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The Guest Book: A Novel
A romance on an epic, generation-spanning scale, Mae Marvel’s The Guest Book delivers the authors’ signature heart, sapphic steam, and humor in a book you’ll curl up with and never forget.
The whole world believes Cosima Frank’s life has been a fairytale. Now she’s trying to live up to the overwhelming legacy left to her by her late mother, the Queen of Hollywood. As the pressure begins to build, Cosima does the only thing she can think run straight to the inn where her parents met and fell in love, intent on finishing her mother’s bucket list.
Edie Whitelock isn’t like anyone Cosima has ever met. She’s persistent enough to march up to Cosima’s door and provoke her to get out of bed and follow the disarming woman through the charming English village. Edie’s also on the run from her past, but she finds that she relishes bickering with the pretty Los Angeles princess a whole lot more than she expected. The two women couldn’t be more different, but they find themselves inexplicably drawn to each other.
Trapped indoors by thunderstorms, Cosima and Edie discover the inn’s guest book, whose entries date back more than fifty years—and inside it, a romantic treasure hunt left behind by a long-ago guest whose clues unexpectedly send them across England, Spain, and France on an adventure they hope will change both of their lives.
But sometimes the treasure you seek isn’t the one you find.
The whole world believes Cosima Frank’s life has been a fairytale. Now she’s trying to live up to the overwhelming legacy left to her by her late mother, the Queen of Hollywood. As the pressure begins to build, Cosima does the only thing she can think run straight to the inn where her parents met and fell in love, intent on finishing her mother’s bucket list.
Edie Whitelock isn’t like anyone Cosima has ever met. She’s persistent enough to march up to Cosima’s door and provoke her to get out of bed and follow the disarming woman through the charming English village. Edie’s also on the run from her past, but she finds that she relishes bickering with the pretty Los Angeles princess a whole lot more than she expected. The two women couldn’t be more different, but they find themselves inexplicably drawn to each other.
Trapped indoors by thunderstorms, Cosima and Edie discover the inn’s guest book, whose entries date back more than fifty years—and inside it, a romantic treasure hunt left behind by a long-ago guest whose clues unexpectedly send them across England, Spain, and France on an adventure they hope will change both of their lives.
But sometimes the treasure you seek isn’t the one you find.
352 pages, Paperback
First published June 2, 2026
About the author
Mae Marvel
5 books230 followersMae Marvel is the alias of cowriters Ruthie Knox and Annie Mare, bestselling authors of over a dozen acclaimed romance novels between them. Mae lives with two teenagers, two dogs, one cat, four hermit crabs, and a plethora of snails and fish in a witchy century house in Wisconsin whose extravagant perennial garden gives them something to look forward to in the depths of winter. In addition to romance, they also write mystery novels and cannot promise not to branch into new novelistic territories at a moment’s notice. They can be found online at maemarvel.com.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 116 reviews
June 7, 2026
I loved this novel. I love this author (or stealth pseudonym for two authors apparently? Cool!). I hope that they write more. The writing and characters pulled me in immediately, and continued to be the highlight of this novel throughout. The plotline was a bit scattered in the beginning, but once it got its feet under it, I was compelled to devour the remainder of the novel. So, stick through the first bit folks (not that its bad)! This was fun, romantic, silly and serious, and fun one more time.
Highlights:
-Great writing. It was clever; I have recently realized that this is one of my highest praises for writing. It’s a simple word, but hard to pull off in all honesty!
-“The dimple was an affront”
-What an absolutely excellent job of explaining the internal motivations behind why someone is being crabby and rude. So relatable, so excusable apparently. One of the best grumpy/sunshine pairings I have seen.
-I love all of the representation for neurotypical people. Not just representation, but well-written representation from their POV. Lots of novels throw in an ADHD (or whatnot) character but most of them don’t actually do a good job of depicting what the experience is like.
-Ace rep! I was not expecting that and it was a delightful surprise.
-Secret dimples
-The author used great narrative devices throughout the novel. I also appreciated that they were not abandoned or over-used. The plotline was all over the place, but the narrative throughline kept things cohesive and together.
-Very good representation and discussion of what it is like to live with and love someone who deals with alcoholism. The effects can be varied, subtle, and lasting.
Nitpicks:
-Lets be real; I was confused (as to what the actual plot was) and somewhat lost for the first half of this novel. Partly because I didn’t read the blurb, so partially by bad. I trusted the process though and I am very happy that I did! I could see some readers being put off during the first sections though for this reason. It all comes together though, so stick with it folks!
-I have read many demisexual people comment on other novels that falling for someone this quickly is unrealistic and misrepresents what being demisexual is like. So, this popped into my mind while reading. That said, I don’t know what the full range of experience of all demisexual people is so I have no idea if this novel depicts situations that could be realistic or not. That said: I loved reading it.
-My suspension of disbelief was tested somewhat regarding if some of the “things” left behind so long ago would still be there today. But ehhhh. It doesn’t have to be perfectly realistic and it was certainly possible.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing a free ARC. This honest review was left voluntarily.
Highlights:
-Great writing. It was clever; I have recently realized that this is one of my highest praises for writing. It’s a simple word, but hard to pull off in all honesty!
-“The dimple was an affront”
-What an absolutely excellent job of explaining the internal motivations behind why someone is being crabby and rude. So relatable, so excusable apparently. One of the best grumpy/sunshine pairings I have seen.
-I love all of the representation for neurotypical people. Not just representation, but well-written representation from their POV. Lots of novels throw in an ADHD (or whatnot) character but most of them don’t actually do a good job of depicting what the experience is like.
-Ace rep! I was not expecting that and it was a delightful surprise.
-Secret dimples
-The author used great narrative devices throughout the novel. I also appreciated that they were not abandoned or over-used. The plotline was all over the place, but the narrative throughline kept things cohesive and together.
-Very good representation and discussion of what it is like to live with and love someone who deals with alcoholism. The effects can be varied, subtle, and lasting.
Nitpicks:
-Lets be real; I was confused (as to what the actual plot was) and somewhat lost for the first half of this novel. Partly because I didn’t read the blurb, so partially by bad. I trusted the process though and I am very happy that I did! I could see some readers being put off during the first sections though for this reason. It all comes together though, so stick with it folks!
-I have read many demisexual people comment on other novels that falling for someone this quickly is unrealistic and misrepresents what being demisexual is like. So, this popped into my mind while reading. That said, I don’t know what the full range of experience of all demisexual people is so I have no idea if this novel depicts situations that could be realistic or not. That said: I loved reading it.
-My suspension of disbelief was tested somewhat regarding if some of the “things” left behind so long ago would still be there today. But ehhhh. It doesn’t have to be perfectly realistic and it was certainly possible.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing a free ARC. This honest review was left voluntarily.
Did Not Finish
May 6, 2026✨ 𝓐𝓡𝓒 𝓐𝓝𝓝𝓞𝓤𝓝𝓒𝓔𝓜𝓔𝓝𝓣 ✨
GUESS WHO DIDN'T GET ARC DECLINED
GUESS WHO DIDN'T GET ARC DECLINED
June 2, 2026
Thank you authors Mae Marvel and St. Martin’s Griffins for the opportunity to read and review the NetGalley Advanced Reader Copy. The book is now published.
The start of the book is quite uneven as chapter one is basically one large info dump on the backstory of the first FMC, Cosima, including her relationship with her recently deceased mother, her impending responsibilities to her mother’s company, and her relationship with her father figure, Duncan. All of these sideplots are important and will weave in and out of the story, but there is nothing in this chapter to hint that this will become the lovely sapphic romance that it is.
Stick with it, however, because once we are introduced to the other FMC, Edie, the book quickly becomes the delightful and well-written sapphic romance we wanted. Marvel checked the most important box for me: I was rooting hard for the couple to HEA right from the start. There is a sense of ‘insta-love,’ but for me, it was totally plausible for both characters; one who is neurodivergent, and the other who is demisexual. I said in another review recently that if an author can write a romance well enough that I believe that the love interests have fallen for each other in a week or whatever, then brava to the author, and I think the author succeeded here.
Marvel also does an excellent job keeping the voice of each character consistent in the dual POV, reflecting the protagonists individual quirks and neurosis. I was never confused on which character’s unlabeled chapter I was reading.
However, nitpick time, but I do not count it against the pleasure I had in reading this book. The plot is convoluted at times, with a warm-up treasure hunt preceding the main event treasure hunt. But also this: Marvel’s two leading ladies are American but they didn’t think at all how Americans think. It wasn’t authentic. We say potato chips, not crisps. We say French fries, not chips. We don’t have wellies, we have rain boots. If we want a cookie, we don’t ask for a biscuit. And we never—especially if you are a Green Bay Packers fan which Edie was supposed to be—EVER refer to soccer as ‘football.’
But other than that, I loved the book. Cheers.
The start of the book is quite uneven as chapter one is basically one large info dump on the backstory of the first FMC, Cosima, including her relationship with her recently deceased mother, her impending responsibilities to her mother’s company, and her relationship with her father figure, Duncan. All of these sideplots are important and will weave in and out of the story, but there is nothing in this chapter to hint that this will become the lovely sapphic romance that it is.
Stick with it, however, because once we are introduced to the other FMC, Edie, the book quickly becomes the delightful and well-written sapphic romance we wanted. Marvel checked the most important box for me: I was rooting hard for the couple to HEA right from the start. There is a sense of ‘insta-love,’ but for me, it was totally plausible for both characters; one who is neurodivergent, and the other who is demisexual. I said in another review recently that if an author can write a romance well enough that I believe that the love interests have fallen for each other in a week or whatever, then brava to the author, and I think the author succeeded here.
Marvel also does an excellent job keeping the voice of each character consistent in the dual POV, reflecting the protagonists individual quirks and neurosis. I was never confused on which character’s unlabeled chapter I was reading.
However, nitpick time, but I do not count it against the pleasure I had in reading this book. The plot is convoluted at times, with a warm-up treasure hunt preceding the main event treasure hunt. But also this: Marvel’s two leading ladies are American but they didn’t think at all how Americans think. It wasn’t authentic. We say potato chips, not crisps. We say French fries, not chips. We don’t have wellies, we have rain boots. If we want a cookie, we don’t ask for a biscuit. And we never—especially if you are a Green Bay Packers fan which Edie was supposed to be—EVER refer to soccer as ‘football.’
But other than that, I loved the book. Cheers.
June 8, 2026
I really enjoyed the setting in this book in Lincolnshire England. It was a story about an A List actress’s daughter Cosima. Cosima’s mother dies suddenly and it puts Cosima into a tailspin of depression. She decides to follow one of her mom’s last wishes to go to the inn, Gregory Place, in England where her parents first met each other.
Edie Whitlock is a vegan chef who grew up in Green Bay Wisconsin. She has failed at having her own restaurant and decides to go to England on a cheap vacation to clear her head and decide on her next step for her career.
While at the Inn, Morag, convinces them to go on a quest to solve a mystery in the “Guest Book”.
