Tropesick

There are multiple layers of metafictionality to this clever romance about romance from Okie (The Best Worst Thing). Katie Caruso makes a perfectly good living ghostwriting for the famously reclusive romance author Meredith Bradford. However, the latest project comes with a wrinkle: thanks to tight deadlines, Katie has been assigned to work with a partner. This turns out to be literary fiction author Tyler McNally—Katie’s deceased older brother’s best friend and her former crush. Despite their rocky history, the two agree to work together on Meredith’s next book, a trope-filled love letter to Southampton. As their project proceeds, Katie and Tyler experience the very tropes woven into their plot (which, as it happens, is also about authors), each explicitly called out by Okie and her characters. Their “grumpy/sunshine,” “brother’s best friend,” and “girl next door” dynamics lead to a classic “second-chance romance” that ramps up a notch when circumstances necessitating they both take up residence in Meredith’s luxurious estate leave them in “forced proximity.” There’s a late twist about Meredith that many readers will predict, and all the fourth-wall breaking can get to be a lot, but Katie and Tyler’s chemistry is undeniable as they work through lingering grief and trauma to arrive at a predictable but satisfying destination. Fans of the growing self-referential rom-com subgenre will want to check this out. (June)