I was looking forward to reading this book as I have read all of Emily Henry's previous books and really enjoyed them.

Although there were enjoyable aspects, I didn't find myself quite as drawn into this story as I have previously been, although still a decent read.

The ending is fairly predictable but I also enjoyed the exploration and dynamics of the different friendship groups.

Perfection. This felt like a love child of all three previous EH books - it has a little of everything. I loved it.

The consistency of Emily Henry is truly remarkable, every book establishes a cast of characters that feel real and fresh and then sends you on a journey with them! I really enjoyed the reflections on their relationship, as well as the different types of relationships within the group. Henry does an amazing job with justifying the premise and making the story feel grounded and romantic.

Headlines:
Angsty tension
Everything isn't fine
People pleasing

I really like what Emily Henry did with this novel, we started with the difficult and pretty much stayed there for a lot of the book. This was one hell of an angsty read, the type where you close the book to breathe a bit and then get the courage to open it again.

The story immersed the reader in found family but that family was hitting the dysfunctional buttons pretty hard for all sorts of reasons. I feel like this bunch of friends had grown and changed but they felt the need to pretend they were still as they were a decade ago. Sabrina was a tough one to like but the others were easier to bond with.

The MCs Harriet and Wyn were truly likeable but fathoming what the heck was going on with these two was difficult. I could figuratively feel the unease in Harriet about a bunch of things, Wyn included. There was a bucket load of baggage from family, childhood and pressurised expectations. Harriet was all about the people pleasing but she lacked insight into herself.

I devoured this book over two days and there was so much substance to pick over. I love that Emily Henry doesn't write to a personal formula. This offering felt quite different to her other romances but equally as great. Don't expect ease and laughter, brace for tension and angst. Highly recommended.

"Love means constantly saying you're sorry, and then doing better."

Thank you to Viking Books for the review copy.

Emily Henry's books are the epitome of comfort. She really knows how to navigate tropes and cliches from the romance genre and make it her own. If you're a fan of her other works, you're going to love this.

“Part of me wants to pretend I have you, but another part thinks I’ll die if you don’t tell me you love me, even if it doesn’t change anything. Even if it’s just getting to hear it one more time.”

Emily Henry has done it again! Another 5-star read from this wonderfully talented author. Wyn, Harriet, and their friends completely stole our hearts in a story of love, loss, friendship, grief, and growing up as we join them for a last hoorah spending a week in their favourite holiday house before it’s sold. Knotts Harbor, Maine holds so many happy memories for these friends, however, as the week wears on they’re forced to confront the realisation of change, adulthood, and the responsibilities of life. This is especially the case for Wyn and Harriet and their relationship.

“It’s killing me hearing how happy you are, without even understanding how I – how I –“My voice quavers, my breath coming in spurts. “I don’t know what I did to make you so miserable.”

Although Happy Place is a little heavier, more ‘sadder’ than her previous books, there’s one thing this author is particularly good at, and that is knowing precisely when to inject humour into a moment, to turn the heaviness and hurt into a smile. And she did just that with Happy Place.

‘Even when something beautiful breaks, the making of it still matters.’

Wynn Connor (be still our beating hearts!) and Harriet Kilpatrick are the perfect couple. The ‘it’ couple who would weather any storm and be together forever…until they weren’t. After ending their near-decade relationship some six months earlier, to appease their friends, who are in the dark about their breakup, they agree to ‘fake their relationship; whilst meeting up for one week as their last hoorah at their favourite group holiday spot, to pretend they are still as happy as ever.

“Maybe I need to know that he remembers that he hasn’t totally forgotten what it felt like to love me.”

Easy, right? Wrong! With wounds unhealed, pretending everything is hunky dory proves extremely difficult and painful. But they soldier on for their friends, whilst giving their hearts a right battering. We could FEEL the pain, the loss, and the hurt between Wyn and Harriet and it killed us! However, despite the anger, resentment, and pain, one thing was paramount and that was the love between these two! Wow! It was so powerful; their love was almost a character all on its own.

“You can trust me, Harriet.” In that moment, he pierces a little deeper into my heart, opens another door, and finds an entire walled-off room I didn’t realise was there.’