Mae Marvel has a unique writing style and it took me a bit to get into this book. The characters were very well developed and unique. I really liked Cosima and I could understand how she fell for Edie. Edie is so different and honest in her approach to life. Morag, the inn keeper was a great character and really added to the story.
I’ve read two other Mae Marvel books and very much enjoyed them as well.
Edie Whitlock is a vegan chef who grew up in Green Bay Wisconsin. She has failed at having her own restaurant and decides to go to England on a cheap vacation to clear her head and decide on her next step for her career.
While at the Inn, Morag, convinces them to go on a quest to solve a mystery in the “Guest Book”.
Mae Marvel has a unique writing style and it took me a bit to get into this book. The characters were very well developed and unique. I really liked Cosima and I could understand how she fell for Edie. Edie is so different and honest in her approach to life. Morag, the inn keeper was a great character and really added to the story.
I’ve read two other Mae Marvel books and very much enjoyed them as well.
June 9, 2026
The Guest Book by Mae Marvel
Contemporary sapphic romance.
Cosima Frank runs from the shadows of her famous mother to a small inn where her parents fell in love. Or so she’s been told. What she finds is something else.
Edie Whitelock is hiding from her past but there is something about Cosima that she can’t resist. Together, they follow what they believe is a treasure hunt. Will they find the answers that will satisfy their wandering souls?
Neither Cosmina, nor Edie are in a happy place. But a quest awakens a bit of excitement and awareness in them. Is it destiny or history? They grow closer as they find answers and more questions.
A slow start but the character interactions plus dimples humor caught my attention and interest.
Angsty and self analysis required. Lots of inclusion.
Intrigued by the history of the older love influencing the current. HEA.
I received a copy of this from NetGalley.
Contemporary sapphic romance.
Cosima Frank runs from the shadows of her famous mother to a small inn where her parents fell in love. Or so she’s been told. What she finds is something else.
Edie Whitelock is hiding from her past but there is something about Cosima that she can’t resist. Together, they follow what they believe is a treasure hunt. Will they find the answers that will satisfy their wandering souls?
Neither Cosmina, nor Edie are in a happy place. But a quest awakens a bit of excitement and awareness in them. Is it destiny or history? They grow closer as they find answers and more questions.
A slow start but the character interactions plus dimples humor caught my attention and interest.
Angsty and self analysis required. Lots of inclusion.
Intrigued by the history of the older love influencing the current. HEA.
I received a copy of this from NetGalley.
June 7, 2026
gosh, at this point i'm on board for every new mae marvel/annie mare/ruthie knox book. i've pre-ordered the last three the min i found out about them and they have YET to let me down! i really love how they write their mcs and their romance dynamics, and this was no exception. cosima is SO DREAMY and edie is adorable and i loved watching them (very quickly! not my usual vibe, but i bought it) fall in love. the road trip/treasure hunt was fun and the outcome was delightful. as someone who worked at a small town inn for many years, i loved the inn. i had a blast. this was so sweet.
(my ONLY qualm, that's not even a qualm just a noooo boooo, is that it wasn't also narrated by my fav narrator mia hutchinson-shaw, so i only read it in physical and did not get to listen along, too. i could have! but alas, i did not.)
(my ONLY qualm, that's not even a qualm just a noooo boooo, is that it wasn't also narrated by my fav narrator mia hutchinson-shaw, so i only read it in physical and did not get to listen along, too. i could have! but alas, i did not.)
October 30, 2025
The storyline was boring to me with half-baked concepts all throughout.
June 5, 2026
This was really really cute. I wasn't as invested in the treasure hunt but I loved how their relationship progressed during it. It was also really nice reading about a character on the aroace spectrums.
Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the arc in exchange for an honest review
Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the arc in exchange for an honest review
October 13, 2025
Thank you to those at St. Martin's Press, NetGalley, and Mae Marvel for this ARC! I was so excited to be preselected for this ARC, I really enjoyed the last book I read by Mae Marvel (If I Told You, I'd Have To Kiss You). I loved the mystery aspect of the story, going from country to country with Cosima and Edie! There was so much longing that we read into as they fall in love and there were twists and turns which made the ending so much sweeter! I can't wait for the book to come out next year! Overall, wonderful read!
November 19, 2025
4.5! Really enjoyed this book and loved the romance aspect of it. Cosima and Edie’s connection felt very real and was fun to follow. I found the other plots lacking a bit of depth, but overall it was a fun read! Thanks NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC! :)
December 2, 2025
This book is a gem. What makes it so special is its characters- adorably ADHD Edie with her quirkiness, creativity, and huge heart; and competent Cosima with the weight of a small universe on her shoulders and her direct communication style. There were moments I laughed out loud, and moments I really felt for them. I loved their relationship and the way they care for the people in their lives but especially each other- they really saw the core of each other and were such a good match. The treasure hunt and European backdrop were so fun. This will definitely stick with me.
Short summary: Edie has one month to lick her wounds at the cheapest hotel in England before returning to a less than stellar reality. Cosima is running away. She can’t say exactly for how long or how to solve her problem but she needs space and time…definitely not a very nosy across the hall hotel mate.
Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Griffin. ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.
Short summary: Edie has one month to lick her wounds at the cheapest hotel in England before returning to a less than stellar reality. Cosima is running away. She can’t say exactly for how long or how to solve her problem but she needs space and time…definitely not a very nosy across the hall hotel mate.
Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Griffin. ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This one was really hard for me to get into.Honestly, I had to put it down and pick it up a couple different times but i'm glad I persevered and kept going. Cosima and Edies story was a good read. The twists and turns to get to the end made the book all the better - i will definitely check out more books from this author
Thank you net galley for the arc in exchange for an honest review
Thank you net galley for the arc in exchange for an honest review
June 19, 2026
Honestly, I was not expecting much given that cover (I am sorry, but this does not look like a category romance! I was afraid it would be mismarketed women's fiction...) but this was cute in the end.
We got a neurodivergent lesbian in Edie whose rambling tangents, vegan food interests, and awkward charm I quickly warmed up to. Cosima is the resident demisexual (and pan according to the authors), an overworked American who is hiding away to process the death of her famous mother and avoiding the fallout of that.
The book starts in a quaint little English town but the two end up travelling to Spain and France, following the clues that begin inside the guest book of the inn they are both staying in. It gives the book a nice pace and momentum that I like; I struggle with low angst/little plot romances that so common in contemporary settings. And if you're a big fan of treasure hunts, this might scratch the itch. I was personally not very intrigued by the mystery or the supposed treasure at the end - I was going along with the story and having a fun time, but I wasn't like actually into that entire situation or invested in the outcome. And it's not even bad! It's a fun mix of clues and logic puzzles that the authors want you to care about and put effort into.
It helped pushing through th book that the couple dynamic worked well for me, both the MCs have distinct personalities and interests, which clash at times to give them something to work through. A little bit of chaos and friction fit in well with an already cluttered storyline. The romance reads messy in a realistic way, with jumps and stalls as the two need to decide how strong their feelings are.
The book also explores themes such as work-life balance, accepting help, as well as naming and working through trauma.
I did not find the ending all that satisfying because of 2 elements that came into the story with no input from the main character that kind of forced the particulars of the HEA. I did not think that was necessary.
As for the demi rep: I was a fan. It doesn't come out of nowhere and it fit into Cosima's character, the authors to a great job of desribing how her (former) disinterest and (current) desire have changed and how meeting a person she is attracted to makes other things clearer to her.
We got a neurodivergent lesbian in Edie whose rambling tangents, vegan food interests, and awkward charm I quickly warmed up to. Cosima is the resident demisexual (and pan according to the authors), an overworked American who is hiding away to process the death of her famous mother and avoiding the fallout of that.
The book starts in a quaint little English town but the two end up travelling to Spain and France, following the clues that begin inside the guest book of the inn they are both staying in. It gives the book a nice pace and momentum that I like; I struggle with low angst/little plot romances that so common in contemporary settings. And if you're a big fan of treasure hunts, this might scratch the itch. I was personally not very intrigued by the mystery or the supposed treasure at the end - I was going along with the story and having a fun time, but I wasn't like actually into that entire situation or invested in the outcome. And it's not even bad! It's a fun mix of clues and logic puzzles that the authors want you to care about and put effort into.
It helped pushing through th book that the couple dynamic worked well for me, both the MCs have distinct personalities and interests, which clash at times to give them something to work through. A little bit of chaos and friction fit in well with an already cluttered storyline. The romance reads messy in a realistic way, with jumps and stalls as the two need to decide how strong their feelings are.
The book also explores themes such as work-life balance, accepting help, as well as naming and working through trauma.
I did not find the ending all that satisfying because of 2 elements that came into the story with no input from the main character that kind of forced the particulars of the HEA. I did not think that was necessary.
As for the demi rep: I was a fan. It doesn't come out of nowhere and it fit into Cosima's character, the authors to a great job of desribing how her (former) disinterest and (current) desire have changed and how meeting a person she is attracted to makes other things clearer to her.
May 24, 2026
The Guest Book by was nothing like I expected. I really thought i was getting a treasure hunter/mystery sort of book and then it turns into a life long sapphic romance, and I could not have been happier to have guessed wrong.
While the actual plot took a bit to get into, I didn’t mind spending some time learning about the grumpy manor owner, Morag or even all about Edie and her failed vegan cheese shop enterprise. The writing was smart, concise and consistently really pulled together. I think I was willing to deal with an over extended or even over delayed plot because the writing was so good.
Cosima Frank is every epitome of a rich girl running from her problems in the first half of the book and yet she was easily likeable and her grumpy demeanor was appropriate. Edie was trying to find out about herself and where she was heading and so the two of them picking up this puzzle of clues at the behest of the startling grumpy but eventually adorable Morag just seemed to work. I enjoyed the power dynamic discussions between the two and Edie calling Cosima out on her shit when it came to finances, I think it just made them both feel like real humans.
The love- the incredible yearning through time love displayed throughout this book is what got me. “It was why Cosima couldn’t kiss Edie Whitlock and not believe in magic.”
The Guest Book is due to be published June 2, 2026 and I received an advanced copy from Netgalley in exchange for my review.
While the actual plot took a bit to get into, I didn’t mind spending some time learning about the grumpy manor owner, Morag or even all about Edie and her failed vegan cheese shop enterprise. The writing was smart, concise and consistently really pulled together. I think I was willing to deal with an over extended or even over delayed plot because the writing was so good.
Cosima Frank is every epitome of a rich girl running from her problems in the first half of the book and yet she was easily likeable and her grumpy demeanor was appropriate. Edie was trying to find out about herself and where she was heading and so the two of them picking up this puzzle of clues at the behest of the startling grumpy but eventually adorable Morag just seemed to work. I enjoyed the power dynamic discussions between the two and Edie calling Cosima out on her shit when it came to finances, I think it just made them both feel like real humans.
The love- the incredible yearning through time love displayed throughout this book is what got me. “It was why Cosima couldn’t kiss Edie Whitlock and not believe in magic.”
The Guest Book is due to be published June 2, 2026 and I received an advanced copy from Netgalley in exchange for my review.
