Everything You Need to Know About Emily Henry

After years of writing well-reviewed young adult novels, Emily Henry “felt used up” in the genre, as she told The New York Times.

So she decided to try something new. In 2020, in the throes of the pandemic, the Ohio-based author published her first adult romance, “Beach Read.” The book follows two novelists and former college classmates — January, herself a romance author, and Gus, a writer of gritty, prestige literary fiction — who find themselves living next to each other in the Michigan vacation town where January has come to grieve her father.

The release of “Beach Read” was well-timed: Henry’s depiction of a snappy, steamy, slow-burn romance in a beautiful setting resonated with readers who were starved for connection during a profoundly frightening time. The book went on to sell over a million copies, and helped make Henry an all-out sensation.

Henry, 34, has turned out a best-selling romance novel every year since. Along the way, she has amassed a huge, vocal fandom, who celebrate each new EmHen release with parties, trivia, themed cocktails and memorabilia.

Screen adaptations of all five of her romances are in the works. Her sixth, “Great Big Beautiful Life,” about two rival writers in a small Georgia town, will be published on Tuesday.

If you’re new to Emily Henry or need a refresher before diving into her latest, here is a guide to her work.

The Hallmarks of an Emily Henry Romance

Henry’s heroines are intelligent, driven women — a hard-charging literary agent, a devoted librarian, a med student in the midst of a grueling residency, to name a few — who are usually grappling with very real problems outside their romantic lives.

Their love interests are male and often gruff (a mask to cover their underlying anxiety), yet emotionally intelligent and witty. They’re the type of men who use Dr. Bronner’s soap, watch “Bridget Jones’s Diary” when they’re sad or own a cat named Flannery O’Connor (all actual examples from her books). Many of them could be categorized as a “cinnamon roll” — a romance term that describes a kind of man who “respects everything the main female character has feelings about and never tries to dominate her or take over her life,” as Carley Morton, the owner of Under the Cover bookstore in Kansas City, Mo., put it.

Henry rounds out each of her books with a cast of quirky, well-developed supporting figures and a strong sense of place, whether a small community in North Carolina or a seaside cottage in Maine.

Fundamentally, Henry’s romances are predicated on a foundation of respect. “Her characters are always genuinely good people trying to do their best and not hurt the other person,” said the audiobook narrator and novelist Julia Whelan, who has narrated all of Henry’s romances. “There’s a good will to her characters.”

Though the love stories are a central part of her books, Henry’s protagonists are often also grieving or managing difficult stages of life.

Mae Tingstrom of Smitten Bookstore in Ventura, Calif., calls this plot device “trauma drama” — referring to story lines beyond the romance that help drive the narrative, such as family issues or relationship baggage. “Emily does a really good job writing ‘trauma drama’ without it being so heavy handed,” Tingstrom said. “Her emotional plots are very relatable.”

Her Writing Style

Henry’s books are quite funny, with plenty of banter and charged dialogue that Whelan compared to Nora Ephron’s writing. “Even when she has her characters go into monologue or soliloquy mode, there’s nothing extraneous,” Whelan said of Henry. “Her books are a rebuttal to the idea of romance as overwrought,” and show there’s “more to romance than moving Barbies around and making them kiss.”

The humor of the books, along with their overall readability, can disguise how much depth they contain. Readers are all but guaranteed to find something to relate to, whether the loss of a parent or the slow drift of a once-close friendship. Even with these emotional dimensions, every book is “a good time, and you’ll be happy at the end of it,” Tingstrom said.

Henry’s work is also consciously self-reflective, particularly when addressing the stigma around the romance genre or fiction geared toward female readers. In “Beach Read,” January expresses frustration about “women’s writing” that could double as an overview of Henry’s own approach to her work. “If you swapped out all my Jessicas for Johns do you know what you’d get? Fiction. Just fiction,” January tells Gus. “But somehow by being a woman who writes about women, I’ve eliminated half of the Earth’s population from my potential readers, and you know what? I don’t feel ashamed of that. I feel pissed.”

Whom Are Her Books For?

Booksellers often recommend Henry’s novels to readers who are new to — or skeptical about — romance, and see her as a gateway between mainstream literary fiction and the genre. Reading her books is “a completely satisfying experience” on a literary and emotional level, said Leah Koch, a founder and owner of the Ripped Bodice bookstore.

Henry’s books don’t have “a lot of heat, but they do have a lot of heart,” said Melissa Saavedra, the founder of Steamy Lit bookstore in Deerfield Beach, Fla. This, too, is a signature of Henry’s writing: Her work is driven more by plot and emotion than by erotic sex scenes.

A TL;DR Guide to Her Romance Novels

Beach Read (2020): January and Augustus are two writers living in the same Michigan beach town, but they couldn’t be more different. Gus, as he’s known, is drawn to darker stories while January writes romances; they also had a flirtatious rivalry back in college. As the pair spend more time together, they help each other get creatively, and emotionally, unblocked.

People We Meet on Vacation (2021): Two years have passed since Poppy and Alex, former college best friends who used to vacation together every summer, have spoken after a disastrous falling-out. Poppy convinces Alex to take one last trip together in an effort to set things straight.

Book Lovers (2022): Nora is a die-hard New Yorker and formidable book agent who’s been dumped by several men enamored of easygoing women in small towns. When her younger sister proposes a trip to the charming community of Sunshine Falls, N.C., Nora is skeptical — and is even more taken aback when she discovers that Charlie, a rude editor she met in New York, is there too. Sparks (and a shared book project) ensue.

Happy Place (2023): For years, a group of college friends have reconvened each summer at a family beach house in Maine. This time, however, almost everyone on the trip is keeping a secret. The biggest is that our heroes, Harriet and Wyn, called off their engagement months earlier without telling anyone. In an effort to keep the peace during the trip, they grudgingly play the part of a happy couple, until it starts to blur into reality.

Funny Story (2024): Two people with broken hearts — Daphne, a children’s librarian, and Miles, a bartender — end up sharing an apartment after their significant others get together. As an act of petty revenge, Daphne tells her ex that she and Miles are dating — and then they play the part.

Great Big Beautiful Life (2025): Two writers, the sunny Alice and curmudgeonly Hayden, compete for the chance to write the biography of a reclusive heiress and former tabloid princess who lives in a small coastal town in Georgia. As they wrestle with professional rivalry, they find themselves unexpectedly drawn to each other.