College sweethearts Harriet and Wyn were the perfect couple for decades until one day they weren’t. Six months to the day since the breakup, the two still have yet to break the news to their best friends. The group’s yearly getaway to a cottage in Maine approaches and inevitably the two hatch an unwanted scheme: to pretend to be together for the length of the week, avoiding any inquisition from their friends and confrontation with one another. But the cottage is for sale, meaning this is the penultimate trip for the group, and may very well be the last time they are all together. Moreover, distance has not dulled the ache between Wyn and Harriet, and they walk a fragile line between everything they are pretending and everything they could be. Keeping up appearances will mean continuing to lie, not only to their friends and each other but to themselves.
Happy Place is absolute magic, bottled up and delivered in the form of saccharine summer days, happiness, teary moments, and newfound longing, and I loved every single second of it. With her fourth novel, Emily Henry extends upon the brilliance of her previous three works, both narratively and in scope of character. Its wonderfully unique friendships and signature blend of past and present merge to deliver a truly unforgettable romance. Through her first attempt at the second chance storyline, Emily Henry delivers a romance that completely altered my brain chemistry. An established history grounds the story and instills lingering tension that builds and builds as Henry swings us back and forth between the past and present day. It’s a romance that slowly crept up on me, as Henry takes a fragmented retrospect narratively, but nevertheless makes you feel every cutting moment and longing glance. Where this novel really sunk into my bones is the simultaneous developing and rekindling romance between Wyn and Harriet. There’s magic wrapped up in this love story and these friendships, centered around the changes in life that they have all weathered together. For that matter, Happy Place stands apart from Henry’s first three novels, specifically because of its friend group. Unresolved feelings run deep with our main couple, but close friends also harbor secrets. Couples deal with their own issues and losses, as Wyn and Harriet navigate their own. It feels very found family, particularly with Harriet shouldering a difficult upbringing with friends that have very much become her family. Various griefs and unresolved trauma intersect this renewed love story imbuing such depth into the second-chance romance. Wholeheartedly intimate, sensual, and vulnerable, Happy Place is an open window into the burdens we shoulder and the connections that give us strength. No doubt Emily Henry’s best romance novel yet and proof that she is only going to get better from here.
Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing this arc in exchange for an honest review.
Trigger warnings: grief, infidelity
My Blurb for Happy Place is an Indie Next #1 Pick
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