Chapter One With two huge secrets, Freya Lal is the exact opposite of the open book she always considered herself to be. She stares at the laptop on the counter of her aunt''s bookshop, Books & Brambles. The blinking cursor at the end of the page mocks her. Grimly, she rereads her words until she has no choice but to come to the conclusion that she is, in fact, a one-hit wonder who will never be published again. She holds down the Delete key until every single awful word is obliterated. The pinching band of tightness around her chest eases the moment the Word doc is blank again. Yesterday''s words are gone, and she already can''t remember what they said. It feels like Freya''s chased away a bogeyman, one that''s been Frankensteined together with ugly words stitched into unflattering sentences.
The more she thinks about it, not only does her imposter syndrome become more plausible, it becomes more obvious: her first book deal-when she was a teenage wunderkind-was obviously a fluke. How the hell is she supposed to turn in a first draft of her second book to her publisher when she can''t even write two paragraphs before self-doubt creeps in? She''s been keeping her lack of progress a secret from everyone for so long that the only thing that will help her now is to- No. That''s secret number two, and she swore that she was cutting back. After throwing her long brown hair into a high ponytail, she shoves her oversize electric-blue plastic-framed glasses up her nose and holds back a groan. The only thing she has going for her right now is the fact that absolutely no one in Books & Brambles knows that the twenty-three-year-old girl slumped next to the register is in the throes of an existential crisis. The indie bookshop is a few minutes away from its 9:00 a.m. opening, and two other employees are putting the finishing touches on the themed window display.
Freya can catch snippets of conversation regaling all the gory details of her coworkers'' terrible Tinder dates drifting down the aisle, too quiet and far away for her to take part in, even if she were dating right now (which she isn''t) and even if she wanted to (which she doesn''t). "Are we sure these should be here?" Cliff''s voice is strained, like he''s lifting a tall stack of books. With a confidence far greater than her few weeks of working here, Emma authoritatively replies, "If Stori left them up here, then yeah. Left window is for summer swoons, and right window is for summer slashers." "I know that." Cliff''s words are punctuated with a solid thump that Freya can only imagine is him setting down the books until the confusion is cleared up. "I meant are we sure because it''s an old title." "That can''t be right.
Let me see that- Oh. Just put them there." "Should we double-check with Stori?" "You mean Freya''s aunt ? Of course not," Emma snorts. "Didn''t the name on the cover ring a bell?" "Oh shit." Cliff''s voice drops. "This is actually her? I thought she was a writer in the same way that you''re a model." Like Freya, Emma was another East Coast transplant who came to Los Angeles with big dreams. She had yet to book a modeling gig but had added influencer to her Instagram bio after her third DM from a brand that didn''t care she hadn''t cracked a thousand followers.
"I am a model." Emma''s indignant and forgets to whisper. "She hasn''t published a new book in years." Mortification stings like fire ants down Freya''s neck. They haven''t said anything that isn''t true, but it still hurts to hear the confirmation that she''s already considered a has-been. In a city that makes dreams as often as it crushes them, it''s not a lonely club, but it''s not the life she''d envisioned for herself, either. Compared to her debut novel, writing book two has been a completely different experience in every way. In high school, Freya-a self-professed neutral evil on the alignment chart-was entirely consumed by her writing.
She woke up thinking about her characters, went to bed excited to write the next day''s words, and jolted awake at 3:00 a.m. to jot down fragments of dialogue or scene ideas in her iPhone''s Notes app. She spent every study hall reading the latest YA novel and asked for writing books and summer workshops every birthday and Christmas to level up on her craft. The difference is Freya''s mom had been around to cheerlead back then. Anjali Lal had a fierce optimism in all things but especially in this: if her daughter wanted to publish a book, she had every faith that it was a when, not an if. As Freya''s first beta reader, her mother knew this was the one with a certainty Freya doubts she herself has had about anything in her entire life. Freya never had to look for her own inner validation because she knew she always had her mom''s.
