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

"Troubling," Margaret says.

"My point is, if you're ready to tell your story, you deserve to have it told exactly how you want it to be. It needs to be yours, no one else's. And that only works if you're doing this with someone you completely trust. But I can promise you, if you end up wanting to write this book together, your voice will be front and center. That's my top priority. Making sure it's your story."

Her smile fades, her face sobering. The crinkles at the corners of her eyes and the folds at the edges of her mouth deepen, proof of an entire life lived, not just those first thirty-three years she spent in the public eye, but the thirty she spent as a recluse after that, and the twenty since she vanished.

"What if," she says slowly, "that's not what I want?"

I shake my head. "I'm not sure I'm following."

"What if I don't want it to be my version of the story?" she asks. "What if I want the whole awful truth? What if I'm done living with my version of events, where I'm always the hero, and I want to sit down and see things in black and white for once?"

Her question catches me off guard. If anything, I'm used to having to reassure my subjects that I'm not there to twist everything they say into a brutal takedown piece. That I want to see the full picture, right down to their humanity.

Margaret's brow arches at my hesitancy. "That a problem?"

I scoot closer to the edge of the couch. "It's how you want it told," I repeat. "If that's what you want, that's what we do."

She considers for a long moment. "One more question."

"Anything." She could ask for my most embarrassing sex story, and I'd trot it out right now. I need her to understand she's safe with me.

Her gray eyebrow arches wickedly again. "Are you always this perky?"

I let out a breath. This is too lengthy and important a job to kick things off with a lie.

"Yes," I say. "Yes, I am."

Her chortle is interrupted by a sound like wind blowing through glass chimes. Margaret glances at the driftwood clock on the Grammy-free mantel.

"That'll be my two o'clock." She sweeps onto her feet. "You've given me a lot to think about, Alice Scott."

I bounce up onto mine too, grabbing my unused notebook and recorder. "Either way," I say, "thank you. Seriously."

"For what?" she says, sounding genuinely baffled as she leads me back through the maze of hallways.

"For today," I say. "For giving me a chance." For the fact that I finally have something work related to tell my mom that won't make her eyes glaze over with disinterest.

"It's just a chance," Margaret reminds me as we reach the front door. "Don't thank me for that. Everyone deserves that much. And I've still got a couple other branches to shake, see what falls out."

"I completely understand, but—" My words drop off as she swings the bright pink door open, and I realize how wrong I was.

I did not completely understand.

Margaret's two o'clock is standing on the top step in slate-colored chinos and a white T-shirt.

It's not the outfit that makes my heart sink and all the blood drain from my face—though the idea of wearing long pants in weather like this certainly does give me pause.

It's the hulking, dark-eyed, hawk-nosed man wearing it.

Hayden Anderson.

Four years ago, you might've said, Hayden Anderson the music journalist, and that would've been a fair summation. But if he were still just a music journalist, I wouldn't know his name, let alone what he looked like. I have a decent memory, but I don't make a habit of memorizing Rolling Stone bylines.

However.

He's no longer just Hayden Anderson the music journalist.

Now, he's Hayden Anderson the Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer. The one who wrote that doorstop-length gut punch about the Americana singer with dementia.

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.