Dynastic families, hidden secrets, forbidden slow-burning romance, and a side of familial drama—Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life, has it all. Set in a quiet Georgian seaside town, it takes readers on a ride filled with intrigue, drama of the uber-rich, and romance.
Alice Cooper, a magazine writer, has tracked down the whereabouts of Margaret Ives, the heir of the media tycoon Ives Family, in order to pitch a tell-all biography. But to her dismay, she is not the only competitor, as Hayden Anderson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, is also there to make his pitch. As Margaret puts them in ironclad NDAs for a month in order to scope them out, a race is on between them to snatch this dream job from the other. Also, to make things worse, both are equally attracted to each other, and finding ways to keep off each other in the tiny town is proving almost impossible.
As Margaret tells them the story of her family, the infinite scandals, and the lavish life lived in front of cameras, Alice will have to sift through it all and find out the truth. Margaret has lived a life like no one else, from being born with a “diamond spoon”, to the wild years of her youth, her marriage to the “poor man’s Elvis,” Cosmo Sinclair, and the fallout of it all, his untimely death, and her vanishing from public life for over 30 years. Margaret has stories she is hiding, and both Alice and Hayden are on a quest to find the truth.
Emily Henry is well known for her bestselling romance novels Beach Read, People We Meet on Vacation, Happy Place and more. Her stories are known for their well-thought-out and fleshed characters and the burn between the love interests. In Great Big Beautiful Life, Henry takes a turn from her home ground of meet-cutes, crushes, and third-act breakups and adds elements of mystery, historical fiction, and more. Great Big Beautiful Life is a contemporary fiction that draws on intrigue and celebrity culture along with the usual elements of romance: the will-they-won’t-they, the yearning, and the most awaited confessions of love.
While it promises a good time, ultimately Great Big Beautiful Life fails to deliver a lasting effect on completion. Henry gives her all to the storylines she tries to intertwine together but fails to land a strong hit in the end. But the book does have redeeming qualities. Henry, as always, shines in portraying relationships with her dialogue. The depth she adds to the characters’ familial relationships, for example, the strained relationship between Alice and her mother and how it affects her work.
While not the best attempt in terms of success, Great Big Beautiful Life is a good example of an author branching out of their home territory and trying something new.