Twice in a Blue Moon

by Christina Lauren

Overview

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners and the “delectable, moving” (Entertainment Weekly) My Favorite Half-Night Stand comes a modern love story about what happens when your first love reenters your life when you least expect it...

Sam Brandis was Tate Jones’s first: Her first love. Her first everything. Including her first heartbreak.

During a whirlwind two-week vacation abroad, Sam and Tate fell for each other in only the way that first loves do: sharing all of their hopes, dreams, and deepest secrets along the way. Sam was the first, and only, person that Tate—the long-lost daughter of one of the world’s biggest film stars—ever revealed her identity to. So when it became clear her trust was misplaced, her world shattered for good.

Fourteen years later, Tate, now an up-and-coming actress, only thinks about her first love every once in a blue moon. When she steps onto the set of her first big break, he’s the last person she expects to see. Yet here Sam is, the same charming, confident man she knew, but even more alluring than she remembered. Forced to confront the man who betrayed her, Tate must ask herself if it’s possible to do the wrong thing for the right reason... and whether “once in a lifetime” can come around twice.

With Christina Lauren’s signature “beautifully written and remarkably compelling” (Sarah J. Maas, New York Times bestselling author) prose and perfect for fans of Emily Giffin and Jennifer Weiner, Twice in a Blue Moon is an unforgettable and moving novel of young love and second chances.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501197420
Publisher:	Gallery Books
Publication date:	10/22/2019
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	9,888
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of longtime writing partners and best friends Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, the New York Times, USA TODAY, and #1 internationally bestselling authors of the Beautiful and Wild Seasons series, Dating You / Hating You, Autoboyography, Love and Other Words, Roomies, Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, My Favorite Half-Night Stand, The Unhoneymooners, Twice in a Blue Moon, and The Soulmate Equation. You can find them online at ChristinaLaurenBooks.com, @ChristinaLauren on Instagram, or @ChristinaLauren on Twitter.

Editorial Reviews

07/01/2019

This solid but unexceptional contemporary from Lauren (The Unhoneymooners) tries to do a few too many things at once. When Tate Butler goes on a trip to London shortly after turning 18, she meets Sam Brandis and falls instantly into a whirlwind romance so intense that she finds herself telling him her biggest secret: she’s Hollywood royalty, the “lost” daughter of heartthrob Ian Butler. She vanished from the public view at age eight, and everyone wants to know where she went. Sam almost immediately sells Tate’s secret to the tabloids and launches her into the spotlight again. Ten years after Sam’s betrayal, Tate realizes that her past isn’t as far behind her as she thinks. Stepping into her first leading role on a film set in Northern California, she’s introduced to the screenwriter: Sam. Despite his earlier betrayal, she still feels drawn to him and must decide whether to give him another chance. Sometimes awkward parallels are drawn between the love story of Sam and Tate, who are both white, and the interracial historical romance of the film they’re working on. The pacing is imperfect, but the ending satisfies. Readers inclined toward narratives of forgiveness will appreciate this story of learning to leave the past in the past. Agent: Holly Root, Root Literary. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Unhoneymooners

"What a joyful, warm, touching book! I laughed so hard I cried more than once, I felt the embrace of Olive’s huge, loving, complicated, hilarious family, and my heart soared at the ending. This is the book to read if you want to smile so hard your face hurts."

Jasmine Guillory

"The story skips along...propelled by rom-com momentum and charm.

The New York Times Book Review

Praise for Twice in a Blue Moon

“Christina Lauren never disappoint, to an almost astonishing degree, but Twice in a Blue Moon portends new depths for the duo that they’ve only just begun to swim in – and frankly, we can’t wait for more.

Entertainment Weekly

"This emotional, sweet, and surprising novel about first loves and second chances will leave a tender spot in your heart."

Shondaland

The writing duo Christina Lauren have written another entertaining and moving romance, this time crafting a second-chance story about a couple whose intense, youthful holiday fling ends in heartbreak."

Booklist

Lighthearted, laugh-out-loud funny and all too accessible (as the many Torres aunts and cousins keep butting into Ami's and Olive's lives), The Unhoneymooners is delightful. Olive's initial dislike of Ethan, tempered by her slow realization of his good qualities, makes for a charming and enjoyable romance.

Shelf Awareness

"Witty and downright hilarious, with just the right amount of heart, The Unhoneymooners is a perfect feel-good romantic comedy. Prepare to laugh and smile from cover to cover.

Helen Hoang

"The best-friend writing team known as Christina Lauren never fails to delight. Twice in a Blue Moon is funny and engaging [... and] strikingly poignant."

BookPage

"Lauren (Love and Other Words, 2018) has penned a hilariously zany and heartfelt novel... the story is sure to please readers looking for a fun-filled novel to escape everyday life with."

Booklist

2019-07-29
A movie star gets a rewrite for her disastrous first love story in the latest from Lauren (The Unhoneymooners, 2019, etc.).

Tate Butler is on a trip to London with her grandmother when she meets Sam Brandis and his adoptive father. Luther, Sam explains, and his wife, Roberta, who is Sam's biological grandmother, raised him as their own to salvage a family scandal. Tate can relate. Her father, Ian Butler, is a movie star, and ever since her parents split up, she, her mother, and her grandmother have been hiding from the spotlight under a different last name. Just between them, Tate adds, she loves her mom, but she longs to be an actor like her dad. With that, Sam becomes Tate's confidant and her first love. But when she returns from London, her life is turned upside down—Sam has leaked her story to the press, and now she can never go back to normal. Fast-forward to a few years later, when the bulk of the story takes place, and Tate has landed the starring role in a new film—about a white woman and a black man who fall in love and fight for civil rights in the 1960s—and her famous father will be playing her father on screen. The problem is, Sam wrote the screenplay under a pen name. And by the time Tate finds this out, it's too late to back out. Stuck together on a remote set location for the duration of the shoot, the two rarely see each other through the fog of Tate's many handlers and co-stars. Tate's frosty relationship with her father also chills the air. But the story of how Sam came up with the script idea and why he sold her out so many years ago is worth the wait, and the rich family backstories add sweetness to the superficial Hollywood setting.

Less snarky and broader in scope than the usual Lauren romance—a twist that offers readers something unexpected and new.

Kirkus Reviews

06/07/2019

While spending the summer before college traveling through London with her grandmother, 18-year-old Tate Jones is enjoying the solitude—until she meets the handsome Sam Brandis. Tate falls for him fast, even telling him family secrets. When her secret is exposed and Sam disappears, Tate is heartbroken. Years later, Tate is a superstar actress who has never forgotten her first love, and certainly never forgotten his betrayal. When she meets Sam again and discovers that she is starring in a film he wrote, she is conflicted. Can she ever forgive him? Unfortunately, in the present-day scenes the novel falls flat of capturing the characters and their romance, choosing to tie up loose ends quickly without much emotion or conflict. VERDICT With a then-and-now plot similar to Lauren's Love and Other Words, the writing duo's latest has a youthful voice that may be a good fit for fans of new adult romances.—Jacqueline Rammer, Lakeview Community Lib., Random Lake, WI

Library Journal