by Samantha Allen
First sentence: “I’ve knocked on a thousand doors before, but this one is different.”
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Release date: December 3, 2024
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is swearing, including many f-bombs. There is also talk of sex, and one description of a hate crime against an LGBTQ+ character. It will be in the Fiction section of the bookstore.

Adam is in a writing slump. He had one successful book – his tell-all memoir about leaving the Mormon Church when he came out as gay – but everything in the 15 years since then has fallen flat. He’s not even sure he can be a writer anymore. Then his agent lands him a cushy job: the Hollywood star Roland Rogers needs a ghostwriter right now and he wants Adam. Except Roland isn’t actually there. At least not physically – his body is buried under a mound of snow in Utah. However, his consciousness still exists and can inhabit the kitchen speaker, and so he can still talk to Adam. Once they get past the weirdness of the situation, they settle in to write. But it’s not going to be easy, on either of them. Between the two, there’s a lot of trauma to unpack – both religious and of the toxic masculinity varieites – and as they do, they end up growing closer.

In some ways, this is the straight up (if a little weird) romance the publishers are touting it as. They do develop a relationship. But, it’s so much more than that. In the end, I think the point of this one is to highlight the ways connection and vulnerability are important, how it’s possible to get by without them, but your life is so much richer with them. I didn’t end up cyring at the end, but I was moved by the decisions that Adam and Roland made, and the way their relationship turned out.

I’m not sure I would have ever picked this one up if I hadn’t been asked to read it by a well-meaning publicist, but I’m glad I did. It’s quite a delightful little book.