May 23, 2026
It’s been a while since a book has brought me pure enjoyment and all the giggles. I went into this completely blind and was pleasantly surprised that the storyline was rooted in an adventurous mystery that unfolded alongside Edie and Cosima’s growing romance.
I loved both characters, their quirks and flaws. Edie was the epitome of ADHD joy, full of energy and life in every way that she is. Cosima loved Edie for everything she is, never wanting to change her but rather appreciating every detail that makes Edie who she is. As someone who has the privilege of loving someone with ADHD, this was a beautiful representation.
Cosima on the other hand is dealing with an interesting aspect of grief—losing someone who was deeply troubled and dealing with the guilt of life without them. Cosima struggles coming to terms with the intersection of what her mother’s alcoholism meant for Cosima, but also what it meant for the love she had towards her mother.
I think my favorite part was the full circle moment of both storylines covered in this book, and how they paralleled one another. I’m a sucker for dual timelines that find a way to converge, and this was perfect!
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I loved both characters, their quirks and flaws. Edie was the epitome of ADHD joy, full of energy and life in every way that she is. Cosima loved Edie for everything she is, never wanting to change her but rather appreciating every detail that makes Edie who she is. As someone who has the privilege of loving someone with ADHD, this was a beautiful representation.
Cosima on the other hand is dealing with an interesting aspect of grief—losing someone who was deeply troubled and dealing with the guilt of life without them. Cosima struggles coming to terms with the intersection of what her mother’s alcoholism meant for Cosima, but also what it meant for the love she had towards her mother.
I think my favorite part was the full circle moment of both storylines covered in this book, and how they paralleled one another. I’m a sucker for dual timelines that find a way to converge, and this was perfect!
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
February 13, 2026
i feel like so many romances have been stemmed around grief lately. or maybe that’s just what i keep running across since i rarely read synopsis! this one is no different. but it is.
Edie is boisterous, and unfiltered, and emotional, and all over the place! i love her. for the most part she speaks her mind, contrary to what most know as “midwest polite”!!
Cosima is harder to describe. she’s hard, but soft. conflicted but confident. loyal and confused. but she finds herself on this journey, and finds love unlike she’s ever experienced along the way.
the communication, and lack thereof sometimes, the banter, the understanding, the yearning, the self discovery, and scavenger hunt tie this story up in a pretty box with a lavish bow. a gift.
Thank you Netgalley for the gifted eARC!!
Edie is boisterous, and unfiltered, and emotional, and all over the place! i love her. for the most part she speaks her mind, contrary to what most know as “midwest polite”!!
Cosima is harder to describe. she’s hard, but soft. conflicted but confident. loyal and confused. but she finds herself on this journey, and finds love unlike she’s ever experienced along the way.
the communication, and lack thereof sometimes, the banter, the understanding, the yearning, the self discovery, and scavenger hunt tie this story up in a pretty box with a lavish bow. a gift.
Thank you Netgalley for the gifted eARC!!
February 2, 2026
I won this arc through the Goodreads giveaways. I loved the story and writing style. I will be looking for more from this author
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Where the Living Finally Sign Their Names
Mae Marvel’s “The Guest Book” turns hidden letters, queer inheritance, and a half-century treasure hunt into a romance about choosing the future without abandoning the past.
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | May 8th, 2026
An open guest book, a waiting chair, and a folded letter hold the charged stillness of Gregory Place, where inheritance, queer longing, and second chances gather in the light.
“The Guest Book” begins with a woman fleeing a castle, which is useful, because Mae Marvel’s novel is staged at thresholds: doors, borders, beds, stations, bodies, family roles, and rooms no one has quite earned the right to enter. Who is invited? Who waits? Who gets left in the corridor of someone else’s certainty? Who finally gets to change the wallpaper?
Cosima Frank has spent her life inside a Beverly Hills estate called the Castle and beneath the colder architecture of her mother’s fame. Phoebe Frank, the Queen of Hollywood, created the galaxy-swallowing “Ship of the Cosmos” franchise and then lived like someone who mistook command for care. Now Phoebe is dead. The pink marble elephant fountain still performs its commanding absurdity. Her study is being packed into acid-free boxes. Her company wants reassurance. Her daughter wants air. Cosima has inherited money, grief, stockholder anxiety, studio politics, family silence, and posthumous errands written in a dead woman’s hand.
Instead, she runs.
She runs to Gregory Place, a damp, mauve-strangled English inn where Phoebe once fell in love with Cosima’s father, Federico Russo, before celebrity hardened into dynasty. Waiting there, as old houses wait – by feeding, creaking, and withholding – are Morag Beveridge, the eighty-six-year-old innkeeper with a gift for rationing truth, and Edie Whitelock, a broke, queer, neurodivergent Wisconsin vegan cheesemaker whose dream business, Fauxmage, has collapsed after four luminous months. Edie has come to England to stop bleeding privately before taking a safe job in a pizza crust factory. Cosima has come because Gregory Place was the last unchecked item on Phoebe’s list. Morag, who seems to have wandered out of folklore with an apron and a tax strategy, sends Edie to “wake up the princess.”
Out tumble romance, cipher, mourning with biscuits, queer paper trail, renovation scheme, and a fairy tale that keeps receipts. Edie drags Cosima out to look for hedgehogs. A storm drives them into the inn’s forbidden guest book. Phoebe’s coded entry leads to a hidden letter, written before Cosima was conceived, in which Phoebe tells her imagined daughter about falling in love and inventing a treasure hunt so that one day Cosima might understand where she came from. That message in the wallpaper opens a second chamber behind the romance: the novelist Agatha Llewellyn has left a trail of clues for “Minnie,” the woman she loved and lost in 1977. The map sends Edie and Cosima through manor, castle, ossuary, café, basilica, and cottage until they learn that Minnie is Morag, that the treasure was never metal except in the sense of nerve, and that the past has been keeping vigil with less dignity and more stubbornness than anyone expected.
The itinerary ought to rattle apart; instead, the novel keeps finding time for tea. Someone is almost always eating a biscuit, solving a code, repressing a feeling, making a catastrophic travel decision, noticing a freckle with astronomical seriousness, or renovating a room that has been wrong since the eighties. Yet the crowding is the method. Edie and Cosima have both spent years being edited by other people. Marvel gives them what neither woman has been allowed: excess without apology. Weather, appetite, old paper, wet fields, erotic nerve, ancient churches, bad carpet, good tea, too many feelings, and a garden large enough to make ambition moral again.
Attention becomes flirtation’s first language. Edie’s chapters have a comic, associative charge: Wisconsin, vegan pastry, queer history, family insult, panic, want, and self-sabotage can crowd the same paragraph without turning into sludge. Her mind is always trying to outrun the pain that will catch her if she stands still. Cosima’s voice arrives lacquered, beveled, and socially insured. Her eyebrows practically have their own social class. At first, she observes as someone trained to detect taste, threat, obligation, and poor tailoring before permitting herself anything as unruly as need. Edie disorganizes her into life. Cosima begins as a woman managing pain through breath counts and board reports; she becomes someone who can understand anger as weather, sex as information, gardening as appetite, and choice as something other than disobedience.
The book is most alive when someone is touching something: paper, pastry, plaster, skin. Pears soap, lemon zest, wet wool, silk blouses, bourbon creams, old floorboards, train snacks, mummified cats, hidden stationery, butterless pastries, and the mineral smell of sun hitting wet English lanes do not sit around prettily. They work. These characters are returning to their bodies after years of treating them as sealed cupboards. Edie’s body has been mocked, nicknamed, underdressed, made useful, and underestimated. Cosima’s body has been holding family secrets as stomach pain. Their attraction is not sprinkled over the plot. It is the plot learning to speak in pulse, appetite, and permission.
The erotic scenes are where the romance does some of its thinking. They are frank, funny, and unusually careful without ever sounding like a consent checklist pasted over heat. They are made of asks, pauses, laughter, trial, astonishment, and reciprocal nerve. Cosima’s desire is not written as a crude correction to her place on the ace spectrum. She has understood herself; what changes is the arrival of a particular person who makes desire legible. For Cosima, attraction is not weather. It is an address. Edie, meanwhile, is experienced but not secure, desiring but frightened of becoming someone’s mistake. Marvel lets erotic discovery be awkward, comic, direct, and tender at once, which is no small feat. Being wanted accurately can change what a person believes she is allowed to become.
Its clues are also its craft. The guest book, Phoebe’s letter, Agatha’s ciphers, church notecards, the handmade map, the café wall, the annual letters to Barcelona, the mauve room in Wales, the half-restored lounge at Gregory Place – all are records too intimate to shelve and too stubborn to vanish. To love someone here is to decode what the world has misfiled.
Agatha and Morag are not backstory. They are the warning system and secret engine. Without their half-century romance, Edie and Cosima’s love might float away on charm. Agatha and Morag give it consequence. Their story is not a simple tragedy of intolerance, though time, family, money, work, and queer fear press on every part of it. It is also a story of pride, timing, silence, and two people respecting each other’s stated limits so thoroughly that they nearly waste a lifetime. Agatha’s annual letters to Barcelona are both romantic and terrible: devotion as ritual, hope as self-harm, longing as a postal system. When Edie and Cosima realize they have been sent not toward treasure but toward unfinished love, the chase becomes an errand with moral weather. Who has the right to open an old wound? Is closure a gift if no one asked for it? When does respect become abandonment?
Marvel does not push those questions into their darkest corners. This is not a novel that wants cruelty to have the last word, or even the second-to-last. But it understands why the questions cut. The past is not a decorative ancestor smiling over the present from a frame. It shows Edie and Cosima what happens when fear dresses itself as realism and then gets mistaken for wisdom.
Beneath the map and kisses, “The Guest Book” is about being trusted with what someone else could not finish. Cosima receives wealth, fame, a company, an addiction-shaped silence, and a mother whose love was real but often dictatorial. Edie receives scarcity, an old nickname, a gift no one quite knew how to protect, and the habit of assuming hope is humiliation warming up. Morag receives an inn and turns it into vocation, sanctuary, and prison. Agatha receives the queer constraints of her generation and turns them into clues. The novel’s best insight is that legacy is not a monument. It is maintenance.
The Paul Smith jacket Cosima buys Edie may be one of the book’s most persuasive romantic gestures. Money enters the room with its shoes on, as it always does in a romance between a Hollywood heiress and a cash-poor Wisconsin cheesemaker, but the jacket is not merely a rescue purchase. It is recognition. Cosima sees, immediately and almost with offense, that Edie deserves clothes, work, sex, space, and a future that do not require apology. Edie’s gift to Cosima is rougher and just as necessary: permission to be rude, messy, desiring, angry, funny, undecided, and still loved. Edie tells Cosima what no one in the Castle could say plainly: Phoebe’s love does not erase the harm of making her daughter manage the terms of her death. Some silences have teeth.
Restoration here is not a mood. It is labor. Someone must scrape paint, call the plasterer, oil the gate, repair the greenhouse, translate a clue, make a phone call, negotiate a company crisis, confess a family secret, make tea, ask for help, and stop treating silence as nobility. Edie’s inheritance of Gregory Place sounds, in outline, like a fairy-godmother solution to debt and heartbreak. On the page, it works better than it should because Marvel has shown that Edie already understands the inn. She sees its menu, its furniture, its possible guests, its future. She does not receive a prize so much as a charge large enough to meet her imagination.
