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Book 82 - Any Trope but You, by Victoria Lavine

Margot is a wildly successful romance writer who doesn’t believe in Happlily Ever Afters. As a way to vent her frustrations with love, she keeps a Happliy Never After file on her computer, where her literary couples get sexually transmitted diseases and divorced. She’s hacked and this file gets released into the world, and Margot is cancelled by the romance community and her publisher. Ok, this is a little hard to believe, since I love romance novels, and I wouldn’t care if an author created something like this. In fact, I’d probably read it and laugh. Anyway, I’ll suspend disbelief. 

Margot’s sister, who suffers from a debilitating autoimmune disease, sends Margot on a six-week trip from LA to Alaska, where Margot can lick her wounds and begin a manuscript in a new genre. There Margot meets Forrest, who helps run the lodge. He’s a ruggedly handsome doctor who is back home to help his father, who recently had a stroke. The author pokes fun at romance tropes, and Margot frequently acknowledges that Forrest is an unrealistic amalgamation of all her romance heros. I wouldn’t have minded a little less Margot and a little more Forrest for the dual perspectives. 

Margot’s sister sent letters that Forrest doles out after completed excursions (as directed by the sister), and this felt a bit plot-device-y to me, since the letters always seemed to hit on exactly what Margot was struggling with at the time, despite the letters being sent all at once right after Margot arrived in Alaska.

Forrest and Margot spend a lot of time determined not to be attracted to each other. He’s committed to to staying in Alaska to help his father, and he already had one bad experience hooking up with a guest at the lodge. Margot doesn’t believe in love, plus it’s pointless to fall for someone who lives in Alaska, when her life, including her sick sister, in is LA.

I really liked the writing and will happliy read her next book. 

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