach reads."
The Hollywood Reporter

"Another knock-out from the champ. The woman doesn't miss." 
Taylor Jenkins-Reid

"Emily Henry has done it again! Happy Place is a dazzling, poignant love story about the people and places our hearts call home. Bursting with warmth and wit, this unforgettable romance is one more reason my happy place is an Emily Henry book."
Carley Fortune, New York Times bestselling author of Every Summer After and Meet Me at the Lake

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