The trouble is that the novel’s generosity sometimes arrives with the bed turned down, the kettle on, and the moral problem mostly labeled. Nearly every broken thing finds the person best suited to mend it. Edie gets the inn. Cosima gets the garden. Morag and Agatha get another chance. Duncan is released from silent almost-fatherhood into open family and his own vocation. Even Phoebe, whose damage is substantial, is re-seen through letters, stories, and complicated grief. The PFS crisis introduces sharper material – insider dealing, labor anxiety, corporate succession, the danger of treating creative legacy as stock performance – but it enters like a second novel and exits largely as pressure on Cosima’s arc. The effect is deeply pleasurable, even when the fairy dust audibly clicks into place.
There is repetition in the emotional patterning, too. Edie spirals, jokes, self-deflates, hopes, panics, and hopes again; Cosima withdraws, analyzes, commands, softens, and returns. Much of this is character-faithful, and often very funny, but at full volume the novel sometimes labels scenes already legible. It trusts banter, texture, and action; then, now and then, it explains what those things have already done. Readers who prefer compression may find the book overfurnished: one chair too many, one biscuit too many, and a porcelain shepherdess watching from every corner.
Yet the overfurnishing is also part of the charm. “The Guest Book” does not want austerity. It wants rooms with history, lovers with baggage, meals with side dishes, sex with feelings, jokes with footnotes, and clues requiring both medieval numerals and a working knowledge of cake. Its closest shelfmates are less the coolly plotted literary mystery than the emotionally expansive queer romance and the house-restoration novel. Its interest in fame’s domestic afterlife and hidden queer history brushes against Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,” though Marvel cares less about public mythmaking than about what fame does at the breakfast table. Its archive of desire has a distant kinship with Sarah Waters’s “The Paying Guests,” though Marvel chooses comic heat and reparative fantasy where Waters sharpens dread.
Readers may divide over how much mercy they want from a plot. Those who want astringency may find the ending too kind. Those allergic to grand romantic coincidence may mutter about Morag’s timing, Agatha’s letters, the helpful villagers, the Barcelona villa, and the inn waiting for Edie like a vocation with a roof. Those who need a romance to believe not in probability but in emotional rightness will be far more forgiving. The novel is not innocent about addiction, codependency, class difference, queer fear, failed ambition, or grief that arrives with receipts. It simply refuses to make injury the entry fee for consequence.
My final rating is 86/100, which translates to 4/5 stars on the whole-star Goodreads scale. That is a strongly favorable rating for a novel whose sensual detail, comic voice, warmth, and structural pleasures outweigh its conveniences and occasional over-explanation.
By the time the map is folded away, treasure has stopped being a thing to find and become a capacity to keep. A mother’s letter is cut from beneath wallpaper. A jacket fits. A dead cat keeps its ridiculous job. A drawer of annual hope crosses Europe at last. A garden waits with slugs and future roses. Edie and Cosima have not solved the past so much as learned how not to repeat its worst manners. The guest book, guarded for fifty years, becomes what it was always pretending not to be: not a ledger of departures, but a place where the living finally sign their own names.
Early compositional thumbnails test how the guest book, letter, empty chair, window light, and negative space might hold the novel’s waiting room of memory and return.
The faint pencil underdrawing maps the room before it gathers color, keeping the table, chair, letter, and window light airy enough for longing to enter.
The first-wash stage lets old paper, inn wood, garden shadow, and restrained rose tones begin to stain the page without resolving the room too soon.
The color swatch sheet builds the painting’s emotional palette from warm black, espresso brown, old-paper cream, moss green, dusty gold, and a softened memory of mauve.
Border studies explore guest-book lines, letter folds, old wood, garden traces, and archival edges as a quiet frame for the novel’s inherited secrets.
Lettering studies test the hand-painted title, author name, and my signature as part of the image’s archival, handmade surface.
Object studies of the chair, table, open book, and folded letter show how absence itself can become bodily, intimate, and emotionally inhabited.
Human-presence studies trace the figures the final image withholds: a hand near the page, a body leaving the chair, a lover just outside the frame.
The final process sheet gathers book, letter, border, light, chair, title, and signature fragments into a quiet record of how the emblematic watercolor came together.
All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.
Mae Marvel’s “The Guest Book” turns hidden letters, queer inheritance, and a half-century treasure hunt into a romance about choosing the future without abandoning the past.
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | May 8th, 2026
An open guest book, a waiting chair, and a folded letter hold the charged stillness of Gregory Place, where inheritance, queer longing, and second chances gather in the light.
“The Guest Book” begins with a woman fleeing a castle, which is useful, because Mae Marvel’s novel is staged at thresholds: doors, borders, beds, stations, bodies, family roles, and rooms no one has quite earned the right to enter. Who is invited? Who waits? Who gets left in the corridor of someone else’s certainty? Who finally gets to change the wallpaper?
Cosima Frank has spent her life inside a Beverly Hills estate called the Castle and beneath the colder architecture of her mother’s fame. Phoebe Frank, the Queen of Hollywood, created the galaxy-swallowing “Ship of the Cosmos” franchise and then lived like someone who mistook command for care. Now Phoebe is dead. The pink marble elephant fountain still performs its commanding absurdity. Her study is being packed into acid-free boxes. Her company wants reassurance. Her daughter wants air. Cosima has inherited money, grief, stockholder anxiety, studio politics, family silence, and posthumous errands written in a dead woman’s hand.
Instead, she runs.
She runs to Gregory Place, a damp, mauve-strangled English inn where Phoebe once fell in love with Cosima’s father, Federico Russo, before celebrity hardened into dynasty. Waiting there, as old houses wait – by feeding, creaking, and withholding – are Morag Beveridge, the eighty-six-year-old innkeeper with a gift for rationing truth, and Edie Whitelock, a broke, queer, neurodivergent Wisconsin vegan cheesemaker whose dream business, Fauxmage, has collapsed after four luminous months. Edie has come to England to stop bleeding privately before taking a safe job in a pizza crust factory. Cosima has come because Gregory Place was the last unchecked item on Phoebe’s list. Morag, who seems to have wandered out of folklore with an apron and a tax strategy, sends Edie to “wake up the princess.”
Out tumble romance, cipher, mourning with biscuits, queer paper trail, renovation scheme, and a fairy tale that keeps receipts. Edie drags Cosima out to look for hedgehogs. A storm drives them into the inn’s forbidden guest book. Phoebe’s coded entry leads to a hidden letter, written before Cosima was conceived, in which Phoebe tells her imagined daughter about falling in love and inventing a treasure hunt so that one day Cosima might understand where she came from. That message in the wallpaper opens a second chamber behind the romance: the novelist Agatha Llewellyn has left a trail of clues for “Minnie,” the woman she loved and lost in 1977. The map sends Edie and Cosima through manor, castle, ossuary, café, basilica, and cottage until they learn that Minnie is Morag, that the treasure was never metal except in the sense of nerve, and that the past has been keeping vigil with less dignity and more stubbornness than anyone expected.
The itinerary ought to rattle apart; instead, the novel keeps finding time for tea. Someone is almost always eating a biscuit, solving a code, repressing a feeling, making a catastrophic travel decision, noticing a freckle with astronomical seriousness, or renovating a room that has been wrong since the eighties. Yet the crowding is the method. Edie and Cosima have both spent years being edited by other people. Marvel gives them what neither woman has been allowed: excess without apology. Weather, appetite, old paper, wet fields, erotic nerve, ancient churches, bad carpet, good tea, too many feelings, and a garden large enough to make ambition moral again.
Attention becomes flirtation’s first language. Edie’s chapters have a comic, associative charge: Wisconsin, vegan pastry, queer history, family insult, panic, want, and self-sabotage can crowd the same paragraph without turning into sludge. Her mind is always trying to outrun the pain that will catch her if she stands still. Cosima’s voice arrives lacquered, beveled, and socially insured. Her eyebrows practically have their own social class. At first, she observes as someone trained to detect taste, threat, obligation, and poor tailoring before permitting herself anything as unruly as need. Edie disorganizes her into life. Cosima begins as a woman managing pain through breath counts and board reports; she becomes someone who can understand anger as weather, sex as information, gardening as appetite, and choice as something other than disobedience.
The book is most alive when someone is touching something: paper, pastry, plaster, skin. Pears soap, lemon zest, wet wool, silk blouses, bourbon creams, old floorboards, train snacks, mummified cats, hidden stationery, butterless pastries, and the mineral smell of sun hitting wet English lanes do not sit around prettily. They work. These characters are returning to their bodies after years of treating them as sealed cupboards. Edie’s body has been mocked, nicknamed, underdressed, made useful, and underestimated. Cosima’s body has been holding family secrets as stomach pain. Their attraction is not sprinkled over the plot. It is the plot learning to speak in pulse, appetite, and permission.
The erotic scenes are where the romance does some of its thinking. They are frank, funny, and unusually careful without ever sounding like a consent checklist pasted over heat. They are made of asks, pauses, laughter, trial, astonishment, and reciprocal nerve. Cosima’s desire is not written as a crude correction to her place on the ace spectrum. She has understood herself; what changes is the arrival of a particular person who makes desire legible. For Cosima, attraction is not weather. It is an address. Edie, meanwhile, is experienced but not secure, desiring but frightened of becoming someone’s mistake. Marvel lets erotic discovery be awkward, comic, direct, and tender at once, which is no small feat. Being wanted accurately can change what a person believes she is allowed to become.
Its clues are also its craft. The guest book, Phoebe’s letter, Agatha’s ciphers, church notecards, the handmade map, the café wall, the annual letters to Barcelona, the mauve room in Wales, the half-restored lounge at Gregory Place – all are records too intimate to shelve and too stubborn to vanish. To love someone here is to decode what the world has misfiled.
Agatha and Morag are not backstory. They are the warning system and secret engine. Without their half-century romance, Edie and Cosima’s love might float away on charm. Agatha and Morag give it consequence. Their story is not a simple tragedy of intolerance, though time, family, money, work, and queer fear press on every part of it. It is also a story of pride, timing, silence, and two people respecting each other’s stated limits so thoroughly that they nearly waste a lifetime. Agatha’s annual letters to Barcelona are both romantic and terrible: devotion as ritual, hope as self-harm, longing as a postal system. When Edie and Cosima realize they have been sent not toward treasure but toward unfinished love, the chase becomes an errand with moral weather. Who has the right to open an old wound? Is closure a gift if no one asked for it? When does respect become abandonment?
Marvel does not push those questions into their darkest corners. This is not a novel that wants cruelty to have the last word, or even the second-to-last. But it understands why the questions cut. The past is not a decorative ancestor smiling over the present from a frame. It shows Edie and Cosima what happens when fear dresses itself as realism and then gets mistaken for wisdom.
