I always struggle with books about main characters who are lying and keeping secrets from the important people in their lives. It's especially difficult for me when a romance is involved, since I feel like it undermines the level of consent due to one member of the pairing not being able to make a fully informed decision. This is one of those books. Maggie's reasons for lying to her best friend, love interest, and boss are all spelled out clearly, but it made me uncomfortable. 

I think the character journey of Maggie starting to figure out what her talents and passions were and why other jobs and career paths hadn't worked for her in the past was done pretty well, with some balance between showing and telling. I liked seeing her make connections with the townspeople, not just befriending them but creating a network that benefited everyone. I thought the old curmudgeon character was done much better in this book than The Lonely Hearts Book Club. I also liked the ending and the resolutions to the main plots. 

This falls into the contemporary fiction sub-genre of books about books, but Maggie the POV character isn't actually that much of a book worm. It feels more like one of those books about a woman in their 20s-30s still figuring their life out like Georgie All Along. I'm not sure how much the romance was supposed to factor in, but it felt like a sub-plot to me. (For those curious: There is one "sex scene" but it's basically just "and then we had sex" without any significant detail.) 

So, I guess in summary I didn't love or hate this book, it does some things well, and I wouldn't dissuade anyone from reading it who was already interested. The audiobook narrator did a good job, but I listened to her at 1.65 speed.