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Absolutely Not Him: A Small-Town Romantic Comedy About Redemption…Sort Of
One thrown stiletto. One small-town banishment. One morally gray man with secrets.
Frankie Peterson had a conquer the fashion world and avoid distractions like forever love or friendship bracelets. Then one thrown stiletto turned into a viral moment and Mr. Uptight banished her to Gi Gi’s Crossing.
It’s a small town where the gossip’s printed, fashion called in tipsy, and everyone waves. Her punishment? Run the dusty bookstore and convince the locals she’s nice. Spoiler she’s not.
Marcus DeLuca Grant was supposed to stay out of the spotlight. But when a fashion editor nails him in the head with a thrown stiletto, he doesn’t get mad. He gets strategic.
With mafia-adjacent roots and a history best left buried, he’s made a life out of staying invisible. Exiling Frankie to small-town purgatory was meant to fix a problem, not create one. Too bad she’s impossible to ignore, and every argument leaves him a little more undone.
As sparks fly and lies unravel, Frankie and Marcus must decide what happens when the person you set out to destroy becomes the one you can’t live without.
Think The Devil Wears Prada… if Miranda got sentenced to charm school.
Frankie Peterson had a conquer the fashion world and avoid distractions like forever love or friendship bracelets. Then one thrown stiletto turned into a viral moment and Mr. Uptight banished her to Gi Gi’s Crossing.
It’s a small town where the gossip’s printed, fashion called in tipsy, and everyone waves. Her punishment? Run the dusty bookstore and convince the locals she’s nice. Spoiler she’s not.
Marcus DeLuca Grant was supposed to stay out of the spotlight. But when a fashion editor nails him in the head with a thrown stiletto, he doesn’t get mad. He gets strategic.
With mafia-adjacent roots and a history best left buried, he’s made a life out of staying invisible. Exiling Frankie to small-town purgatory was meant to fix a problem, not create one. Too bad she’s impossible to ignore, and every argument leaves him a little more undone.
As sparks fly and lies unravel, Frankie and Marcus must decide what happens when the person you set out to destroy becomes the one you can’t live without.
Think The Devil Wears Prada… if Miranda got sentenced to charm school.
448 pages, Paperback
Published January 14, 2026
About the author
Lisa Wells
28 books123 followersLisa Wells is the author of Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2021) and The Fix (2018), winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize. Her poems and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, Granta, The Believer, N+1, The Iowa Review, at The Poetry Foundation and elsewhere. She lives in Seattle and is an editor for The Volta and Letter Machine Editions.
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