'I just wanted to be working on that kind of story.' There was no intention to try and publish it,' she says. 'I started writing 'Beach Read' really, entirely for fun. She says she was between projects and wanted to work on something 'summery and nice and fun.' She ended up with a draft of what would become her first romance novel, 'Beach Read.'Įmily Henry (Courtesy Devyn Glista / St.

Henry wrote three young adult novels before stumbling into romance. 'My friends came to just expect that from me,' she says with a laugh. before starting her job, plus Saturdays and Sundays. She says she would write in all of her time off, waking up at 5 a.m. Rattling off a list that includes dog walking, babysitting, and working at Taco Bell, the YMCA, her college's tutoring center and a carwash, Henry eventually settled into a technical writing job after she graduated from Hope College.

Henry had her fair share of jobs before becoming a novelist, she tells. And my views on love and family and life and career, all of that is coming from real life observations.' How Henry 'tripped sideways' into romance 'But I think everything is coming from somewhere. 'It’s not my life, it’s not me, the characters aren’t the people I know,” she says. Maybe that's why her books are so well loved: she grew up on the same pop culture diet as her readers. Rather than take inspiration from her own experiences, for her plots and characters, Henry mines conversations she's had, people she's met, places she's been and the TV and movies she's watched. She doesn't mean that in a biographical sense.

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