Told in past/present switches in Harriet’s POV, we revelled in the beauty of their formidable love, whilst feeling the incredible pain of their months apart, as we slowly pieced together the moments that led to Wyn calling an end to their unbreakable bond. We’re not giving anything else away because the little pieces must be played out as they lead you to the highly emotive end.

‘Maybe that was part of the anger that burned in me too: disappointment that I hadn’t loved him well enough to make him happy, nor well enough to let him go.’

The love that emanated from the pages between Wyn and Harriet is palpable! We couldn’t help wondering what it was that broke them up. The build-up to the end was a slow beautiful burn, with the ending making all the heartache Henry put us through so rewarding, as she pulled this story together. The heart-warming stories, witty sense of humour, beautiful romance, and wonderful characters win us over time and time again. And a special THANK YOU for giving us, Wyn Connor!

I’m really pleased I got to read this, it was an absolute pleasure to read this book. Pretty sure I’ve recommended it to anyone that would listen!

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

Sometimes, it happens. You beguin a book, and then, you literaly can't put it down. That's what happened for me there. I HAD to know what happened to the characters, even if my heart has been constantly torn in the process.

Harriet has a group a friends that has become her family. Among those friends, she has found her soulmate, Wyn.
Every year, they all gather in Maine for a Lobster's festival. This summer house is her happy place, where all her best memories occured. And yet, this year, she doesn't look forward to this trip. Because Wyn and her have split up 5 months ago. And she fears that their friendship balance will suffer from his absence. That she will suffer from it.
Except, when she arrives, Wyn is here...

This book is a long trip down memory lane, where every important piece of Wyn's and Harriet relation is told, and every important friendship moments with Sabrina, and Cleo, and Parth, and Kim. But it's also all those "now" moments, when Harriet doesn't understand why they split up, when Wyn's behaviour doesn't help, because clearly, he's still attracted to her, when she tries to understand what when wrong, what she did wrong to disappoint her loved ones. And through this week, she realises a lot of things.
I rarely had my heart so tormented by a book : sadness, joy, hope, ununderstanding, and for my sake, I had to finish it. Thank you Emily Henry for that powerful piece, and thank you NetGalley and Penguin for sending me this ARC, definitely one of my must read this year !

Happy Place is a story of how two people can love each other but still grow apart because they never talk to each other about the important things. I do like a bit of miscommunication in romance novels, but here the female MC is constantly making assumptions which lead to her pushing her ex-fiancé away, as well as her friends, and never actually talking about her feelings.

I see that Henry tried to base all the six characters mainly involved in the story in some sort of backstory trauma that led to them behaving the way they did, but all in all this didn't work for me.

Lots of people will love this story, I'm sure. It was a mediocre read for me though.

When Harriet shows up at her best friend's place in Maine for their usual week-long holiday the last person she expects to see is her fiancé Wyn, because they broke up 6 months ago, and just failed to tell everyone. But this is the last time they'll all be together here. The cottage is for sale, and since they can't bear to break their best friends' hearts, they'll fake it for one more week.

As a bit fan of Emily Henry's romance novels I was dying to read this book. It is definitely her most emotionally charged and darker romance. I was worried at time where this was heading, and the story set my on a free-falling rollercoaster. But that doesn't mean I didn't absolutely love it. Emily Henry is the best at romantic banter between main characters and this book didn't fail to deliver on that front.

Harriet and Wyn are living separate lives after calling off their engagement months earlier. The annual friend holiday has come around and they haven’t told any of their friends about the breakup so they agree only one of them will go on the trip. Sabrina, trip organiser and owner of the holiday house, also has a secret. They are selling the house and it’s the last trip they’ll have there together. She has convinced Wyn to attend and now they have to pretend for a week that they are still together. But is it pushing the other friendships further apart. Secrets are revealed as the pressure cooker explodes.
I really wanted to love this as so many people rave about Emily Henry and this was my first book by her, but I just didn’t. Fair dues I am not a huge romance reader and have only just started getting in to it but something just fell short for me. I didn’t love any of the characters, they were all quiet annoying and made me lose interest easily. I normally love a super cheesy cliche but this one just missed the mark. I found myself not wanting to pick up the book and that’s a big sign for me. I know people will love this book, it’s still well written and I would still recommend it for romance lovers, unfortunately this one just wasn’t for me this time and that’s okay.

