People We Meet on Vacation
(Libby/OverDrive eAudiobook)

Short, loud Poppy and quiet, tall Alex were best friends who took a vacation together each summer for a decade, until their trip two years ago changed everything and tore them apart. Now Poppy lives in New York and works as a travel writer, but she has been feeling unsatisfied. She reaches out to Alex, currently a teacher in their Ohio hometown, and they make plans to travel once again. Poppy hopes that this trip will repair their friendship, but from the onset, they encounter one issue after another. Told through Poppy's perspective, the story shifts in time between the present and past summer trips. Henry, best-selling author of Beach Read (2020), excels at creating chemistry and charm, and readers will eagerly anticipate these characters finally admitting their feelings for each other. Their slow-burn romance builds as the flashbacks reveal their journey as unlikely friends through different schools, jobs, cities, and relationships with other people. The pacing sometimes falters, but the emotions always ring true. While Henry's romance may inspire some wanderlust, it's the people more than the places that truly dazzle.

Henry's latest rom-com lacks the spark of 2020's Beach Read, but still offers plenty of lighthearted summertime fun. Poppy Wright met Alex Nilsen 12 years ago on the first day of college orientation, and they never got along--until a road trip from Chicago back to their neighboring Ohio towns, which sparked a deep friendship and a tradition of taking a yearly sumer vacation together. But Poppy and Alex haven't spoken much since a disastrous trip two summers ago, and the details of what triggered their falling out are teased maddeningly slowly. When Poppy realizes that what she wants most in the world is to have Alex back in her life, she arranges a shoestring-budget vacation to Palm Springs that she hopes will fix everything. Flashbacks to each past summer trip make for fun travelogues that highlight both characters' understandable but frustrating refusal to discuss their feelings. Watching them dance around the inevitable grows tiresome as things drag on, but Henry's skills with sensory detail and lovable characters shine through. This is a strong choice for readers looking for a vicarious summer vacation of their own. Agent: Taylor Haggerty, Root Literary. (May)

Travel writer Poppy Wright finds that her inspiration is fading. It doesn't help that she hasn't spoken to her best friend for over two years. Hoping to reclaim both her friendship with Alex Nilsen and her zest for her career, Poppy schedules a vacation on the cheap, just like she and Alex used to during their college days. As challenges arise--including a busted-up rental car, a misleading condo rental that only has one bed, and a broken air conditioner--Poppy and Alex confront the event that tore them apart, which could create a new bond between them or end their friendship forever. A series of flashbacks show 12 years of summer vacations. Buttoned-up, starchy Alex and chaotic, sunny Poppy are perfect foils who are also a perfect match; they just need to let go of their fear and try. VERDICT Henry's latest will appeal to readers who are drawn to stories with emotion, poetic language, and a strong sense of place, like Kate Clayborn's Love Lettering.--Elizabeth Gabriel, Milwaukee P.L.

A travel writer has one last shot at reconnecting with the best friend she just might be in love with. Poppy and Alex couldn't be more different. She loves wearing bright colors while he prefers khakis and a T-shirt. She likes just about everything while he's a bit more discerning. And yet, their opposites-attract friendship works because they love each other…in a totally platonic way. Probably. Even though they have their own separate lives (Poppy lives in New York City and is a travel writer with a popular Instagram account; Alex is a high school teacher in their tiny Ohio hometown), they still manage to get together each summer for one fabulous vacation. They grow closer every year, but Poppy doesn't let herself linger on her feelings for Alex--she doesn't want to ruin their friendship or the way she can be fully herself with him. They continue to date other people, even bringing their serious partners on their summer vacations…but then, after a falling-out, they stop speaking. When Poppy finds herself facing a serious bout of ennui, unhappy with her glamorous job and the life she's been dreaming of forever, she thinks back to the last time she was truly happy: her last vacation with Alex. And so, though they haven't spoken in two years, she asks him to take another vacation with her. She's determined to bridge the gap that's formed between them and become best friends again, but to do that, she'll have to be honest with Alex--and herself--about her true feelings. In chapters that jump around in time, Henry shows readers the progression (and dissolution) of Poppy and Alex's friendship. Their slow-burn love story hits on beloved romance tropes (such as there unexpectedly being only one bed on the reconciliation trip Poppy plans) while still feeling entirely fresh. Henry's biggest strength is in the sparkling, often laugh-out-loud-funny dialogue, particularly the banter-filled conversations between Poppy and Alex. But there's depth to the story, too--Poppy's feeling of dissatisfaction with a life that should be making her happy as well as her unresolved feelings toward the difficult parts of her childhood make her a sympathetic and relatable character. The end result is a story that pays homage to classic romantic comedies while having a point of view all its own. A warm and winning When Harry Met Sally… update that hits all the perfect notes. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Short, loud Poppy and quiet, tall Alex were best friends who took a vacation together each summer for a decade, until their trip two years ago changed everything and tore them apart. Now Poppy lives in New York and works as a travel writer, but she has been feeling unsatisfied. She reaches out to Alex, currently a teacher in their Ohio hometown, and they make plans to travel once again. Poppy hopes that this trip will repair their friendship, but from the onset, they encounter one issue after another. Told through Poppy's perspective, the story shifts in time between the present and past summer trips. Henry, best-selling author of Beach Read (2020), excels at creating chemistry and charm, and readers will eagerly anticipate these characters finally admitting their feelings for each other. Their slow-burn romance builds as the flashbacks reveal their journey as unlikely friends through different schools, jobs, cities, and relationships with other people. The pacing sometimes falters, but the emotions always ring true. While Henry's romance may inspire some wanderlust, it's the people more than the places that truly dazzle. Copyright 2021 Booklist Reviews.

