AS SEEN ON TV
by Meredith Schorr
A city girl travels to a small town in pursuit of her next big story but soon finds out that life isn’t anything like her favorite TV movies.
New York City native Adina Gellar is having a quarter-life crisis. She’s ready for the romanticized small-town life you find in Hallmark movies—the kind where grand gestures from hot volunteer firefighters are the norm. But for now, she’s living in an apartment with her mother, working as a barista and spin-class instructor while trying to score a byline in the pop-culture magazine Tea. While building her journalism portfolio, Adina cures her wanderlust with Million Dollar Listing reruns, where she learns about Pleasant Hollow. Real estate mogul Andrew Hanes has plans to rebrand the quaint town just 60 miles north of NYC by adding massive condominiums and a shopping mall. Hoping to rescue the small town’s charm from gentrification and get a full-time job offer, Adina pitches this real-life Hallmark story to Tea and gets the green light to cover the story. When she arrives in Pleasant Hollow, she has a meet-cute with the handsome Finn Adams and assumes he’s the charming nephew of the B&B’s owner until it’s revealed that he’s the project manager for the new development. Much to Adina’s dismay, Finn’s identity isn’t her only misconception; instead of resisting the new development, most of the townspeople actually want it. While Pleasant Hollow is unfortunately more hollow than pleasant, Adina is determined to complete her story, especially if it means getting to explore her undeniable chemistry with Finn. Die-hard Hallmark fans will appreciate mentions of Loveuary and Andrew Walker as well as some steamier moments in lieu of a pie-baking competition. Schorr adeptly portrays the problem of Adina's expectations versus reality while never belittling the perfectly predictable romances that Adina and so many others cherish: “Not many real-world relationships could survive if all their problems needed to be solved within two hours or 300 pages. Thankfully, we have the benefit of open-ended deadlines when it comes to love.”
A match made in heaven for fans of happily-ever-afters in all mediums.