How Freaking Romantic

Beatrice Nilsson has plenty to be angry about, from the wage gap and the pink tax to the repayment schedule on her student loans. That anger also makes her a loyal friend. She is the perennial sidekick who fights for the happily ever afters of the people she loves while conveniently ignoring her own.

When the marriage of two of her best friends falls apart and the divorce turns ugly, Bea steps in to help pick up the pieces. An aspiring lawyer, she starts by storming the office of Nathan Asher, her friend's ex-husband's lawyer, to tell him exactly what he can do with his divorce petition. She expects the confrontation to end with a few choice words and a slammed door.

A few days later, though, Nathan turns up at her NYU Law office. He is a newly minted adjunct professor, and so her new colleague, and he proves to be annoyingly intelligent, relentlessly patient and unfairly attractive. Bea still hates him, of course, but that hate soon starts to feel like something else.

The catch is that after a lifetime spent focusing on everyone else's love story, it is not easy to take the starring role in her own. As uncomfortable truths about the divorce come to light, Bea has to decide whose happily ever after to choose, everyone else's or her own. This sharply funny novel is Emily Harding's solo debut.