Excerpt from Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Really?" She sounds amused. "I tend to have the opposite problem. Can't help but expect the worst from people." She flashes a smile. It's both dazzling and sad. Sazzling.

That, for example, would not make it to a typed-and-edited sentence. But the point is, I can see it hidden back beneath those sparkly irises of hers somewhere: the truth. The one we've never heard before.

What it was like to be born into a world of silver spoons and golden platters, of actors drunkenly swimming fully clothed through your indoor pool and politicians making handshake agreements across your antique dinner table.

How it felt to fall in love with rock 'n' roll royalty, and for him to love you back, wildly.

And of course, about the other things. The scandal, the cult, the trial, the accident.

And finally, twenty years ago, Margaret's disappearance.

What happened, but also why.

And why now, after all this time, she's open to finally telling the story.

Behind Margaret, the door squeals open and Jodi reenters the house, toting a bucket of lemons. "Thank you, Jodi," Margaret calls, without turning around.

Jodi grunts. I could not begin to guess whether the two women are friends, romantic partners, an employer and employee, or mortal enemies who happen to be roommates.

Margaret crosses one leg over the other. "Cute nails," she says, jutting her chin toward my hands in my lap.

The moment of connection makes me near giddy. "They're press-ons." I lean forward so she can get a better look at the little strawberry-printed designs.

"I'd bet you're the kind of person," she says, "who tries to find beauty in everything."

"Don't you?" I ask, intrigued by the soft, sad smile that feathers across her lips.

She gives a half-realized shrug that reads less like I don't know and more like I don't like that question.

Then, like the Ives she is, she neatly reroutes the dialogue: "So how exactly would this work? If I agreed to do it."

I don't let the if discourage me. I knew she wasn't one hundred percent in just yet, and I don't blame her. "However you want it to," I promise.

She arches one brow. "What if I want it to work how it would usually work?"

"Well," I say, "I haven't done anything exactly like this before. Usually I'm doing features and profiles. I spend a couple days, or weeks, with a person. And I write about my observations, crack some jokes. It's an 'outsider looking in' perspective. This would be different.

"It'd be about getting your experience onto the page. 'Insider looking out.' That would take a lot longer, months probably, just for the first round of research to be able to write a draft and figure out where my holes are. I'd rent a place nearby, and we'd have a schedule, times for sit-down interviews, but also time for me to just shadow you."

"Shadow me," she repeats thoughtfully.

"Follow you around in your normal life," I clarify. "See what you grow in your garden, who you spend your time with. Hang out with you and Jodi, and any other friends you've got in town."

Margaret's chin juts forward, her eyes closing on her own quick, blunt laugh. "Do me a favor and say that again when she gets back in here."

Mere seconds later, Jodi comes streaming back into the room, carrying two glasses of lemonade. She plops them both down on the coffee table.

"Thanks, Jodi," I say, determined to win her over.

She marches back out the way she came in.

"I'd die without you," Margaret calls teasingly after her.

"Don't I know it," Jodi shouts, before disappearing through the doorway.

I take a tiny sip of the lemonade, which turns into a long gulp, because it's amazing, fresh and crisp with torn mint leaves swirling around along with the ice cubes.

I set the glass down and force myself to get back to business. "Look, there are a lot more experienced writers you could pair up with. There are hundreds of people who would push me in front of a bus to get this job, and honestly, I'd understand it if they did."

Excerpted from Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry. Copyright © 2025 by Emily Henry. Excerpted by permission of Berkley Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.