Beneath the map and kisses, “The Guest Book” is about being trusted with what someone else could not finish. Cosima receives wealth, fame, a company, an addiction-shaped silence, and a mother whose love was real but often dictatorial. Edie receives scarcity, an old nickname, a gift no one quite knew how to protect, and the habit of assuming hope is humiliation warming up. Morag receives an inn and turns it into vocation, sanctuary, and prison. Agatha receives the queer constraints of her generation and turns them into clues. The novel’s best insight is that legacy is not a monument. It is maintenance.
The Paul Smith jacket Cosima buys Edie may be one of the book’s most persuasive romantic gestures. Money enters the room with its shoes on, as it always does in a romance between a Hollywood heiress and a cash-poor Wisconsin cheesemaker, but the jacket is not merely a rescue purchase. It is recognition. Cosima sees, immediately and almost with offense, that Edie deserves clothes, work, sex, space, and a future that do not require apology. Edie’s gift to Cosima is rougher and just as necessary: permission to be rude, messy, desiring, angry, funny, undecided, and still loved. Edie tells Cosima what no one in the Castle could say plainly: Phoebe’s love does not erase the harm of making her daughter manage the terms of her death. Some silences have teeth.
Restoration here is not a mood. It is labor. Someone must scrape paint, call the plasterer, oil the gate, repair the greenhouse, translate a clue, make a phone call, negotiate a company crisis, confess a family secret, make tea, ask for help, and stop treating silence as nobility. Edie’s inheritance of Gregory Place sounds, in outline, like a fairy-godmother solution to debt and heartbreak. On the page, it works better than it should because Marvel has shown that Edie already understands the inn. She sees its menu, its furniture, its possible guests, its future. She does not receive a prize so much as a charge large enough to meet her imagination.
The trouble is that the novel’s generosity sometimes arrives with the bed turned down, the kettle on, and the moral problem mostly labeled. Nearly every broken thing finds the person best suited to mend it. Edie gets the inn. Cosima gets the garden. Morag and Agatha get another chance. Duncan is released from silent almost-fatherhood into open family and his own vocation. Even Phoebe, whose damage is substantial, is re-seen through letters, stories, and complicated grief. The PFS crisis introduces sharper material – insider dealing, labor anxiety, corporate succession, the danger of treating creative legacy as stock performance – but it enters like a second novel and exits largely as pressure on Cosima’s arc. The effect is deeply pleasurable, even when the fairy dust audibly clicks into place.
There is repetition in the emotional patterning, too. Edie spirals, jokes, self-deflates, hopes, panics, and hopes again; Cosima withdraws, analyzes, commands, softens, and returns. Much of this is character-faithful, and often very funny, but at full volume the novel sometimes labels scenes already legible. It trusts banter, texture, and action; then, now and then, it explains what those things have already done. Readers who prefer compression may find the book overfurnished: one chair too many, one biscuit too many, and a porcelain shepherdess watching from every corner.
Yet the overfurnishing is also part of the charm. “The Guest Book” does not want austerity. It wants rooms with history, lovers with baggage, meals with side dishes, sex with feelings, jokes with footnotes, and clues requiring both medieval numerals and a working knowledge of cake. Its closest shelfmates are less the coolly plotted literary mystery than the emotionally expansive queer romance and the house-restoration novel. Its interest in fame’s domestic afterlife and hidden queer history brushes against Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,” though Marvel cares less about public mythmaking than about what fame does at the breakfast table. Its archive of desire has a distant kinship with Sarah Waters’s “The Paying Guests,” though Marvel chooses comic heat and reparative fantasy where Waters sharpens dread.
Readers may divide over how much mercy they want from a plot. Those who want astringency may find the ending too kind. Those allergic to grand romantic coincidence may mutter about Morag’s timing, Agatha’s letters, the helpful villagers, the Barcelona villa, and the inn waiting for Edie like a vocation with a roof. Those who need a romance to believe not in probability but in emotional rightness will be far more forgiving. The novel is not innocent about addiction, codependency, class difference, queer fear, failed ambition, or grief that arrives with receipts. It simply refuses to make injury the entry fee for consequence.
My final rating is 86/100, which translates to 4/5 stars on the whole-star Goodreads scale. That is a strongly favorable rating for a novel whose sensual detail, comic voice, warmth, and structural pleasures outweigh its conveniences and occasional over-explanation.
By the time the map is folded away, treasure has stopped being a thing to find and become a capacity to keep. A mother’s letter is cut from beneath wallpaper. A jacket fits. A dead cat keeps its ridiculous job. A drawer of annual hope crosses Europe at last. A garden waits with slugs and future roses. Edie and Cosima have not solved the past so much as learned how not to repeat its worst manners. The guest book, guarded for fifty years, becomes what it was always pretending not to be: not a ledger of departures, but a place where the living finally sign their own names.
Early compositional thumbnails test how the guest book, letter, empty chair, window light, and negative space might hold the novel’s waiting room of memory and return.
The faint pencil underdrawing maps the room before it gathers color, keeping the table, chair, letter, and window light airy enough for longing to enter.
The first-wash stage lets old paper, inn wood, garden shadow, and restrained rose tones begin to stain the page without resolving the room too soon.
The color swatch sheet builds the painting’s emotional palette from warm black, espresso brown, old-paper cream, moss green, dusty gold, and a softened memory of mauve.
Border studies explore guest-book lines, letter folds, old wood, garden traces, and archival edges as a quiet frame for the novel’s inherited secrets.
Lettering studies test the hand-painted title, author name, and my signature as part of the image’s archival, handmade surface.
Object studies of the chair, table, open book, and folded letter show how absence itself can become bodily, intimate, and emotionally inhabited.
Human-presence studies trace the figures the final image withholds: a hand near the page, a body leaving the chair, a lover just outside the frame.
The final process sheet gathers book, letter, border, light, chair, title, and signature fragments into a quiet record of how the emblematic watercolor came together.
All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.
October 15, 2025
Thank you so much to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press and Mae Marvel for sharing this ARC with me, in exchange for my honest review.
The Guest Book is a diamond. Edie and Cosima's relationship is PRICELESS. They truly are Ride-or-Die for each other. Ms. Mae's writing and the way she wove everything together is perfect. It's funny and it's romantic. The flow was just right, not rushed or confusing. The twists and turns made the plot and story that much more delicious.
I totally recommend this book to all ya'll.
The Guest Book is a diamond. Edie and Cosima's relationship is PRICELESS. They truly are Ride-or-Die for each other. Ms. Mae's writing and the way she wove everything together is perfect. It's funny and it's romantic. The flow was just right, not rushed or confusing. The twists and turns made the plot and story that much more delicious.
I totally recommend this book to all ya'll.
December 20, 2025
This was my first ARC and here's my honest review, this arc was recieved through netgallery.
I loved the relationship between the characters, the plot and storyline was well written it didn't feel rushed and it flowed well, The beginning of the book did feel a little slow but the more I read the more it began to come together and I hope to see more of this authors work in the future.
I loved the relationship between the characters, the plot and storyline was well written it didn't feel rushed and it flowed well, The beginning of the book did feel a little slow but the more I read the more it began to come together and I hope to see more of this authors work in the future.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
4.5 ⭐
I wasn't entirely sure what to expect going into this one. I had previously struggled with the authors' fantasy novel, A Star-Cursed Heart, so my expectations were fairly low. But wow... this book completely took me by surprise.
Despite being a contemporary romance, it has such an enchanting and whimsical atmosphere that I found myself completely swept away by it. There was something so cozy and comforting about the entire reading experience. Maybe it was the small English village setting, maybe it was the treasure hunt, maybe it was the romance itself, but the whole time it reminded me of Leap Year and the warm feeling that movie always gives me.
There is honestly so much to love here, starting with the characters.
Cosima is mourning the loss of her mother while trying to honor her final wishes, a journey that leads her to Gregory Place, a small inn tucked away in an English village. There she meets Edie, a woman who seems determined to pull her out of her comfort zone despite carrying plenty of baggage herself. When the two discover a mysterious guest book that dates back more than fifty years, they find themselves following a trail of clues across England, Spain, and France in search of a hidden treasure. Along the way, they uncover a beautiful love story from the past while unexpectedly finding one of their own.
And honestly? I adored these characters.
From the moment Edie appeared on page, I knew she was going to become an unforgettable character for me. She was such a lovable oddball. She had this bright, sunny energy and the kind of curiosity that made every conversation feel interesting. She constantly came up with the most random observations, yet somehow they always made me smile. There was something so effortlessly charming about her. But what I loved most was seeing the vulnerability underneath all of that. Beneath her cheerful exterior was someone who had spent years feeling like she didn't quite belong anywhere. Watching her slowly realize that she was never the problem, that she simply hadn't found the right place or people for her, absolutely warmed my heart.
Then there's Cosima, who couldn't be more different. She's reserved, guarded, and much harder to figure out at first. But seeing her gradually open up throughout the story was incredibly rewarding. I especially loved how her grief was handled. Her journey of reflecting on her relationship with her mother and discovering new things about her felt so authentic and deeply emotional.
I also have to talk about the demisexual representation because it meant so much to me. The care that went into portraying Cosima's sexuality was evident in every part of her journey. Her feelings, the uncertainty, and her gradual understanding of herself all felt incredibly genuine. As someone who doesn't often see demisexual rep explored in sapphic romance, this aspect of the story hit me harder than I expected. It made me feel seen, understood, and strangely hopeful.
By the end of the story, I felt like I had watched Cosima completely transform. Her character growth was handled exquisitely, and I loved seeing her stop living in the shadow of her mother's legacy and begin carving out a path of her own. Her character fascinated me just as much as Edie did.
And don't even get me started on the romance.
This book was ridiculously romantic. It made me feel genuinely giddy. Despite having completely different personalities, Cosima and Edie fit together perfectly. They complemented one another in all the right ways and seemed to provide exactly what the other needed.
What stood out most was how naturally their relationship developed. Nothing felt rushed. Their connection unfolded at a pace that felt believable, and I loved watching them gravitate toward each other more and more with every chapter. Their banter was delightful, but it was the emotional intimacy that truly won me over. They allowed each other to see the parts of themselves they kept hidden from everyone else.
And THE YEARNING.
At one point I genuinely wanted to lock them in a room until they finally kissed because the tension was unreal. The romantic buildup was so satisfying, and even the intimate scenes felt incredibly tender because the focus never shifted away from their feelings for each other. Every moment between them felt full of affection, vulnerability, and genuine care.
If I had one small complaint, it would be that the resolution leaned a little more dramatic and Hallmark-esque than I personally would have preferred. Considering how much emphasis was placed on how impossible their relationship seemed, the ending felt slightly easier than expected. It also made the conflict feel a bit repetitive toward the end. That said, this is very much a minor criticism rather than a major issue.
The treasure hunt was another highlight for me. I became increasingly invested with every clue, and it helped balance the heavier emotional moments beautifully. I loved following the mystery alongside the characters, and I was equally invested in Agatha and Minnie's love story. By the end, I honestly wanted to go on a treasure hunt of my own.
The side characters were also wonderful. Morag completely grew on me, and I adored the humor she brought to the story. Duncan had less page time, but his kindness and support for Cosima were lovely to read about. Watching him and Cosima navigate their grief together instead of letting it pull them apart was one of the quieter aspects of the book that I really appreciated.
