I Can Smell The Pretzels: Rachel Lacey's Read Between The Lines

You know Pegman in Google maps? The user picks up Pegman and drops her onto the map and, BOOM, there you are in Capri or Lisbon or Mexico City! I absolutely love this feature because I love to travel and, well, I don’t have the resources to go to all the places I’d love to visit. So, Pegman travels for me. Or sometimes, I like to revisit places I’ve been. I like to virtually move–albeit, 2-D and all disjointed–through spaces I’ve previously been in and remember. I remember sounds and sights and smells. My wife gives me a hard time about this minor distraction of mine. When she tries to drop Pegman onto a map, she always drops herself into a traffic jam or in front of a concrete wall. But I have a gift for placing Pegman in the most lovely of spaces.

This seems like an odd review of Rachel Lacey’s Read Between the Lines. But hear me out. I love a place with a strong and unapologetic sense of identity. I love New York City. And I love a storyteller that can create, or re-create, a sense of place. In her imagining of Rosie’s and Jane’s world, Ms. Lacey picked me up like Pegman and dropped me into neighborhoods all over Manhattan. Y’all, as I read about the characters’ small adventures through the city, I started craving my favorite NYC foods. I wanted to walk the neighborhoods. I wanted to people-watch at the parks along the river. I could close my eyes and hear the traffic sounds, smell pretzels and hot dogs, feel the bite of a NYC winter in the air. That’s how talented a world-builder this author is. I was just a Pegman in Rachel Lacey’s world.

Enough about maps and pretzels, what the heck is the story about? Well, Rosie owns a family bookstore, has fabulous friends, and is clearly pining her way through an on-line friendship with her favorite author, Brie. Jane is one of those workaholic, corporate types, only she’s really not into her job as she is a romance author by night who writes under the pseudonym, Brie. Jane’s day job requires her to throw Rosie’s world into utter chaos and threaten not only her livelihood but her family’s history as well. Both the hostility and the chemistry are off the charts in this nearly enemies to lovers story with strong familial and friend relationships. Oh, and there’s a real cute pup named Brinkley.

Read this book: Read Between the Lines by Rachel Lacey. Her newest novel, Stars Collide, is out now too.