It's a Love Story - Softcover

Monaghan, Annabel

 
9780593714102: It's a Love Story
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593714105 ISBN 13: 9780593714102
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

The Instant New York Times bestseller

“Poignant, funny, and bingeable, Annabel Monaghan writes five star reads.” —Abby Jimenez

From the USA Today bestselling author of Nora Goes Off Script, a novel about a former adolescent TV actress-turned-Hollywood producer whose “fake it till you make it” mantra sets her on a crash course with her past, forcing her to spend a week on Long Island with the last man she thinks might make her believe in love.

Love is a lie. Laughter is the only truth.

Jane Jackson spent her adolescence as "Poor Janey Jakes," the barbecue-sauce-in-her-braces punch line on America's fifth-favorite sitcom. Now she’s trying to be taken seriously as a Hollywood studio executive by embracing a new mantra: Fake it till you make it.

Except she might have faked it too far. Desperate to get her first project greenlit and riled up by pompous cinematographer and one-time crush Dan Finnegan, she claimed that she could get mega popstar Jack Quinlan to write a song for the movie. Jack may have been her first kiss—and greatest source of shame—but she hasn’t spoken to him in twenty years.

Now Jane must turn to the last man she’d ever want to owe: Dan Finnegan. Because Jack is playing a festival in Dan’s hometown, and Dan has an in. A week in close quarters with Dan as she faces down her past is Jane's idea of hell, but he just might surprise her. While covering up her lie, can they find something true?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Annabel Monaghan

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

Fake it till you make it is a philosophy that serves in literally every aspect of life. Slap a smile on your face and your brain will eventually think you're happy. That's not just me talking; it's science. Walk around in those Nikes until you feel like going for a run. Dress for the job you want. I was an actress for a big chunk of my adolescence, so you could say I am an expert in harnessing the power of imagination to get yourself where you want to be.

This morning I am also harnessing the power of my flat iron, a newly sharpened brow pencil, and a strawberry Pop-Tart. I need to show up for work looking like a winner, so I've been standing in front of my closet for ten minutes, re-ironing my hair and hoping the right outfit will reveal itself to me. I have a meeting with my boss to talk about next steps for my new project. If it's green-lit, True Story will be the first script I've brought to the studio that will actually be made into a movie. If it's made, it will make me. Today I need an outfit that whispers success really loudly. I don't miss much about being on TV, but on mornings like this I do miss the costume department. I want someone to tell me what scene I'll be walking through today and exactly how I should look.

I sort through my work clothes, blouses and skirts in shades of blue and gray. They're freshly pressed and definitely make me seem competent but make me look more like a flight attendant than an airline CEO. Next to them is my dating wardrobe, which I've chosen with more care than any costume department ever did. My first-date dress is green and white pin-striped and hits right below my knees. It's a dress you can't argue with. It's dignified and says I'm feminine but not trying too hard to be sexy. It says I'm a person you might consider kissing and then later introducing to your grandmother. When my future partner and I tell our kids about our first date, that's how I want him to describe me: kissable and Grandma-worthy. Think Reese Witherspoon in basically any movie.

The rest of the dresses also each have a specific purpose. Second date-show a little more skin. Third date-invite a kiss. And the all-important fourth date-Enter an Actual Relationship. I finish my Pop-Tart, wipe my hands on my pajamas, and pull out the fourth-date dress. It is, in a word, sensational. It's red and silk, not entirely appropriate for August in Los Angeles, but it's a deal-closer. The tags still dangle down the back because I haven't actually had a fourth date since I got serious about my Manifest a Solid Partner project last year. I bought it because I hoped it would bring new energy to the consistently disastrous fourth date. Sometimes it's the guy who blows it-he's rude to the waiter or admits to owning an accordion. Any mention of NASCAR and I'm out. More often than not, it's me. I get comfortable, I forget to be Reese Witherspoon, and he sees me for the B-teamer that I am. By the fourth date, I get impatient to just make it a thing already. I talk too much or too fast. A few times I've suggested plans way too far in the future, as in "My boss is getting married next spring, you should come!"

Oof!