In the New York Times best-selling Henry's People We Meet on Vacation, vivacious travel writer Poppy once vacationed yearly with straight-and-narrow best friend Alex, but their last vacation left their relationship in shreds, and Poppy must talk him into one last trip so they can right the balance. In Jenoff's The Woman with the Blue Star, 18-year-old Sadie Gault is hiding in the sewers after the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto when she forms a tentative friendship with wealthy Polish girl Ella Stepanek (500,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). In Just Last Night, the latest from the internationally best-selling McFarlane (If I Never Met You), Eve is still crushing on Ed, among their group of four forever best friends, but her questions about what might have been are interrupted by a catastrophe upending all their lives (50,000-copy first printing). Best-selling novelist/memoirist Maynard returns with Count the Ways, which tracks the fate of a family when the parents break up after an accident that permanently injures the youngest child (50,000-copy first printing). Oakley follows up You Were There Too, a LibraryReads pick whose film rights have been sold, with The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, featuring an ambitious young journalist disgruntled about having to cover a fundraiser on Chesapeake Bay's Frick Island until he discovers the townsfolk pretending to hear and see a man who's not there—all for the sake of his widow. Inspired by a real-life individual, Phillips's The Family Law stars a crusading young family lawyer in early 1980s Alabama whose efforts to help women escape abusive marriages brings death threats that eventually endanger a teenager she has befriended. In Shipman's latest, terminally ill Emily wants the lifelong friends she made at summer camp in 1985 to scatter her ashes at the camp, and The Clover Girls find another life-affirming request from her when they oblige (100,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). No plot details yet on Weiner's That Summer, but the setting is sunstruck Cape Cod, and there's a 350,000-copy first printing. Weir's Katharine Parr, The Sixth Wife, tells the story of twice-widowed Katharine, cornered into marriage with Henry VIII and shamelessly used by an old lover after Henry's death.

Travel writer Poppy Wright finds that her inspiration is fading. It doesn't help that she hasn't spoken to her best friend for over two years. Hoping to reclaim both her friendship with Alex Nilsen and her zest for her career, Poppy schedules a vacation on the cheap, just like she and Alex used to during their college days. As challenges arise—including a busted-up rental car, a misleading condo rental that only has one bed, and a broken air conditioner—Poppy and Alex confront the event that tore them apart, which could create a new bond between them or end their friendship forever. A series of flashbacks show 12 years of summer vacations. Buttoned-up, starchy Alex and chaotic, sunny Poppy are perfect foils who are also a perfect match; they just need to let go of their fear and try. VERDICT Henry's latest will appeal to readers who are drawn to stories with emotion, poetic language, and a strong sense of place, like Kate Clayborn's Love Lettering.—Elizabeth Gabriel, Milwaukee P.L.

Henry's latest rom-com lacks the spark of 2020's Beach Read, but still offers plenty of lighthearted summertime fun. Poppy Wright met Alex Nilsen 12 years ago on the first day of college orientation, and they never got along—until a road trip from Chicago back to their neighboring Ohio towns, which sparked a deep friendship and a tradition of taking a yearly sumer vacation together. But Poppy and Alex haven't spoken much since a disastrous trip two summers ago, and the details of what triggered their falling out are teased maddeningly slowly. When Poppy realizes that what she wants most in the world is to have Alex back in her life, she arranges a shoestring-budget vacation to Palm Springs that she hopes will fix everything. Flashbacks to each past summer trip make for fun travelogues that highlight both characters' understandable but frustrating refusal to discuss their feelings. Watching them dance around the inevitable grows tiresome as things drag on, but Henry's skills with sensory detail and lovable characters shine through. This is a strong choice for readers looking for a vicarious summer vacation of their own. Agent: Taylor Haggerty, Root Literary. (May)