This story has grumpy/sunshine vibes with loveable characters, romcom movie references, and lots of one line zingers. It’s a cute romance with some serious topics and, other than a harebrained moment near the end, it was a delightful read.

Emma has been caring for her father who has a head injury from a tragic accident ten years ago. In her spare time, she dreams of selling one of her romcom screenplays that she’s been working on for years. Thus she is thrilled when she gets a call from an old friend, Logan, who asks her to come to Hollywood and help a friend of his, famous screenwriter Charlie Yates, rewrite a romcom script. She makes arrangements for her younger sister to come home for six weeks and care for her dad while she goes to Los Angeles to work on the romcom. She’ll be staying with Charlie in his mansion.

When she gets to Charlie’s she realizes that what he’s written so far is terrible plus he’s not thrilled to have her help. He didn’t even want to write the romcom but an executive wants it for his mistress and told Charlie if he writes it, he’ll produce the mafia gangster script Charlie is passionate about. Emma realizes Charlie doesn’t believe in love and has never even seen a romcom. He’s been dealing with his own heartbreak having been through a divorce as well as a serious illness.

This is not a light read but while parts of it are sad, other parts are laugh out loud funny. My favorite part of the story is when Emma sets out to show Charlie that love is real and romcoms are wonderful. Emma puts together a list of romantic activities for them to research and one of them is line dancing (Charlie’s idea). It is a hoot because Emma is an awful dancer and there’s a lot of laughter as she stumbles and trips. Charlie, of course, catches her. She makes them dinners and Charlie thinks she’s an amazing cook and they enjoy their comradery as they shop for and cook their dinners together. While there’s no real spice in the story there is swoony “kissing research” for the script. I loved the funny, witty banter between them when they explore what it means to be romantic as they work together.

The saddest part of the story is the accident when Emma’s dad got hurt and the medical issues he’s had to deal with ever since. I don’t want to reveal spoilers but it’s very emotional and readers might want some Kleenex handy for this part.

There are a few quibbles I had with the book. The first is a scene towards the end when Emma does something harebrained and annoying and the second is when Charlie’s keeping a secret and swears off love. That said, he does come up with a wonderful grand gesture to make up for it.

The secondary characters are wonderful. Emma’s dad has uplifting and wonderful quotes on how he makes it through the hard times. There are fun cameo appearances with Jack Stapleton and Hannah from The Bodyguard. I recommend this to readers who enjoy inspiring stories with depth, and characters that make us laugh.