I also love Emma Straub her new book, This Time Tomorrow, is amazing. Whenever I write food descriptions, I think of her as the gold standard. Good thing, because Elin Hilderbrand makes me starving. You remind me of her! You put similar types of fun decorations on the story-food, clothes, bars and restaurants, books and authors, even exercise, which you both seem to think is a gas. Who are some of your favorite beach read authors? But if it doesn’t have an irresistible question that must be answered, then it’s probably not a beach read. If it doesn’t have a beach, that’s no big deal. So-why Beach Read? What did that shorthand mean to you?Ī “beach read” is all about compulsive readability, a hook that’s so powerful you just keep your nose in your book despite any and all stimuli around you-your job, your real life, and even your vacation just fade into the background. I think I’ll end up writing coming-of-age stories about 65-year-olds.Īs a 64-year-old, I wouldn’t doubt it. Then I had the semihorrifying realization that this was just going to keep happening for my entire life. They are finding their place in the world, solidifying their identities, shedding parts of their personalities that once seemed permanent-just as I was.

But as I got into the story, I realized that I was actually writing another coming-of-age novel, only the characters were in their late 20s and early 30s-as I was at the time-instead of their teens. When I started writing Beach Read, I didn’t think I would be pursuing publication-I saw it as a fun escape from writer’s block I was having elsewhere. Let’s start with your decision to cross into adult fiction. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. On the eve of the publication of Book Lovers (Berkley, May 3), which our reviewer deemed “a warm, sparkling romance brimming with laugh-out-loud banter, lovable characters, and tons of sexual tension,”Henry, 31, sat down for a Zoom conversation about her road to the proverbial beach. Things took off, to put it mildly, and she followed up the next year with another New York Times bestseller, People We Meet on Vacation.

Emily Henry was the successful author of four YA novels when she tried her wings in the adult market with 2020’s Beach Read.

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