It’s Day 11 of my 30 Days of Writing project and today I’m reviewing It’s a Love Story by Annabel Monaghan, published in May 2025.
I originally picked up this book because I saw it from across the street in a Little Free Library. My book radar was on high alert that day! Now I’m an Annabel Monaghan completist. Maybe I’ll do a ranking of all her books in the future!
It’s a Love Story is an enemies-to-lovers romance that begins in Hollywood. Of course there is a cross-country trip involved to a small town, and a “now you have to share a room” situation—a close proximity romance trope, and we love to read it.
One point I need to make that will have you either loving it or leaving it: you need to have watched the movie, The Notebook. I feel like there was a reference to the movie on every other page and, because I consider myself a Notebook expert, it worked for me! But if you haven’t seen the movie, I could see where you might feel like you aren’t “in” on the story.
This romance is for fans of Emily Henry and Carley Fortune and it’s a fairly quick read. The audiobook is 9 hours and is narrated by Hillary Huber.
Summary from the publisher:
Love is a lie. Laughter is the only truth.
Jane Jackson spent her adolescence as “Poor Janey Jakes,” the barbecue-sauce-in-her-braces punch line on America’s fifth-favorite sitcom. Now she’s trying to be taken seriously as a Hollywood studio executive by embracing a new mantra: Fake it till you make it.
Except she might have faked it too far. Desperate to get her first project greenlit and riled up by pompous cinematographer and one-time crush Dan Finnegan, she claimed that she could get mega popstar Jack Quinlan to write a song for the movie. Jack may have been her first kiss—and greatest source of shame—but she hasn’t spoken to him in twenty years.
Now Jane must turn to the last man she’d ever want to owe: Dan Finnegan. Because Jack is playing a festival in Dan’s hometown, and Dan has an in. A week in close quarters with Dan as she faces down her past is Jane’s idea of hell, but he just might surprise her. While covering up her lie, can they find something true?
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