Women's Fiction
![Christina Lauren - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B009XCC1L2.jpg)
The True Love Experiment
Sparks fly when a romance novelist and a documentary filmmaker join forces to craft the perfect Hollywood love story and take both of their careers to the next level-but only if they can keep the chemistry between them from taking the whole thing off script-from the New York Times bestselling authors of The Soulmate Equation and The Unhoneymooners.
Felicity "Fizzy" Chen is lost. Sure, she's got an incredible career as a beloved romance novelist with a slew of bestsellers under her belt, but when she's asked to give a commencement address, it hits her: she hasn't been practicing what she's preached.
Fizzy hasn't ever really been in love. Lust? Definitely. But that swoon-worthy, can't-stop-thinking-about-him, all-encompassing feeling? Nope. Nothing. What happens when the optimism she's spent her career encouraging in readers starts to feel like a lie?
Connor Prince, documentary filmmaker and single father, loves his work in large part because it allows him to live near his daughter. But when his profit-minded boss orders him to create a reality TV show, putting his job on the line, Connor is out of his element. Desperate to find his romantic lead, a chance run-in with an exasperated Fizzy offers Connor the perfect solution. What if he could show the queen of romance herself falling head-over-heels for all the world to see? Fizzy gives him a hard pass-unless he agrees to her list of demands. When he says yes, and production on The True Love Experiment begins, Connor wonders if that perfect match will ever be in the cue cards for him, too.
The True Love Experiment is the book fans have been waiting for ever since Fizzy's debut in the New York Times bestselling The Soulmate Equation. But when the lights come on and all eyes are on her, it turns out the happily ever after Fizzy had all but given up on might lie just behind the camera.
Felicity "Fizzy" Chen is lost. Sure, she's got an incredible career as a beloved romance novelist with a slew of bestsellers under her belt, but when she's asked to give a commencement address, it hits her: she hasn't been practicing what she's preached.
Fizzy hasn't ever really been in love. Lust? Definitely. But that swoon-worthy, can't-stop-thinking-about-him, all-encompassing feeling? Nope. Nothing. What happens when the optimism she's spent her career encouraging in readers starts to feel like a lie?
Connor Prince, documentary filmmaker and single father, loves his work in large part because it allows him to live near his daughter. But when his profit-minded boss orders him to create a reality TV show, putting his job on the line, Connor is out of his element. Desperate to find his romantic lead, a chance run-in with an exasperated Fizzy offers Connor the perfect solution. What if he could show the queen of romance herself falling head-over-heels for all the world to see? Fizzy gives him a hard pass-unless he agrees to her list of demands. When he says yes, and production on The True Love Experiment begins, Connor wonders if that perfect match will ever be in the cue cards for him, too.
The True Love Experiment is the book fans have been waiting for ever since Fizzy's debut in the New York Times bestselling The Soulmate Equation. But when the lights come on and all eyes are on her, it turns out the happily ever after Fizzy had all but given up on might lie just behind the camera.
Editorial Reviews
"Another winning romance from Lauren, full of big laughs, a few tears, and some seriously steamy scenes." -- - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"The authors gleefully play with romance tropes, blending the delight of the meet cute with smart critiques of more toxic dating habits and wrapping the whole in clever dialogue and refreshing sex-positivity. Readers will have no trouble rooting for Fizzy." -- -Publishers Weekly
"The True Love Experiment is my favorite kind of book to devour: something that manages to be hot and intense, yet still the very best comfort food. The divine Christina Lauren has created the ultimate reality dating show, and like all its fictional viewers, you'll fall for Fizzy." -- - Jodi Picoult, NYT bestselling author of MAD HONEY
"The authors gleefully play with romance tropes, blending the delight of the meet cute with smart critiques of more toxic dating habits and wrapping the whole in clever dialogue and refreshing sex-positivity. Readers will have no trouble rooting for Fizzy." -- -Publishers Weekly
"The True Love Experiment is my favorite kind of book to devour: something that manages to be hot and intense, yet still the very best comfort food. The divine Christina Lauren has created the ultimate reality dating show, and like all its fictional viewers, you'll fall for Fizzy." -- - Jodi Picoult, NYT bestselling author of MAD HONEY
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter One: Fizzy
one FIZZY
Approximately one year later
If you aren't deep in a daydream about the hot bartender, then you have no good excuse for not reacting to what I just said."
I blink up across the table at my best friend, Jess, and realize I've been essentially hypnotizing myself by stirring the olive in my martini around and around and around.
"Shit, I'm sorry. I spaced out. Tell me again."
"No." She lifts her wineglass primly. "Now you must guess."
"Guess what you have planned for your trip to Costa Rica?"
She nods, taking a sip.
I stare flatly at her. She and her husband, the aforementioned River Peña, seem to be connected constantly by a vibrating, sexy laser beam. The answer here is very obvious. "Sex on every flat surface of the hotel room."
"A given."
"Running with wildcats?"
Jess stills with her glass partway to her lips. "It's interesting that you would go there as your second guess. No."
"A tree house picnic?"
She is immediately repulsed. "Eating with spiders? Hard pass."
"Surfing on the backs of turtles?"
"Deeply unethical."
Guiltily, I wince over at her. Even my Jess-Fizzy banter well has run dry. "Okay. I got nothing."
She studies me for a beat before saying, "Sloths. We're going to a sloth sanctuary."
I let out a gasp of jealousy and drum up some real energy to effuse over how amazing this trip will be, but Jess just reaches across the bar table and rests her hand over mine, quieting me. "Fizzy."
