AJ Graves wants to write for Saturday Night Live and instead spends the summer of 2000 at a video rental counter. Emma Brodie's novel follows her bond with an acting dynasty's heir.

Readical Key Points

• A Reese's Book Club pick and a New York Times bestseller, according to the publisher
• A second-chance love story set among actors and comedians
• Content note: includes sexual content
• Reviewed in Booklist, Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly
• Hardcover, 448 pages, Ballantine Books, 2026; the publisher describes graphic endpapers and an embossed jacket

In a small Massachusetts town, AJ meets Noah Drew, heir to a family of famous actors. Despite very different upbringings they become close, first as friends and then as scene partners, until Noah disappears with no explanation. In New York seven years on, AJ finds herself cast in an intergalactic TV production alongside Noah, now a Hollywood heartthrob. As their characters draw closer on screen, the line between the roles and the two of them starts to give way.

An old secret stands between them, and the story follows them across decades. It suits readers of second-chance romance and of fiction set behind the scenes of television and comedy. The script keeps putting AJ and Noah in the same scene. Off camera, the lines are theirs to write.

About the Author

Emma Brodie has worked as an executive editor at Clarkson Potter and studied in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University. Her debut novel, Songs in Ursa Major, won the American Book Award.

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