Review of Slow Burn Summer by Josie Silver

I loved the love for books in this novel, but I ultimately couldn't get past my issue with the premise, in which an actress plays the part of an author and develops elaborate, extensive lies about inspiration, writing process, back story, and more, then feels wronged when the situation blows up.

In Josie Silver's newest rom-com, Charlie Francisco is a divorced, cynical, harried talent agent who desperately needs to hire an actress to play the part of a novelist--and tour in place of the reticent (the writer is famous in literary circles) author of a new blockbuster romance.

Kate Elliott was once a soap opera actress, and now she's reeling from a divorce and thankful for a new job. She's ready to take on the persona of a romance novelist at readings and signings, but she also becomes entranced by the romantic story she's pretending to have authored.

Over the course of an extended book tour, Charlie and Kate are repeatedly thrown together. Can the romantic story that brought them together help them rethink their recent heartbreak?

I couldn't get comfortable with the compounding lies that were key to Kate's playing the role of an author out in the world, explaining (fake) inspiration, (made-up) personal experiences, and (invented) relevant life details. I also questioned the morals of the actual author, who continues to feel badly about the complications and yet for far too long doesn't insist on stepping forward (I know, I know, this person was experiencing highly personal feelings around the story--but still). When the situation began to crash down and there was backlash from readers who felt duped (and who were told outright lies by Kate herself, after all), this felt justified and was not shocking.

I didn't really believe in the Charlie-Kate romance; we are told that this relationship and its tensions are building, but I didn't feel able to buy in.

There are some truly zany moments in the novel (a T. rex costume and others, literal pies in faces). For me, the title Slow Burn Summer didn't capture either the feeling of Silver's novel or the book within this book.

I was most intrigued by the Kate-Liv sister relationship as well as Charlie's new beginning and his complex past. (Side note and request: Can we please have books about Liv and Charlie?) And I loved the intense love for books that is evident throughout Slow Burn Summer.

I received a prepublication edition of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Ballantine Books.

More from Josie Silver

Josie Silver is also the author of A Winter in New York, One Day in December and The Two Lives of Lydia Byrd, a book that appeared on the Greedy Reading List Six Second-Chance, Do-Over, Reliving-Life Stories.