Gigi, Listening

Book excerpt: “Completely charming!” —Carley Fortune, New York Times bestselling author of Every Summer After Fans of Sophie Kinsella and Christina Lauren will adore this touching and witty novel about a woman who takes an impulsive trip to England to meet the man behind the audiobook narrator she’s fallen for. Gigi Rutherford loves love stories. She reads them, she sells them at her romance bookstore, and she could spend hours imagining the meet-cutes of every couple she encounters. But when it comes to her own love interests, Gigi is out of stock. Instead of enduring bad date after bad date, these days she’d rather curl up with her favorite audiobook and the only man who makes her heart skip a beat: Zane Wilkenson, the smooth-voiced narrator Gigi is convinced is her soulmate. Then, she’s presented with the chance of a lifetime: a ten-day bus tour through the English countryside, an ocean away from her bookstore—all in the presence of Zane, in person, as he leads the tour. But when Gigi arrives at the bus terminal in London, Zane is nowhere to be found. Until he shows up, she’s stuck with an eclectic group of fellow travelers: recently widowed and chatty Charlotte; trivia-obsessed Francis; Jenny, a true-crime-makeup YouTuber documenting every detail for her subscribers; and Sindhi and Roshi, a long-married couple who can’t stop bickering. Then there’s the brooding bus driver, Taj, who Gigi finds infuriating yet also incredibly alluring . . . With heart and charm, warmth and humor, Chantel Guertin explores the meaning of love and family—and how, sometimes, the journey to yourself is where you’ll find everything you’ve been searching for.