Great Big Beautiful Life - two writers compete to pen the biography of a reclusive media heiress now in her eighties.

Alice Scott, a journalist focused on celebrity stories for a well-known website, has tracked down Margaret Ives, the last member of the notorious Ives media dynasty, residing in isolation on a small island in Georgia. Alice hopes to write Margaret's biography, seeing this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. However, she learns that another writer, Pulitzer Prize winner Haydon Anderson, is also on Little Crescent Island with the same goal. Both writers will spend the next month interviewing Margaret and then submit their proposals. Margaret's story, starting with her great-grandfather and leading to the loss of her husband, rock and roll legend Cosmo Sinclair, fascinates and moves Alice. Although Alice and Haydon cannot share notes on their separate interviews due to their NDAs, they realize that Margaret is not being fully honest with them. They also find themselves attracted to each other but try to keep their distance due to the importance of the competition. 

Having read all of Emily Henry's books, Great Big Beautiful Life is her most unique. It has a budding romance between the sweet and optimistic Alice and the distant Hayden that brings lots of sexual tension. Yet the flashbacks of the complicated, troubled, and often glamorous life of Margaret and her family provide the book's most compelling parts, making this an engaging blend of contemporary romance and historical fiction.

Rated 4.25 out of 5 stars.

Contemporary Romance | Historical Fiction.

Publication Date: April 22, 2025.

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