Overall, this is exactly the kind of book I would recommend reading while curled up under a blanket on a rainy afternoon. It has two protagonists that are impossible not to root for, a beautiful romance, a heartfelt exploration of grief, thoughtful demisexual rep, and a story about finding your own path instead of living according to everyone else's expectations.
And honestly? I'd watch a film adaptation of this in a heartbeat.
So grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this one ahead of time. Thank you!
I wasn't entirely sure what to expect going into this one. I had previously struggled with the authors' fantasy novel, A Star-Cursed Heart, so my expectations were fairly low. But wow... this book completely took me by surprise.
Despite being a contemporary romance, it has such an enchanting and whimsical atmosphere that I found myself completely swept away by it. There was something so cozy and comforting about the entire reading experience. Maybe it was the small English village setting, maybe it was the treasure hunt, maybe it was the romance itself, but the whole time it reminded me of Leap Year and the warm feeling that movie always gives me.
There is honestly so much to love here, starting with the characters.
Cosima is mourning the loss of her mother while trying to honor her final wishes, a journey that leads her to Gregory Place, a small inn tucked away in an English village. There she meets Edie, a woman who seems determined to pull her out of her comfort zone despite carrying plenty of baggage herself. When the two discover a mysterious guest book that dates back more than fifty years, they find themselves following a trail of clues across England, Spain, and France in search of a hidden treasure. Along the way, they uncover a beautiful love story from the past while unexpectedly finding one of their own.
And honestly? I adored these characters.
From the moment Edie appeared on page, I knew she was going to become an unforgettable character for me. She was such a lovable oddball. She had this bright, sunny energy and the kind of curiosity that made every conversation feel interesting. She constantly came up with the most random observations, yet somehow they always made me smile. There was something so effortlessly charming about her. But what I loved most was seeing the vulnerability underneath all of that. Beneath her cheerful exterior was someone who had spent years feeling like she didn't quite belong anywhere. Watching her slowly realize that she was never the problem, that she simply hadn't found the right place or people for her, absolutely warmed my heart.
Then there's Cosima, who couldn't be more different. She's reserved, guarded, and much harder to figure out at first. But seeing her gradually open up throughout the story was incredibly rewarding. I especially loved how her grief was handled. Her journey of reflecting on her relationship with her mother and discovering new things about her felt so authentic and deeply emotional.
I also have to talk about the demisexual representation because it meant so much to me. The care that went into portraying Cosima's sexuality was evident in every part of her journey. Her feelings, the uncertainty, and her gradual understanding of herself all felt incredibly genuine. As someone who doesn't often see demisexual rep explored in sapphic romance, this aspect of the story hit me harder than I expected. It made me feel seen, understood, and strangely hopeful.
By the end of the story, I felt like I had watched Cosima completely transform. Her character growth was handled exquisitely, and I loved seeing her stop living in the shadow of her mother's legacy and begin carving out a path of her own. Her character fascinated me just as much as Edie did.
And don't even get me started on the romance.
This book was ridiculously romantic. It made me feel genuinely giddy. Despite having completely different personalities, Cosima and Edie fit together perfectly. They complemented one another in all the right ways and seemed to provide exactly what the other needed.
What stood out most was how naturally their relationship developed. Nothing felt rushed. Their connection unfolded at a pace that felt believable, and I loved watching them gravitate toward each other more and more with every chapter. Their banter was delightful, but it was the emotional intimacy that truly won me over. They allowed each other to see the parts of themselves they kept hidden from everyone else.
And THE YEARNING.
At one point I genuinely wanted to lock them in a room until they finally kissed because the tension was unreal. The romantic buildup was so satisfying, and even the intimate scenes felt incredibly tender because the focus never shifted away from their feelings for each other. Every moment between them felt full of affection, vulnerability, and genuine care.
If I had one small complaint, it would be that the resolution leaned a little more dramatic and Hallmark-esque than I personally would have preferred. Considering how much emphasis was placed on how impossible their relationship seemed, the ending felt slightly easier than expected. It also made the conflict feel a bit repetitive toward the end. That said, this is very much a minor criticism rather than a major issue.
The treasure hunt was another highlight for me. I became increasingly invested with every clue, and it helped balance the heavier emotional moments beautifully. I loved following the mystery alongside the characters, and I was equally invested in Agatha and Minnie's love story. By the end, I honestly wanted to go on a treasure hunt of my own.
The side characters were also wonderful. Morag completely grew on me, and I adored the humor she brought to the story. Duncan had less page time, but his kindness and support for Cosima were lovely to read about. Watching him and Cosima navigate their grief together instead of letting it pull them apart was one of the quieter aspects of the book that I really appreciated.
Overall, this is exactly the kind of book I would recommend reading while curled up under a blanket on a rainy afternoon. It has two protagonists that are impossible not to root for, a beautiful romance, a heartfelt exploration of grief, thoughtful demisexual rep, and a story about finding your own path instead of living according to everyone else's expectations.
And honestly? I'd watch a film adaptation of this in a heartbeat.
So grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this one ahead of time. Thank you!
February 9, 2026
This was a beautiful sapphic love story that managed to include fun and humorous elements alongside weightier topics that were handled with great care. Marvel addressed feelings of grief, anxiety, insecurity, and familial pressure in ways that felt real and lent depth to the story and characters.
I appreciated the representation that was shown throughout the book including people with disabilities living full and meaningful lives, and individuals of all ages and stages of life finding or maintaining loving romantic partnerships.
Above all I appreciate how many different kinds of queer relationships were included and that love and joy was always the focus.
*Thank you to NetGalley for the free ARC*
I appreciated the representation that was shown throughout the book including people with disabilities living full and meaningful lives, and individuals of all ages and stages of life finding or maintaining loving romantic partnerships.
Above all I appreciate how many different kinds of queer relationships were included and that love and joy was always the focus.
*Thank you to NetGalley for the free ARC*
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The story has a whimsical element I enjoyed, while remaining grounded. The story had real elements of character and romantic development, but the atmosphere gave them a specific romantic feel.
There’s a great balance between the whimsical atmosphere the setting creates and the grounded emotional development of each character. The characters still had real demons to fight and real conflicts to handle, which balanced out the fun mystery elements. Even though I doubt most potential readers have done a treasure hunt across England and Europe with someone they met at an inn in the English countryside, there’s still a genuineness to the book that tugs at the heartstrings and tells a good story. Shoutout to yet another advanced copy I’ve read in the past 3 weeks which features grief as a major theme. If I had a nickel and all that.
About halfway through, I said this had very Jane Austen energy, and I think it’s because it’s a romance set in the English countryside, and possibly no other reason; but I still maintain it had an Austen feel. I think the way I can describe this book is a litfic hallmark. The plot itself had a very hallmark feel, especially as it went on, but the prose and the story's flow had a bit of a literary fiction undertone. I wouldn’t describe this as literary fiction per se, but it does have elements of it in the way that the writing flows.
The ending and the resolution of the story were very predictable to me; I predicted the end of the treasure hunt, and the other way that the general plot ended pretty early on. But that didn’t impede my enjoyment of the story and its resolution at all. Did it have a bit of a Hallmark resolution? Sure. Was it still a great reading experience that I think many people will enjoy, despite its predictability? Absolutely.
To me, this read like Thrill of the Chase by Kathryn Nolan meets The Pairing by Casey McQuinston, and I’m not sure how many people that combination will mean something to, but I wanted to include it just in case.
This was a great reading experience. It was fun and whimsical, while also heart-wrenching and earnest. I think this is a great vacation read and a good palate refresher for those who may be burnt out on typical contemporary romance and want to read something a bit different without straying from the genre. If the vibes of the cover, the blurb, or this review speak to you, I’m positive you’ll enjoy this book.
🌶️🌶️🌶️(2.5, multiple on page scenes and references to)
Thank you to St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy! I received an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.
There’s a great balance between the whimsical atmosphere the setting creates and the grounded emotional development of each character. The characters still had real demons to fight and real conflicts to handle, which balanced out the fun mystery elements. Even though I doubt most potential readers have done a treasure hunt across England and Europe with someone they met at an inn in the English countryside, there’s still a genuineness to the book that tugs at the heartstrings and tells a good story. Shoutout to yet another advanced copy I’ve read in the past 3 weeks which features grief as a major theme. If I had a nickel and all that.
About halfway through, I said this had very Jane Austen energy, and I think it’s because it’s a romance set in the English countryside, and possibly no other reason; but I still maintain it had an Austen feel. I think the way I can describe this book is a litfic hallmark. The plot itself had a very hallmark feel, especially as it went on, but the prose and the story's flow had a bit of a literary fiction undertone. I wouldn’t describe this as literary fiction per se, but it does have elements of it in the way that the writing flows.
The ending and the resolution of the story were very predictable to me; I predicted the end of the treasure hunt, and the other way that the general plot ended pretty early on. But that didn’t impede my enjoyment of the story and its resolution at all. Did it have a bit of a Hallmark resolution? Sure. Was it still a great reading experience that I think many people will enjoy, despite its predictability? Absolutely.
To me, this read like Thrill of the Chase by Kathryn Nolan meets The Pairing by Casey McQuinston, and I’m not sure how many people that combination will mean something to, but I wanted to include it just in case.
This was a great reading experience. It was fun and whimsical, while also heart-wrenching and earnest. I think this is a great vacation read and a good palate refresher for those who may be burnt out on typical contemporary romance and want to read something a bit different without straying from the genre. If the vibes of the cover, the blurb, or this review speak to you, I’m positive you’ll enjoy this book.
🌶️🌶️🌶️(2.5, multiple on page scenes and references to)
Thank you to St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy! I received an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This book definitely took its time getting to the good parts, with a very slow build up to not only the relationship, but to the plot as well. Cosima took a while for me to warm up to, but I immediately liked Edie and her chaotic thoughts and personality. I did enjoy both of Cosima and Edie’s individual journeys and how they were able to work through their issues. But when it came to them as a couple, it just felt like, for being two complete strangers, nothing like that would ever happen that fast in reality. Especially considering how different their backgrounds are and the trajectory of their lives. But for the sake of the story, I understand the motive, I just couldn’t help but feel like something was still missing between them.
What I liked most about Cosima was her ace sexuality and how she was able to open up to Edie and realize how special it is to find someone who sees the real you and still chooses you in the end. However, it was hard to get behind why she felt so connected to her mom and Duncan when it seemed like her mom was hardly around, and Duncan was like a much older father figure who stepped in later in her life. Basically for me, there was just too much information about them and her need to please them and fulfill a dream of her mom’s rather than focusing on what would have actually made Cosima happy for herself. Edie was just a humorous ball of sunshine from the very beginning. In this case, I think the grumpy/sunshine vibes made the story fun and the banter something that worked for their building romance. When it came to their romantic chemistry, I think because so much of it revolved around the scavenger hunt, there wasn’t enough time for the romance to grow and blossom into what I was hoping it would be.