Until she didn''t anymore. "Look, forget about it. It''s Stori''s call, and we''re opening in, like, five minutes," Emma says finally. "Take the new Riley Sager novel and finish the other window before she notices we''re running behind." "Seriously?" Cliff complains, voice back to normal. "I helped you unbox the new Tessa Bailey, set up the sandbox, and used my superior stamina to inflate the beach ball and flamingo floatie." Emma makes a bad joke about blowing, but Freya''s already tuning them out. The blank white page on her screen stares damningly back at her, so she fixes her gaze on the mountain of Steph Kirkland books on the display stand closest to the register.
All Freya has to do is get through the rest of the day, then it will all be better. Her best friends, who started as Twitter critique partners and turned into real-life besties, are all flying out to celebrate Steph''s book signing at Books & Brambles tonight. They''re the only ones who know her second secret. Even the best writer can have a bad writing day--or, in Freya''s case, bad writing years-- but this is the one thing she is always, always good at: impersonating the actress Mandini Roy. The first time it happened was back in New York a year after her mother had passed, and it had been a complete coincidence while she was out on a date (back when she actually dated). It was with a guy from her building, and they didn''t have a reservation for the trendy new rooftop bar he thought he could schmooze his way into. But by some strange stroke of luck, simply because Freya had parted her hair a certain way and worn a dress that looked kind of like one Mandi had worn to Cannes Film Festival, security had waved them through without even a blink. That first time had been a total accident.
But every time after that hadn''t been. A free mimosa at a trendy new bistro off Madison Square Park; skipping the queue at an upscale lounge in Chelsea, the kind of venue where they wouldn''t let you in if you were wearing sneakers, shorts, or sandals; rooftop bars frequented by the Wall Street crowd, offering sweeping skyline views. Since her mother''s death, Freya had lost all motivation to write. None of her usual tricks-people-watching, rereading her dog-eared and well-thumbed favorite books, taking up a new hobby-worked. But the first time she was mistaken for Mandi, she couldn''t wait to end the date so she could go home and write. Freya couldn''t justify doing it often enough to finish her second book, but when she did, the novelty and, frankly, danger of it all fed her writing inspiration like nothing else could. Maybe she wouldn''t feel the temptation if she were good at something else, but after college, getting that external validation proved a lot harder. But studying was always an area where she excelled, and it didn''t take much to talk herself into just one more experiment.
She devoured every picture and interview of Mandi''s until she had the actress''s style down pat. Though there was no way she could afford the thousand-dollar-plus price tags of Mandi''s favorite designers, Freya''s copycat outfits were just as fashionable, for a fraction of the cost. Successfully getting away with being Mandi broke the monotony of impending deadlines, the stress of her dwindling bank balance living in a city she could barely afford while attending NYU''s undergraduate Creative Writing Program, and of the plunging guilt in her stomach that reminded her that with every night out, she was letting down her mom''s memory. Freya felt her mom''s absence so keenly that she didn''t think she could handle smelling the scent of her mom''s perfume or seeing bits of her unfinished business around her childhood home: a bookmark stuck in the middle of an unreturned library book; a recipe she''d ripped out of a magazine, stuck to the fridge, and never got around to making; the clothes with price tags still hanging in her half of the closet. So when her aunt invited Freya to come live with her in LA to focus on her writing, she''d leaped at the offer. Freya returns Stori''s generosity by helping out around the bookshop every day. "Good morning, everyone!" Stori sweeps onto the bookshop floor. She''s wearing a smart short-sleeved mock turtleneck and brown houndstooth trousers.
"Thanks for holding down the fort, Freya. I just got off the phone with the caterers for Steph''s event tonight and sorted out the canapZ situation." "We''re all done with the windows, too!" Cliff calls out. Emma makes a sound of agreement. "Perf! And you?" Stori turns to Freya with an expectant look on her face. Aunt.