I hold up the red dress and look in the mirror. Yes, I think. This is the kind of energy I want to bring to my meeting this morning. Today I'm going on a fourth date with my career. I love this thought so much that I take the dress off its hanger and rip off the tags. "Showtime," I say to my reflection.

I've been trying to get a script green-lit ever since I was promoted to creative executive two years ago. The scripts I've brought in have been low-stakes romantic comedies that I thought were pretty good, but none of them compare to True Story. This script is a total game changer. There's a tenderness to the writing and a truth to the humor that has its hooks in me. I even dreamed about it this morning, and I woke up laughing, chest vibrating from the force of it, tears in my eyes. I do that sometimes, laugh in my sleep. I don't know how I'll explain this to a partner if I find one.

I tie my sash in a careful square knot and take a second Pop-Tart and a mug of coffee onto the front porch just as the sky starts to brighten on Montana Avenue. Being a funny kid on TV got me the down payment on this little Spanish house. It has a big porch and a tile roof and a rounded front door painted a deep French blue. I am training bougainvillea to crawl up the porch and along the roofline. Bougainvillea feels like a kindergarten art project, little petals made out of fine pink paper that blow in the wind but are, oddly, fine in the rain.

I'm two miles from the beach, but if Pop Rocks had been picked up for more seasons or had been syndicated, I'd be down on Pacific Coast Highway listening to the waves with the cast of Friends. It's fine. Four years of my adolescence as barbecue-sauce-in-her-braces Janey Jakes was plenty. The thing I've learned about funny is that it can be a little reckless. To be laughing is to be a little out of control. And certainly, when trying to Manifest a Solid Partner, it is imperative that you keep funny in check. You're funny, I'd like to procreate with you, said exactly no man ever.

That's also science.

The teakettle whistles, and a minute later Clem joins me outside. "Wait. Fourth date?" she asks as she sits next to me on the porch swing.

"Well, sort of," I say and smooth the hem of my dress over my knees.

"There's no way you broke out the sacred dress if you're not a hundred percent sure there's a date. Who is it? I don't remember the third date." Clem raises her dark eyes to me. They're kind and tired. She moved in with me last year after the World's Shittiest Divorce. Of course I'm sorry about her terrible financial situation, but coming home to a house where another person lives has been the best change of my thirties. Clem was a godsend of a college roommate and is now a full-time geriatric nurse and a part-time bartender. She makes a living tending to human frailty.

"The date's not a who," I say. "It's a script. I've decided that today I'm having a fourth date with my career."

"Oh God, Jane. This sounds like YouTube self-help."

"No, this is coming from me. I have a meeting with Nathan this morning, and I am a hundred percent sure this script is the one that's finally going to get made. I can feel it." I don't say what I've been thinking: that this script is like an Aquarius or the number eight, just exactly right. I don't say that the universe has sent it to me to save me from the rumored round of fall layoffs. Which it totally has. I've lived in Los Angeles my whole life, and I know enough to know when I sound like it.

"And it's worthy of that dress? Wow. I hope you two will be very happy." She gives me a sideways smile and sips her tea.

"I swear I have a crush on this script," I say. "Like I might be madly in love with it." My voice cracks a tiny bit when I say this. I don't know what my problem is. There is something about this script that scares me a little. Just the heart of it. It's like I've swallowed the world's tiniest crowbar, and it's floating around inside me prying my closed bits open. To be clear, I don't actually believe in true love. I'm a grown-up. But if this script can affect me this way, then normal people are going to lose their minds.

"Is this the one where he puts his hand on his heart at the end?"

"Yes," I say. "And then she knows." I have my hand on my heart as I say it, and I swear I feel something move. "You'll see. This movie is going to make me legit."


I pull out of my driveway, turn on the radio, and it’s Jack Quinlan playing his number four single, “By My Side.” I change the station, and it’s Jack Quinlan playing his number two single, “Purple.” I switch to a reliably country station and, you guessed...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593714105
ISBN 13 
9780593714102
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
369
Kontakt zum Hersteller
G.P. Putnam's Sons
https://www.penguin.com/putnam/

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