God, what an utter delight this was to read!
Having never read an Emily Henry novel before (and, in all honesty, having been wary of romances for so long), I ventured into this almost entirely blind, but with incredibly high expectations. HAPPY PLACE has exceeded every. Single. One.
This book takes place in both the current day, and the mental escapes of our protagonist, Harriet, to her various ‘happy places’, and charts the rise and fall of her relationship with her college sweetheart and former fiance, Wyn as she grapples with seeing him again for the first time since he broke off their engagement five months ago. Except they haven’t told their best friends yet. And now they’re all on holiday together.
Henry handles every character with a phenomenally deft hand. Even at their worst, their most frustrating, I never stopped rooting for a single one of them. The story’s progression was realistic, and free of the rather tiresome trappings that are associated with the genre. This is a modern love story about growth - both together, and apart - and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
I’m eager to immerse myself in more of Emily Henry’s work, and cannot wait to see her climb to ever-greater heights.

“Love, I think. That's new. And I'll never be happy without it again.”

Not to be dramatic but I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same after this book. There’s something about Emily Henry’s writing that has always spoken to me but this was next level. The most heartbreaking and emotive second chance romance I have ever and potentially will ever read.

"I thought I made you. Just by wishing."

The way in which EH writes Harriet and Wyn’s story is with the most stunning prose and characterisation. This was truly a story of two soulmates that were simply plagued by the outside world. The story unfolds by flipping back and forth from retrospective flashbacks to present day. This is one of my favourite plot formats so I was already sold. It is to be noted that EH does not write classic romance, it is very much a nuanced, between the lines kind of romance but it is done perfectly.

This book focuses on some heavier topics such as grief, the loss of a life you expected to have and how your environment can really affect your relationships. But beautifully paired with the joys of female friendship, found family and truly soul bonded love. I cried 15 pages in, which really just set the tone for the whole book.

“The feeling of being so grateful to have something worth missing.”

I have never experienced such delicious angst and tension: the whiplash of romance and sexual tension to heartbreaking moments was just wild. The way the characters find their way back to both themselves and each-other, oh my days. I think this book will hit home really hard for anyone that has been in a long term relationship but the strife is 100% worth the peace.

This will be a book I will reread forever and never forget. It’s been almost a week since finishing it and I still can’t think too much about it without crying.

Happy Place is out on the 25th of April, don’t walk, RUN to get this book! Thank you to Penguin via Netgalley for the ARC.

This book was such a cozy, feel-good second chance romance.

I loved the chemistry between Harriet and Wyn, and the choice to alternate between two timelines (e.g. when they met and present day) was so clever. I particularly loved the friendship between Harriet, Cleo, and Sabrina (their t-shirts — e.g. "Virgin that CAN drive" — reminded me of something my friends and I would do), and Henry's prose was beautiful and descriptive as always. I did find the plot a bit slow at times (particularly scenes like their trip to the grocery store, which felt a bit filler-esque to me), but the dynamic characters and witty dialogue kept me turning the pages. Another triumph for Emily Henry, for sure!

“Part of me wants to pretend I have you, but another part thinks I’ll die if you don’t tell me you love me, even if it doesn’t change anything. Even if it’s just getting to hear it one more time.”

Emily Henry has done it again! Another 5-star read from this wonderfully talented author. Wyn, Harriet, and their friends completely stole our hearts in a story of love, loss, friendship, grief, and growing up as we join them for a last hoorah spending a week in their favourite holiday house before it’s sold. Knotts Harbor, Maine holds so many happy memories for these friends, however, as the week wears on they’re forced to confront the realisation of change, adulthood, and the responsibilities of life. This is especially the case for Wyn and Harriett and their relationship.

“It’s killing me hearing how happy you are, without even understanding how I – how I –“My voice quavers, my breath coming in spurts. “I don’t know what I did to make you so miserable.”

Although Happy Place is a little heavier, more ‘sadder’ than her previous books, there’s one thing this author is particularly good at, and that is knowing precisely when to inject humour into a moment, to turn the heaviness and hurt into a smile. And she did just that with Happy Place.

