American rom-com writer, Emily Henry, although having already published several novels for young adults, really made a name for herself with her first novel for adults, Beach Read in 2020. Since then, the publication of a new Emily Henry novel has become a major bookish event, with the release of her latest book, Great Big Beautiful Life no exception.
The novel follows rival biographers, Alice and Hayden, as they compete for the contract to write a tell-all book on reclusive heiress and former tabloid princess, Margaret Ives. Ives, who was married to rock star Cosmo Sinclair, all but disappeared from the world shortly after his death in an accident, but not before her erratic behaviour set headlines alight, yet again.
Now, after twenty years out of the spotlight, Alice Scott has managed to track her down and is thrilled when Ives invites her to come to idyllic Little Crescent Island in Georgia to talk about writing a book. But, there’s a catch. Alice is shocked to discover that Margaret has also invited Pulitzer Prize winning music biographer, Hayden Anderson to fly in from New York to talk about the possibility of a book and the two are to be put through a trial period, to see who can build the best rapport.
Single-mindedly optimistic Alice is determined not to let Hayden’s impressive resume put her off giving this her best shot. Though as the mystery of Margaret Ives’ life begins to unravel and the version of the truth reported in the media is peeled back, things are not exactly adding up. Meanwhile, the initially frosty relationship between Alice and her competitor is beginning to thaw…
Henry has made a name for herself with books which delight and entertain, whilst drawing on beloved romance tropes. Her latest leans heavily into the grumpy/sunshine dynamic, with her romantic hero being described in the blurb as a human thunderstorm. Alice, on the other hand, is the kind of woman who makes friends with everyone, including Jodie, a tough to impress woman who lives with and possibly works for Margaret Ives, though Alice has a hard time figuring the relationship out for most of the book, and Captain Cecil, a retiree who seems to be a kind of figurehead in the town.
Henry fleshes out her leads carefully, respecting the trope and its appeal to romance readers, but also interrogating why these characters are the way they are. It’s not so much a case of opposites attract as a battle of the wills, with Alice being more determined to get through to Hayden than he is to keep her at arm’s length (at times, almost literally.) Readers will watch these two characters slowly inch towards one another, with increasingly more intimate encounters (emotionally and physically) interspersed between ‘transcripts’ of Alice’s conversations with Ives about her life.
This braided narrative technique works well, as Ives has a tendency to cut Alice’s sessions with her short before she can give too much away, often leaving Alice with a puzzle she needs to think through. Alice, a journalist by trade, has a long-standing fascination with Margaret that traces back to her father’s love of Cosmo Sinclair and the music he wrote about his wife. Through combining what she already knows about Ives with the clues she is given in her interviews, and occasionally with what she can intuit from talking to Hayden (though the two are not allowed to share information, thanks to a pair of NDAs), Alice might just be able to solve the mystery of why Margaret Ives ran away from the world.
Parallel to this mystery, which keeps the reader guessing and provides a number of great twists and turns, a second plot is unfolding – whether or not Alice and Hayden’s attraction can become a relationship if one of them beats the other to their dream job. There’s a lot of sexual tension between the characters from early on, and while Hayden refuses to go all the way with Alice until after the final decision is made, let’s just say Emily Henry does not leave her readers (or her heroine) unsatisfied. The two plots are almost perfectly balanced, though I did think that Hayden gave in to Alice’s offer of friendship a little too easily for there to be a true, Mr Darcy level, payoff to his admission that he’s into her.
Henry’s novels often feature book-ish elements, with her adult debut Beach Read following two writers who challenge one another to swap genres and inadvertently fall in love along the way. Her novels which stray away from this theme are often the ones which I connect with the least (People We Meet on Vacation; Happy Place) and perhaps this has to do with the subtle ways in which Henry seems to comment on the contradiction between the way that romantic fiction is derided and scoffed at as ‘fluffy’ or insubstantial’ and its popularity with readers who are drawn to a genre that ultimately aims to make people feel happy.
This latest novel, now a Reese’s Book Club Pick for 2025, feels almost as if it is in conversation with the work of fellow BookTok darling, Taylor Jenkins Reid, who provided the blurb quote. In fact, if I had to do the book maths on it, I would say that Great Big Beautiful Life feels like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo mashed up with Daisy Jones and the Six with a bit of something else mixed in.
I could easily have read a much longer version of Margaret Ives’ family story, and in fact, would perhaps have rated this book five stars had those sections been a little more rounded out, instead of being told in a condensed form as necessitated by them essentially being transcripts of a conversation. Henry uses the device throughout the book of talking about ‘versions of the truth’ and returns to this idea as Alice reconciles what we think we know about Ives with the woman’s own truth. It’s a fascinating look at the evolution of celebrity reporting, and in particular at headlines- the earliest form of clickbait.
While reactions to this latest novel- Henry’s sixth for an adult readership in as many years- has been mixed, I see her as a writer going from strength to strength, leaning into the joy that writing about love and books and stories can bring to her readers with no signs that she’s getting tired of what she does. Here’s hoping she never will.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life is out now through Penguin Books Australia. Grab yourself a copy from your local bookstore HERE.
