And with their beloved cottage getting sold off, making this the final summer, they don’t want to burden the others with their breakup.

But the requisite twist is that one of the couples, surgical resident Harriet Kilpatrick and carpenter Wyn Connor, have secretly broken off their engagement months ago without clueing in the most important people in their lives. One that stands out this year is group getaways in contemporary romances: Laura Kay’s Wild Things sees a group of friends buying a house in the English countryside-the lockdown dream-while Emily Henry’s latest reunites college buddies at the eponymous Happy Place in coastal Maine. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses).We’re far enough into this ongoing pandemic that it’s fascinating to see potential micro-trends popping up in fiction (aside from the clear delineation between those authors that did and did not set their novels in our covid timeline). Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blissful week they leave behind their daily lives have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most. Which is how they find themselves sharing a bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade.

And still haven’t told their best friends. Except, now-for reasons they’re still not discussing-they don’t. Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college-they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by BuzzFeed ∙ Paste Magazine ∙ Elle ∙ Southern Living ∙ SheReads ∙ Culturess ∙ Medium ∙ Her Campus ∙ Readers Digest ∙ Zibby Mag and more!Ī couple who broke up months ago pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry. “The beach-read master hooks us again.'- People

The happy place emily henry