‘Even when something beautiful breaks, the making of it still matters.’

Wynn Connor (be still our beating hearts!) and Harriet Kilpatrick are the perfect couple. The ‘it’ couple who would weather any storm and be together forever…until they weren’t. After ending their near-decade relationship some six months earlier, to appease their friends, who are in the dark about their breakup, they agree to ‘fake their relationship; whilst meeting up for one week as their last hoorah at their favourite group holiday spot, to pretend they are still as happy as ever.

“Maybe I need to know that he remembers that he hasn’t totally forgotten what it felt like to love me.”

Easy, right? Wrong! With wounds unhealed, pretending everything is hunky dory proves extremely difficult and painful. But they soldier on for their friends, whilst giving their hearts a right battering. We could FEEL the pain, the loss, and the hurt between Wyn and Harriett and it killed us! However, despite the anger, resentment, and pain, one thing was paramount and that was the love between these two! Wow! It was so powerful; their love was almost a character all on its own.

“You can trust me, Harriet.” In that moment, he pierces a little deeper into my heart, opens another door, and finds an entire walled-off room I didn’t realise was there.’

Told in past/present switches in Harriet’s POV, we revelled in the beauty of their formidable love, whilst feeling the incredible pain of their months apart, as we slowly pieced together the moments that led to Wyn calling an end to their unbreakable bond. We’re not giving anything else away because the little pieces must be played out as they lead you to the highly emotive end.

‘Maybe that was part of the anger that burned in me too: disappointment that I hadn’t loved him well enough to make him happy, nor well enough to let him go.’

The love that emanated from the pages between Wyn and Harriet is palpable! We couldn’t help wondering what it was that broke them up. The build-up to the end was a slow beautiful burn, with the ending making all the heartache Henry put us through so rewarding, as she pulled this story together. The heart-warming stories, witty sense of humour, beautiful romance, and wonderful characters win us over time and time again. And a special THANK YOU for giving us, Wyn Connor!

Now in their late twenties, three couples who’ve known each other since college reconvene in a summer house in Maine (USA) for their yearly Lobster Festival Week get-together. Wyn, a carpenter, and his fiancée of eight years Harriet, a hospital resident studying neurosurgery (!), have decided not to tell their friends about having suddenly split up five months ago in order not to spoil their friends‘ holiday. Wyn and Harriet never actually talked to each other about the reasons for that split and both instead keep making unsolicited sacrifices for what they imagined was to the good of their ex-partner and respective families and are no longer on speaking terms…This results in multiple misunderstandings, endless ruminations about each other and altogether very unlikely juvenile behaviour of the main protagonists.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me this advanced copy of Emily Henry’s new book!

I wanted to love this so bad like I loved her other books so dearly but I do not. I really didn’t get on with the 2 timelines and I felt it very slow. I also found the main girl, Harriet, hard to like and it was really hard to understand her and Wyn.

I’m so sad to say this but my least favourite book of hers.

5/5⭐️

Emily Henry did it again.
I sobbed. I screamed. I laughed.

This book comes out in over a month (April 25th) so I thought it was finally time to review it (at least a little bit more until it's published 😉). But firstly, I would like to thank Penguin Random House UK, for sending me this marvelous book that quickly became one of my favorites.

For those who don't know, Emily Henry is one of my favorite romance authors ever. I loved People We Meet on Vacation and Book Lovers (Beach Read not so much) so I was really excited when I received an email with this arc. I couldn't believe it.

I don't know how she does it, but Emily Henry always finds a way to make me relate to her characters and empathize with them, and this wasn't any different. I recommend every single one of you to read this, it was beautiful.

I found this book different from the rest of her books, it felt more mature, somehow. I feel like it wasn't as romcom-ish as her last books and it focused a lot more on different struggles people go through as they grow up, and it had a lot of interesting themes about friendship, family, and happiness... It felt a little more complete and I was fully absorbed in their story.

Plot:
It's about Harriet and Wyn. The couple met over ten years ago and dated for many years, even to the point that they were fiances... but now they aren't together anymore and their friend group is hosting their annual get-together at their cottage. But, this is their last week at the cottage because they're selling it, hence why they keep their break-up secret from their best friends, so nothing ruins this week. However, there's still a flame between them and as time goes by and the memories come in, they feel it, too, so why did they break up?