The scavenger hunt plot was very interesting. About halfway through it though, it became very obvious as to how it was going to end. I wasn’t necessarily mad about how it ended, but I guess it didn’t quite make sense how everything came together and why Cosima’s mom was somehow involved. There were just a lot of convenient things that still happened to be there after so many years and how two “American” girls were able to figure everything out so quickly. The third act breakup or momentary pause also felt forced and unnecessary.
Overall, I enjoyed the characters enough, the scavenger hunt was unique (especially spanning multiple countries), and the character’s voices were well written, but I felt a bit let down by the romance and wish there had been more focus on building their chemistry and the aftermath of the treasure hunt.
What I liked most about Cosima was her ace sexuality and how she was able to open up to Edie and realize how special it is to find someone who sees the real you and still chooses you in the end. However, it was hard to get behind why she felt so connected to her mom and Duncan when it seemed like her mom was hardly around, and Duncan was like a much older father figure who stepped in later in her life. Basically for me, there was just too much information about them and her need to please them and fulfill a dream of her mom’s rather than focusing on what would have actually made Cosima happy for herself. Edie was just a humorous ball of sunshine from the very beginning. In this case, I think the grumpy/sunshine vibes made the story fun and the banter something that worked for their building romance. When it came to their romantic chemistry, I think because so much of it revolved around the scavenger hunt, there wasn’t enough time for the romance to grow and blossom into what I was hoping it would be.
The scavenger hunt plot was very interesting. About halfway through it though, it became very obvious as to how it was going to end. I wasn’t necessarily mad about how it ended, but I guess it didn’t quite make sense how everything came together and why Cosima’s mom was somehow involved. There were just a lot of convenient things that still happened to be there after so many years and how two “American” girls were able to figure everything out so quickly. The third act breakup or momentary pause also felt forced and unnecessary.
Overall, I enjoyed the characters enough, the scavenger hunt was unique (especially spanning multiple countries), and the character’s voices were well written, but I felt a bit let down by the romance and wish there had been more focus on building their chemistry and the aftermath of the treasure hunt.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This is an opposites attract, Sapphic, family secrets treasure hunt kind of book. I think if that pitch sounds interesting to you maybe give this book a go. For me, this book felt okay.
The book follows a young woman, Cosima, who has just lost her iconic Hollywood famous mother leaving Cosima with the decisions about how to carry on her mother's legacy company. This overwhelms Cosima and she decides instead to follow a bucket list her mother had which lands her at an rundown inn in the English countryside where she isolates and attempts to recover. The inn isn't popular so she only has to hide from eccentric elderly proprietress and another young woman, Edie, who is attempting to figure her life out as well but in much less glamorous circumstances. Edie is from Wisconsin so, of course, has a passion for cheese but she's vegan so she decided to open a vegan cheese shop. Well, it crumbled and now she's recovering at this inn as well until she is set to start a factory job back in Wisconsin. The two meet and there is a kind of instant connection despite their differences. Cosmia also appears to fall somewhere on the demisexual continuum but starts having some feelings about and around Edie that are a little confusing for her. As they are getting to know each other they end up looking into the inn's notorious guest book for Cosima's mother's entry when she came to the inn years and years ago. This turns out to be a clue to a little treasure hunt Cosima's mother set up decades ago and they two decide to follow the trail together learning about themselves, their families and each other along the way.
I never felt very connected to either of these two characters. The book felt a little hard to follow and disjointed for me. I did learn that this author is a pen name for a pair of authors who write together. I am wondering if it felt a little disjointed because different people were writing different chunks of the book? I didn't connect to the little treasure hunt nor did I feel bought in to the things that were feeling important in Cosima and Edie's life outside of the inn with Cosima's mother's company or Edie's felt compulsion to go back and work this factory job. I guess if you like your Sapphic romance to have a bit of a questy feel to it maybe this one is for you?
**I received a free copy of this ebook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.**
The book follows a young woman, Cosima, who has just lost her iconic Hollywood famous mother leaving Cosima with the decisions about how to carry on her mother's legacy company. This overwhelms Cosima and she decides instead to follow a bucket list her mother had which lands her at an rundown inn in the English countryside where she isolates and attempts to recover. The inn isn't popular so she only has to hide from eccentric elderly proprietress and another young woman, Edie, who is attempting to figure her life out as well but in much less glamorous circumstances. Edie is from Wisconsin so, of course, has a passion for cheese but she's vegan so she decided to open a vegan cheese shop. Well, it crumbled and now she's recovering at this inn as well until she is set to start a factory job back in Wisconsin. The two meet and there is a kind of instant connection despite their differences. Cosmia also appears to fall somewhere on the demisexual continuum but starts having some feelings about and around Edie that are a little confusing for her. As they are getting to know each other they end up looking into the inn's notorious guest book for Cosima's mother's entry when she came to the inn years and years ago. This turns out to be a clue to a little treasure hunt Cosima's mother set up decades ago and they two decide to follow the trail together learning about themselves, their families and each other along the way.
I never felt very connected to either of these two characters. The book felt a little hard to follow and disjointed for me. I did learn that this author is a pen name for a pair of authors who write together. I am wondering if it felt a little disjointed because different people were writing different chunks of the book? I didn't connect to the little treasure hunt nor did I feel bought in to the things that were feeling important in Cosima and Edie's life outside of the inn with Cosima's mother's company or Edie's felt compulsion to go back and work this factory job. I guess if you like your Sapphic romance to have a bit of a questy feel to it maybe this one is for you?
**I received a free copy of this ebook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.**
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
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Edie travels to Gregory Place, a charming older inn with an equally charming, ornery innkeeper, to lick her wounds and recover from what she views as failure. Cosima, a wealthy Los Angeles princess, too runs away to the inn to face the grief of losing her mother and to complete the list she'd wanted to do with her daughter before her passing. Untimely grief will do anyone in, but a secluded inn with peculiar secrets will certainly also help anyone out. Edie needs to talk and she needs company. Cosima needs to wallow, but also, maybe likes the company. The innkeeper knows something that these two does not and allowing them access to her long protected guest book is just what they, and she, need. What begins as a grief journey, becomes a tale of self discovery as the two set out to discover an author's secrets across the beautiful, historic English countryside.
I loved this book as much as I loved The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Totally different stories, and this one is definitely smuttier, but the way it got to my little lesbian heart? The same. I've always loved books about chasing treasures and the self discovery journey they take you on, but giving me two characters that I can see a bit of myself in, and the love that we often struggle to accept, totally perfect. There was no way this novel wasn't going to work for me and I've already recommended it plenty. Apologies to my aunt, who will not be prepared for the final chapter of the novel. It's the finding your identity and belief in yourself, and the way someone else believing in you can help you do the same, that really spoke to me. Realizing it's okay to love and be loved, all while going on a whimsical trip to uncover treasure? Melt my heart.
Yes, it takes time to get to the meat of the story, but it's worth hanging on for. There's a lot of detail to this book, but it comes to life in your hands. For all they are running from, Edie and Cosima both need to have these experiences, both physically and internally, to find themselves again, to find the treasure, and hopefully to find a place for one another. The detailed experiences are what allow you to understand our characters and how they see and feel the world and one another. The novel is poetic, funny, and romantic to its core. Our writing duo, Mae Marvel, deliver us readers a beautiful piece of art in the pages of The Guest Book.
ARC provided via NetGalley.
Edie travels to Gregory Place, a charming older inn with an equally charming, ornery innkeeper, to lick her wounds and recover from what she views as failure. Cosima, a wealthy Los Angeles princess, too runs away to the inn to face the grief of losing her mother and to complete the list she'd wanted to do with her daughter before her passing. Untimely grief will do anyone in, but a secluded inn with peculiar secrets will certainly also help anyone out. Edie needs to talk and she needs company. Cosima needs to wallow, but also, maybe likes the company. The innkeeper knows something that these two does not and allowing them access to her long protected guest book is just what they, and she, need. What begins as a grief journey, becomes a tale of self discovery as the two set out to discover an author's secrets across the beautiful, historic English countryside.
I loved this book as much as I loved The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Totally different stories, and this one is definitely smuttier, but the way it got to my little lesbian heart? The same. I've always loved books about chasing treasures and the self discovery journey they take you on, but giving me two characters that I can see a bit of myself in, and the love that we often struggle to accept, totally perfect. There was no way this novel wasn't going to work for me and I've already recommended it plenty. Apologies to my aunt, who will not be prepared for the final chapter of the novel. It's the finding your identity and belief in yourself, and the way someone else believing in you can help you do the same, that really spoke to me. Realizing it's okay to love and be loved, all while going on a whimsical trip to uncover treasure? Melt my heart.
Yes, it takes time to get to the meat of the story, but it's worth hanging on for. There's a lot of detail to this book, but it comes to life in your hands. For all they are running from, Edie and Cosima both need to have these experiences, both physically and internally, to find themselves again, to find the treasure, and hopefully to find a place for one another. The detailed experiences are what allow you to understand our characters and how they see and feel the world and one another. The novel is poetic, funny, and romantic to its core. Our writing duo, Mae Marvel, deliver us readers a beautiful piece of art in the pages of The Guest Book.
ARC provided via NetGalley.
November 7, 2025
NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a free advanced copy of this book.
I read and really enjoyed Mae Marvel's previous book, If I Told You, I'd Have to Kill You. That was at least partly because it was part romance, part spy thriller, and I love spy thrillers. But it also had good characters with chemistry to go along with the fast-moving plot and spy antics.
This one also involves exotic locations (or at least Europe which is exotic enough to an American like me lol) as well, and has two equally interesting protagonists but overall I didn't enjoy it quite as much. I still would give it 3 stars, but there were some aspects that I just wasn't as engaged with.
Individually, the protagonists are really well done. Cosima is the daughter of a Hollywood legend, a woman who made a fortune as an actor, director and studio head. Her mother has recently died, and Cosima is struggling with her complicated relationship with her mother and her mother's legacy. She escapes to a small town in rural England, to stay at the same inn where her mother met her father.
Edie is from Green Bay, but doesn't fit in (to the degree that she tried to open a vegan cheese shop there). She's running from the failure of the shop, using the last of her meager funds to come to the same inn Cosima is staying at because she googled the most isolated towns in England and this was the one that came up. She's trying to figure out where she belongs and how to continue on now that she tried her dream and failed miserably.
The two of them cross paths, and end up finding a sort of scavenger hunt hidden in the Inn's guest book. The Inn's elderly owner encourages them to follow the clues. Their journey to figure out where the hunt ends leads them to the Continent and romance novel shenanigans ensue.
While I like Cosima and Edie individually and liked seeing them figure out their personal issues, and I thought the idea of the decades old scavenger hunt was fun, I didn't feel like the relationship between the two of them was given enough room to breathe. Like yes, it's a romance novel. I understand that people fall in love fast or at first sight. I'm not expecting realism here. However, usually, there's more chemistry. While I could believe Cosima and Edie as two people who crossed paths and banded together for the hunt, and even helped one another figure out their problems, I just didn't feel their romantic chemistry, at least not at the pace it happened.
