Breakaway Books

Authored by Annabel Monaghan; Published May 2025; Romance

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️

It’s a Love Story *is* a love story, but it’s much more about the heroine loving herself than the hero. And that is just the way I like my romances.

In It’s a Love Story, Jane is desperate to get her first movie made at Clearwater Productions, and she thinks she has found the perfect script—a heartfelt love story. Unfortunately, her rival Dan has discovered the same script, and despite the support of both of them, the company head thinks it isn’t quite commercial enough to fit their brand. In a bid to get the movie made, Jane promises to get a famous pop star to write a song for the soundtrack because of a tenuous childhood connection she shares with him… and then she is horrified to discover that she must follow through. Off she goes with Dan to his hometown of Long Island, and as they try to track down the pop star, they find themselves falling in love. 

Jane has been struggling with feeling like she’s not enough ever since her father abandoned her as a child, and that is the true central conflict of this story. Every time she goes on a date, or really, interacts with anyone who’s not her best friend, she puts on a mask to match what she thinks people want to see, to do everything she can to make sure that no one else will abandon her. There are far too many women who connect with this narrative, and I certainly did, recalling how many different faces I put on when I was dating. It was liberating to watch as Jane slowly, slowly starts to break through that narrative in her head. Big props to her best friend, who has the courage to say the thing out loud, to identify the story that Jane has been telling herself, and to show her how much she’s been feeding it to herself. It can be hard to tell the people we are closest to the truth, and rarely do I see such an example of honest and compassionate friendship—even in fictional novels. At times, Jane comes off as truly unhinged in this book, but it all makes sense when you understand the voice in her head that is whispering to her about her own lack of self worth.

The love story itself is charming. If the hero, Dan, is a little unconventional and/or less than charming, his rowdy family is sure to sweep you off your feet. How easily Jane fits in with them is a tad unrealistic, but it works as a foil to his continually bickering siblings. Dan’s parents must be the cutest elderly couple ever to feature in a rom-com—devoted to each other without ridiculous over-the-top affection. Jane and Dan themselves act out scene after scene of romantic tropes: enemies to lovers, forced to share a room, riding bikes together to the beach and making crafts. But regardless of how cute the romance itself is, I think it pales in comparison with Jane’s burgeoning love for herself.

It’s a Love Story has all the tropes you can hope for in a romance, in the best way possible. But the best part of it is really the message at its core.