A Novel Love Story

Lyssa admits that she is in love with Maya, and she wants to know how Elsy can leave Anders when she is in love with him. Elsy tells her that if she stays in Eloraton, she will never see her best friend again. Elsy suggests that Lyssa should risk telling Maya about her feelings regardless. She assures Lyssa that she is worth taking a chance on, just as she herself is, too. Elsy thinks about saying goodbye to Anders and considers leaving immediately, but she knows that there is one last place she needs to visit before going.

Elsy returns to the courtyard of deleted scenes and feels her phone start to vibrate. Somehow, in the courtyard, Elsy receives texts from Pru and the other members of her book club, checking in on her to see if she is okay. Elsy texts Pru, confirming that she’s alive, before continuing to examine the statues that all look a bit like Anders. When she opens her purse to put away her phone, she sees that the title of Daffodil Daydreams has returned to the cover of her book. Elsy immediately opens it to the dedication page, where she sees that Rachel Flowers has dedicated the book to “A. S.” Elsy suddenly realizes how she was wrong about Anders: He wasn’t a character in Rachel’s novels; he was her fiancé. Just like Elsy felt frozen in time after Liam broke up with her, she sees how Anders felt frozen in time after Rachel’s death and that he wanted to keep Eloraton the same because it was exactly how Rachel left it. Elsy runs back to the bookstore, where she confirms this with Anders.

Anders admits that he never told Elsy about being Rachel Flowers’s fiancé because he liked that she didn’t see him only as someone whose fiancée had died. Elsy asks Anders to tell her about Rachel, and he shares that they were neighbors as kids and had been together since high school. Anders also gives Elsy a worn-out stack of printer pages, with “Maya Shah Gets the Girl by Rachel Flowers” on the top page. Elsy sees that Rachel did write the majority of the last novel in the series, telling the love story between Maya and Lyssa, but she had stopped mid-sentence, leaving the town in stasis. Anders tells Elsy about how he drove to the spot where Rachel died and found the town, and Anders wanted to remember her, so he stayed. Everything had been stuck in Eloraton until Elsy came, when things started to move again, keeping Rachel’s story alive. Lily interrupts them as they begin to share their feelings for one another, but when Elsy says that she should go, Anders invites her to be his date for Junie and Will’s wedding the next day.

At Will and Junie’s wedding, Elsy wishes she could hear it in Rachel Flowers’s words and share the moment with Pru. She thinks about how she could stay in Eloraton and become a secondary character in the story, but she knows she wants to be the main character in her own life. Elsy and Anders dance together to the tune of “Come On, Eileen,” which Elsy finally recognizes is the tune that the starlings had been singing. Afterward, they go to the courtyard, where Anders tells Elsy that he thinks he might leave Eloraton, too; he wants something new and thinks Rachel would want that for him, too.

Anders admits that he stayed so long because he was looking for himself in Rachel’s novels, as she had written in everything else about their lives together. Though Anders doesn’t see it, Elsy shows him how little bits of Anders are written throughout the novels, from his stubbornness to his dedication. Elsy also sees how Rachel is still in Eloraton, too, even as the story moves on. They hear someone coming near the courtyard and overhear a conversation between Maya and Lyssa where they admit their feelings for one another. As they try to sneak back to the bookstore, they learn that Bea has returned to Eloraton, and when Anders sees her, he looks like he has seen a ghost.

Elsy thinks back to the one time she met Rachel Flowers, a few months before her death. She and Pru had gone to an event out of town to hear her talk but quickly realized that they were the only people there, as Rachel’s books were not very popular before her death. When Rachel entered, Elsy found her shockingly normal, especially because she was around her age and seemed like someone she could easily be friends with. Elsy saw Rachel catch eyes with someone at the back of the room before she gained the confidence to start speaking. Instead of doing the planned reading, Rachel came down to sit with Elsy and Pru, and they shared a bottle of wine together as they talked about their favorite stories until the bookstore closed, having a perfect night.

Bea introduces herself to Anders and Elsy as she arrives late to the wedding, and Elsy thinks back to how Rachel always said that Bea was the character most like herself. Elsy sees the way that Bea and Anders look at each other, both seeing a familiarity in one another, and decides that she doesn’t want to see how this ends. When she says she is going to leave and asks Anders if he still wants to come with her, he hesitates, giving Elsy her answer. They have a bittersweet goodbye, and Elsy waits for her heart to break, but it doesn’t. She is satisfied that everyone in Eloraton got their happy ending. Elsy returns to the bookstore, where Sweetpea is parked, with two bottles of Frank’s famous hot sauce inside the glove compartment. Elsy finally drives out of Eloraton, forcing herself not to look back.

Elsy parks outside the cabin where her book club was supposed to meet, feeling like reality is a little different outside of Eloraton. As she starts to unpack Sweetpea, Elsy hears the cabin door open and Pru’s familiar voice, telling Elsy that she would hate herself if she missed this week with her best friend.

Pru tells Elsy about her engagement, but when she asks Elsy where she had been, Elsy says that Pru wouldn’t believe her if she told her. Yet Elsy feels tired of staying still and not telling her best friend how she feels, so she shows her the bottles of Frank’s hot sauce and starts to tell her about Eloraton. Pru doesn’t believe her at first until she sees how much Elsy has changed for the better. She goes on her first date since being with Liam, where she kicks the man out of her house for making fun of her collection of romance novels. Elsy also finally stands up for herself at work, finally convincing Pru that Eloraton must have been what changed her. She is, however, mad that Elsy let Anders go and wishes that he would open a bookshop that Elsy could work at. This causes Elsy to form an idea, and she asks Pru if she wants to open a bookstore with her. Though they both know that it could be a disaster, they agree to take a chance on themselves and immediately tell everyone in their book club about their new plan.

Elsy and Pru rent out a storefront with help from their friends and begin renovating it for their bookstore, which they call The Grand Romantic. They open the bookstore a few months later, and everyone in the book club flies in to attend the grand opening. Elsy worries that the store will fail, but she forces herself to think about the journey of running it, rather than the ending. The grand opening is a huge success, yet Elsy is still shocked to see Liam there with his new wife. His wife, Bethany, is a big fan of romance and wants to join the book club at the store, and Elsy is gracious toward her since she is finally over Liam, who tells her that she looks happy. Elsy sends Pru and Jasper on their way when they start to help clean up. As Elsy sits alone in the bookstore, she feels at home.

Elsy enjoys her time alone in the bookstore, running her fingers over the spines of the Quixotic Falls novels. The bell on the door jingles, and Elsy asks Pru if she has forgotten something, but the voice that responds isn’t Pru’s. Anders enters the bookstore, saying that he’s looking for a book recommendation, and Elsy can’t believe he is there. Anders tells her that he doesn’t want to be anyone’s happy ending but instead wants to be the beginning and middle of their story, and he wants that with Elsy. They confess their love for one another, and Elsy shows him around the store. Anders reveals that he left Eloraton some time ago, and when he went back to see if it was still there, only the waterfall remained. Anders also tells Elsy that he wanted to have his life in order again before he found her, which is why it took him so long after he left Eloraton. Though she doesn’t know how their relationship will end, Elsy knows that she doesn’t need to because being with Anders is enough for her.

Elsy recounts how Eloraton once felt like home for her, but now the bookstore does. With Pru, Anders, and even Mr. Butterscotch at the bookstore, Elsy admits that her life is not perfect or predictable, but it is home.