(For instance, I could see something developing out of their friendship, but everything happened so fast with no stages in between. Again, I get that that's a romance novel thing, but it just didn't feel as well developed as some of the other story elements)
This is obviously just my opinion. And I truly did really enjoy many other aspects of the book (in fact most of them). I felt like their individual storylines, where they're sort of figuring themselves out, were quite well done, and the scavenger hunt was, as mentioned, interesting. The book could've used another 50 or 60 pages to give the romance a little more room to breathe. It had a ton of other things going for it.
Thanks again to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this free advanced copy.
I read and really enjoyed Mae Marvel's previous book, If I Told You, I'd Have to Kill You. That was at least partly because it was part romance, part spy thriller, and I love spy thrillers. But it also had good characters with chemistry to go along with the fast-moving plot and spy antics.
This one also involves exotic locations (or at least Europe which is exotic enough to an American like me lol) as well, and has two equally interesting protagonists but overall I didn't enjoy it quite as much. I still would give it 3 stars, but there were some aspects that I just wasn't as engaged with.
Individually, the protagonists are really well done. Cosima is the daughter of a Hollywood legend, a woman who made a fortune as an actor, director and studio head. Her mother has recently died, and Cosima is struggling with her complicated relationship with her mother and her mother's legacy. She escapes to a small town in rural England, to stay at the same inn where her mother met her father.
Edie is from Green Bay, but doesn't fit in (to the degree that she tried to open a vegan cheese shop there). She's running from the failure of the shop, using the last of her meager funds to come to the same inn Cosima is staying at because she googled the most isolated towns in England and this was the one that came up. She's trying to figure out where she belongs and how to continue on now that she tried her dream and failed miserably.
The two of them cross paths, and end up finding a sort of scavenger hunt hidden in the Inn's guest book. The Inn's elderly owner encourages them to follow the clues. Their journey to figure out where the hunt ends leads them to the Continent and romance novel shenanigans ensue.
While I like Cosima and Edie individually and liked seeing them figure out their personal issues, and I thought the idea of the decades old scavenger hunt was fun, I didn't feel like the relationship between the two of them was given enough room to breathe. Like yes, it's a romance novel. I understand that people fall in love fast or at first sight. I'm not expecting realism here. However, usually, there's more chemistry. While I could believe Cosima and Edie as two people who crossed paths and banded together for the hunt, and even helped one another figure out their problems, I just didn't feel their romantic chemistry, at least not at the pace it happened.
(For instance, I could see something developing out of their friendship, but everything happened so fast with no stages in between. Again, I get that that's a romance novel thing, but it just didn't feel as well developed as some of the other story elements)
This is obviously just my opinion. And I truly did really enjoy many other aspects of the book (in fact most of them). I felt like their individual storylines, where they're sort of figuring themselves out, were quite well done, and the scavenger hunt was, as mentioned, interesting. The book could've used another 50 or 60 pages to give the romance a little more room to breathe. It had a ton of other things going for it.
Thanks again to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this free advanced copy.
December 8, 2025
This book's greatest strength was one of the main characters, Edie. She felt fully fleshed out and felt like a real younger Millennial trying to find her way in life. She also had a personality that was so endearing and relatable. Every scene that she was in had me completely engrossed, and I was rooting for her from the very start. Her relationship with her mom also felt so real and relatable. There is a lovely set of romances that unfold in this book, but I am telling you to read it simply for Edie. She will make you feel seen and make you laugh while she does it.
Cosima felt a little less fleshed out as a character, but the way that Marvel was able to convey the grief and complicated feelings that Cosima had in the wake of her mother's death was so beautifully written. The other aspects of her personality did feel a little less rounded than Edie and this might be intentional, given the rigid nature of how Cosima was raised.
I loved how the romance blossomed over the course of the book, and we really see Cosima come into her own as a member of the ACE community. Also, watching Cosima fall for Edie made her more endearing. The steamy scenes throughout the book also had the perfect balance of vulnerability, steam, and interpersonal comfort.
I did feel that the travel journey that Cosima and Edie go on together did feel a bit contrived throughout the course of the plot. Was it fun to see their relationship develop over the course of their European travels? Sure, but the buildup didn't necessarily pay off in the end. The resolution was heart-warming, but the context clues gave away the game early on about how this was going to end.
Also, the third act "non-breakup" felt like it came out of nowhere. It just felt like some plot holes needed to be filled ot make all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together. On the one hand, we were as surprised as Cosima. On the other hand, it just felt unrealistic.
This was a fun read, and I'd recommend it for your holiday vacation read.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
CONTENT WARNINGS
Graphic: Cursing, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Grief, Death of a parent, Abandonment
Cosima felt a little less fleshed out as a character, but the way that Marvel was able to convey the grief and complicated feelings that Cosima had in the wake of her mother's death was so beautifully written. The other aspects of her personality did feel a little less rounded than Edie and this might be intentional, given the rigid nature of how Cosima was raised.
I loved how the romance blossomed over the course of the book, and we really see Cosima come into her own as a member of the ACE community. Also, watching Cosima fall for Edie made her more endearing. The steamy scenes throughout the book also had the perfect balance of vulnerability, steam, and interpersonal comfort.
I did feel that the travel journey that Cosima and Edie go on together did feel a bit contrived throughout the course of the plot. Was it fun to see their relationship develop over the course of their European travels? Sure, but the buildup didn't necessarily pay off in the end. The resolution was heart-warming, but the context clues gave away the game early on about how this was going to end.
Also, the third act "non-breakup" felt like it came out of nowhere. It just felt like some plot holes needed to be filled ot make all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together. On the one hand, we were as surprised as Cosima. On the other hand, it just felt unrealistic.
This was a fun read, and I'd recommend it for your holiday vacation read.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
CONTENT WARNINGS
Graphic: Cursing, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Grief, Death of a parent, Abandonment
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I have to admit that I wasn’t exactly looking forward to reading this book. I had just finished another book that I didn’t enjoy that much, and at the very end of it, I realized this book was by the same author under a different name (or at least one of the authors since this seems to be a duo who write under Mae Marvel). Oh well, I had already requested it and had to read it, so I figured I would just get it over with. Thankfully, this was a much better book than the other.
The Guest Book is a fun read. It was pretty much exactly what I expect from a romance novel of this type: nothing life-changing, but an enjoyable time.
I mostly enjoyed both characters, though I definitely preferred Cosima over Edie. Edie felt a bit too immature at times, especially for a character who is nearing thirty years old. Her outbursts at Morag just felt weird and I half expected her to stomp her foot like a teenager, not an adult who has even owned her own business. Thankfully, she wasn’t like this all the time, and Cosima more than made up for my occasional annoyances with Edie.
I also mostly enjoyed their romance, though I did feel like there was something slightly missing. Most of the time, the chemistry was definitely there, but at other times, I felt like it was lacking a little. I think this may partially be because the romance felt a little rushed to me. I guess I just wish there was a little more longing before they admitted their feelings for each other. From there, everything just seemed to move so quickly between them, and I prefer a bit more of a slow burn.
The treasure hunt was fun even if I did see the end of it coming from a mile away. I also liked the side characters (although I wish we’d gotten a little more Tam) and enjoyed the locations Cosima and Edie went to, especially the time they spent in England.
Overall, an enjoyable romance book.
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC. All opinions are my own.
The Guest Book is a fun read. It was pretty much exactly what I expect from a romance novel of this type: nothing life-changing, but an enjoyable time.
I mostly enjoyed both characters, though I definitely preferred Cosima over Edie. Edie felt a bit too immature at times, especially for a character who is nearing thirty years old. Her outbursts at Morag just felt weird and I half expected her to stomp her foot like a teenager, not an adult who has even owned her own business. Thankfully, she wasn’t like this all the time, and Cosima more than made up for my occasional annoyances with Edie.
I also mostly enjoyed their romance, though I did feel like there was something slightly missing. Most of the time, the chemistry was definitely there, but at other times, I felt like it was lacking a little. I think this may partially be because the romance felt a little rushed to me. I guess I just wish there was a little more longing before they admitted their feelings for each other. From there, everything just seemed to move so quickly between them, and I prefer a bit more of a slow burn.
The treasure hunt was fun even if I did see the end of it coming from a mile away. I also liked the side characters (although I wish we’d gotten a little more Tam) and enjoyed the locations Cosima and Edie went to, especially the time they spent in England.
Overall, an enjoyable romance book.
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC. All opinions are my own.
June 8, 2026
Summary:
Cosima and Edie are both adrift: Cosima, following the death of her movie star mother, who dictated her entire life, and Edie, after the failure of her dream store. By chance, they met at the small inn in England where Cosima's mother met the love of her life, and find themselves strangely compatible, despite having such different lives and personalities. When the owner of the inn permits them to begin the treasure hunt she has been guarding for decades, the pair find themselves traversing the countryside, and the continent, finding not only clues, but also finding things out about each and themselves, and maybe growing - both individually and together - along the way.
Review:
I loved Mae Marvel's other book, about the spy couple so I was delighted to read this one as well! The authors did such a good job with the magic of the treasure hunt: the whimsy and the descriptions were just a treat to read, and they really heightened my experience of the treasure hunt as a reader. The two main characters' anxieties and fears, and their reactions to them, were both very relatable to me which I enjoyed. However, as an asexual myself, this book committed a cardinal flaw to me: giving a character demisexuality and then having them fall in insta-love/lust with another character. I hate when writers do this trope, and unfortunately it's happened multiple times, b/c it feels so unrealistic to me, and it always makes me go, well then why did you do it. If you're going to immediately have them want to sleep together, then why have the demisexuality in the first place? It always alienates me a little when it ends up being, "well I've never wanted to sleep with anyone before but you'll have to trust me b/c I have feelings for this one here in the book". Overall, though, this was a fun book and I enjoyed my read.
Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.
Cosima and Edie are both adrift: Cosima, following the death of her movie star mother, who dictated her entire life, and Edie, after the failure of her dream store. By chance, they met at the small inn in England where Cosima's mother met the love of her life, and find themselves strangely compatible, despite having such different lives and personalities. When the owner of the inn permits them to begin the treasure hunt she has been guarding for decades, the pair find themselves traversing the countryside, and the continent, finding not only clues, but also finding things out about each and themselves, and maybe growing - both individually and together - along the way.
Review:
I loved Mae Marvel's other book, about the spy couple so I was delighted to read this one as well! The authors did such a good job with the magic of the treasure hunt: the whimsy and the descriptions were just a treat to read, and they really heightened my experience of the treasure hunt as a reader. The two main characters' anxieties and fears, and their reactions to them, were both very relatable to me which I enjoyed. However, as an asexual myself, this book committed a cardinal flaw to me: giving a character demisexuality and then having them fall in insta-love/lust with another character. I hate when writers do this trope, and unfortunately it's happened multiple times, b/c it feels so unrealistic to me, and it always makes me go, well then why did you do it. If you're going to immediately have them want to sleep together, then why have the demisexuality in the first place? It always alienates me a little when it ends up being, "well I've never wanted to sleep with anyone before but you'll have to trust me b/c I have feelings for this one here in the book". Overall, though, this was a fun book and I enjoyed my read.
Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.
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