Maggie Finds Her Muse

February 15, 2021
What happens when a romance writer's life becomes a romance novel? Maggie Bliss is stuck. She's a 48-year-old novelist with crippling writer's block facing an upcoming deadline--not to mention facing a dead-end relationship with a self-obsessed man. Maggie's agent, Lee, suggests she leave her New Jersey apartment for his pied-�-terre in Paris and finish the third novel in her romance trilogy surrounded by the inspiration of the City of Lights. Maggie jumps at this chance for adventure, breaks up with her boyfriend, and flies to Paris determined to finish her novel: "I'm there to write....No distractions. At all." But distractions are exactly what she's going to get, whether it's from her daughter, Nicole, a resident of nearby Rennes who also happens to be in Paris; ex-husband Alan, in Paris visiting Nicole; or Lee's housekeeper's handsome (and newly single) son, Max. The novel is smartest when Ernst is at her most self-aware, playing with the tropes of the genre: "Every romance writer worth their salt knows what happens when a man and a woman who have never met before encounter each other in a bathroom when one is in the shower or tub and one is not." And while Maggie's story is utterly predictable from the moment she lands in Paris, Ernst nonetheless creates a world with amusing characters, an entertaining plot, and delicious descriptions of Parisian food and landmarks. A fun escape.

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