Great Big Beautiful Life

Alice Scott is an incurable optimist still chasing her big break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-winning biographer with the temperament of a thundercloud. They arrive on tiny Little Crescent Island, Georgia, for the same reason: the chance to write the life story of Margaret Ives, the reclusive octogenarian heiress of a scandal-plagued media dynasty, unseen by the public for decades. Rather than choose between them, Margaret proposes a month-long audition, separate interviews, one storyteller chosen at the end. As the Georgia heat rises, so does the rivalry, and then the chemistry, between Alice and Hayden, even as the dazzling, tragic saga Margaret unspools raises a question neither can answer: why isn't she telling them the same story? Emily Henry, the reigning queen of smart, swoony fiction, weaves past and present into a sweeping Reese's Book Club pick about ambition, family secrets, and the stories we choose to tell. Available now at Spindle & Spine Bookstore.