Romance:
One of my favorite things about this couple is how real they feel. The book narrates the story from the moment they met all those years ago, so the reader gets to feel their chemistry from the beginning. And the reason why they broke up... it was absolutely perfect. It wasn't like most romance books where it comes out of nowhere. No, there was a build-up and it made sense. I think it's one of the most mature relationships I've ever read about, their communication, and the respect and admiration they had for one another, are truly amazing.

Writing:
As I mentioned before, I loved it. It's told in two different time periods: one titled "Happy Place", which takes place in the past and you can see Harriet meeting her best friends, falling in love with Wyn, and living these little happy memories, full of joy and love, up until their break up when their happiness begins to fade... which made the present chapters so much harder to read. Just knowing how happy they were and how life circumstances tore them apart somehow made me tear up a little.

Characters:
I love the way EH writes characters. It's difficult to explain, but it's like in not many pages, she can make the reader fall in love with every single one of them. You can see them at their best, and at their worst, understand their struggles, and empathize with them. You feel love and happiness when they do. You sob and scream when they suffer... I don't know how she does it, but I can always connect with every single one of her characters on a different level. Harriet and Wyn have to go through a lot throughout this book, not only when it comes to their relationship, but also a lot of personal issues that they have to address and it's the way they face those problems that make her characters feel so real to the reader. And as I mentioned, this doesn´t only happen with the main characters, but you also fall in love with secondary characters and understand them.

And I think that's all I'm going to say until it comes out. And I'm obviously going to reread it :)

This was a little different to previous Emily Henry book, a more melancholic, slow burning story, much more than a will they won't they story of exes considering again a future together. I really enjoyed it and felt a lot of empathy for the characters and definitely was rooting for Harriet all the way through! Would definitely recommend!

Listen. There is just something about Emily Henry’s romances. Something that makes me fall in love not only with the stories but also with reading itself. I love reading, always, don’t get me wrong. But Emily Henry’s words always fill me with such a love for the written word and the world and love. Yes, a love for love. I don’t know how she does it, but as soon as I start a book by Emily Henry, I cannot stop reading. Happy Place was no different. I was absolutely and totally invested in the story from the very first sentence.

First of all, the atmosphere of the book came across so well. It was summery, full of tension, somewhat melancholic, the end and the start of something. There is all the easiness of knowing people for years, the way things just click and are self-explanatory but there is also the tension of having secrets. There’s the summer holidays that are possibly the last ones ever at a place the whole friend group went to for ages, there’s something ending but that also means that new possibilities are awaiting. It was all so well put into words, that I could feel the summer breeze on my skin, imagine how people pad into the kitchen in the morning, how there is so much hope and purpose and history everywhere.

The book starts out on a lighter note and only scratches at the surface of what’s to come. But thanks to the characters having all this history and the hints here and there, along with throwback scenes, make the story deeper quickly and it was very easy for me to just let myself get captured by the story entirely. It was easy to get to know the characters and the dynamics of the friend group.
I really, really loved the group. They are not only friends, they are family and I’m nothing if not a sucker for the found-family-trope. I enjoyed how different the characters were but how well they functioned with and complemented each other. Everybody brought something else to the group. It was highly enjoyable to read about their past and present and dreams for the future. The friendship played such a big role in Happy Place and I’m very glad for it! I simply adored this group and I’d read many more books about them.

Of course, I also enjoyed the romance. A lot. Emily Henry really takes all of my favourite tropes and makes amazing things with them. Second chances are something I could read endlessly, I love when there’s history between the characters already and we get to explore their feelings and why they need that second chance in the first place. I liked that the two of them have such a big understanding for each other but also want to protect themselves and how they manage to get through their problems. There were so many little lovely details to their relationship that I loved and treasured.

Happy Place is definitely one of my favourite books of the year. It’s only March but I know that much. The attention to the little things that make relationships into something real, the wonderful characters and the whole setting make for a perfect book. Yes, I’m going out and say what this book is to me: perfect. I simply loved it and I wish I could live in it. Happy Place is my happy place.