Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.

Get an early look from the first pages of Writers & Lovers.

How long should you hold onto dreams that just won’t become realities? Can you really have a great love and a fulfilling career? In Lily King’s new novel, we meet our protagonist, Casey Peabody, at a moment in life when she must face her future head-on—and finally answer these questions.

After the unexpected death of her beloved mother, Casey moves back to her college stomping grounds in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She’s an unpublished writer, barely making ends meet in her waitressing job—admittedly not where she wanted to be in her early thirties. As if that all wasn’t enough, she also finds herself struggling romantically as she ends up in a love triangle between a writing professor and his student. Which partner, if either, will encourage her to find her voice as a partner and a writer?

Casey is smart and driven, and despite her tremendous grief and feelings of inadequacy, she never stops trying to discover who she is. In the end, though I won’t tell you how, it isn’t the men in her life that lift her up but her self-confidence that makes a difference. It’s been a whole year since I started picking books for my Read With Jenna book club, and I think this one is particularly special. I hope you will read with us in March and fall in love with Casey Peabody just like I did.