I look down at my half-finished martini to avoid her concerned maternal gaze. Jess's Mom Face has a way of immediately making me feel the need to handwrite an apology, no matter what I've just been caught doing.
"Jessica," I mumble in response.
"What's happening right now?"
"What do you mean?" I ask, knowing exactly what she means.
"The whole vibe." She holds up her wineglass with her free hand. "I ordered wine from Choda Vineyards and you didn't make a joke about short, chubby grapes."
I grimace. I didn't even catch it. "I admit that was a wasted opportunity."
"The bartender has been staring at you since we got here and you haven't AirDropped him your contact info."
I shrug. "He has lines shaved into his eyebrow."
As these words leave my lips, our eyes meet in shock. Jess's voice is a dramatic whisper: "Are you actually being…?"
"Picky?" I finish in a gasp.
Her smile softens the worry lingering in her eyes. "There she is." With one final squeeze to my fingers, she releases my hand, leaning back. "Rough day?"
"Just a lot of thinking," I admit. "Or overthinking."
"You saw Kim today, I take it?"
Kim, my therapist for the past ten months and the woman who I hope will help me crack the code to writing, dating, feeling like myself again. Kim, who hears all my angst about love and relationships and inspiration because I really, truly do not want to drop the depth of my stress in Jess's lap (she and River are still relative newlyweds), or my sister Alice's lap (she is pregnant and already fed up with her overprotective obstetrician husband), or my mother's lap (she is already overly invested in my relationship status; I don't want to send her to therapy, too).
In the past, when I've felt discontentment like this, I knew it would ebb with time. Life has ups and downs; happiness isn't a constant or a given. But this feeling has lasted nearly a year. It's a cynicism that now seems permanently carved into my outlook. I used to spend my life writing love stories and carrying the boundless optimism that my own love story would begin on the next page, but what if that optimism has left me for good? What if I've run out of pages?
"I did see Kim," I say. "And she gave me homework." I pull a little Moleskine notebook from my purse and wave it limply. For years, these colorful journals were my constant companions. I took one everywhere I went, writing book plots, snippets of funny conversations, images that would pop into my head at random times. I called them my idea notebooks and used to scribble things down twenty, thirty, forty times a day. These scribbles were my deep well of ideas. For a few months after my romance brain came to a screeching halt in front of a thousand fresh college grads, I continued carrying one around in hopes inspiration would strike. But eventually, seeing it there in my purse stressed me out, so I left them in my home office, collecting dust with my laptop and desktop. "Kim told me I need to start carrying notebooks again," I tell Jess. "That I'm ready for...
one FIZZY
Approximately one year later
If you aren't deep in a daydream about the hot bartender, then you have no good excuse for not reacting to what I just said."
I blink up across the table at my best friend, Jess, and realize I've been essentially hypnotizing myself by stirring the olive in my martini around and around and around.
"Shit, I'm sorry. I spaced out. Tell me again."
"No." She lifts her wineglass primly. "Now you must guess."
"Guess what you have planned for your trip to Costa Rica?"
She nods, taking a sip.
I stare flatly at her. She and her husband, the aforementioned River Peña, seem to be connected constantly by a vibrating, sexy laser beam. The answer here is very obvious. "Sex on every flat surface of the hotel room."
"A given."
"Running with wildcats?"
Jess stills with her glass partway to her lips. "It's interesting that you would go there as your second guess. No."
"A tree house picnic?"
She is immediately repulsed. "Eating with spiders? Hard pass."
"Surfing on the backs of turtles?"
"Deeply unethical."
Guiltily, I wince over at her. Even my Jess-Fizzy banter well has run dry. "Okay. I got nothing."
She studies me for a beat before saying, "Sloths. We're going to a sloth sanctuary."
I let out a gasp of jealousy and drum up some real energy to effuse over how amazing this trip will be, but Jess just reaches across the bar table and rests her hand over mine, quieting me. "Fizzy."
I look down at my half-finished martini to avoid her concerned maternal gaze. Jess's Mom Face has a way of immediately making me feel the need to handwrite an apology, no matter what I've just been caught doing.
"Jessica," I mumble in response.
"What's happening right now?"
"What do you mean?" I ask, knowing exactly what she means.
"The whole vibe." She holds up her wineglass with her free hand. "I ordered wine from Choda Vineyards and you didn't make a joke about short, chubby grapes."
I grimace. I didn't even catch it. "I admit that was a wasted opportunity."
"The bartender has been staring at you since we got here and you haven't AirDropped him your contact info."
I shrug. "He has lines shaved into his eyebrow."
As these words leave my lips, our eyes meet in shock. Jess's voice is a dramatic whisper: "Are you actually being…?"
"Picky?" I finish in a gasp.
Her smile softens the worry lingering in her eyes. "There she is." With one final squeeze to my fingers, she releases my hand, leaning back. "Rough day?"
"Just a lot of thinking," I admit. "Or overthinking."
"You saw Kim today, I take it?"
Kim, my therapist for the past ten months and the woman who I hope will help me crack the code to writing, dating, feeling like myself again. Kim, who hears all my angst about love and relationships and inspiration because I really, truly do not want to drop the depth of my stress in Jess's lap (she and River are still relative newlyweds), or my sister Alice's lap (she is pregnant and already fed up with her overprotective obstetrician husband), or my mother's lap (she is already overly invested in my relationship status; I don't want to send her to therapy, too).
In the past, when I've felt discontentment like this, I knew it would ebb with time. Life has ups and downs; happiness isn't a constant or a given. But this feeling has lasted nearly a year. It's a cynicism that now seems permanently carved into my outlook. I used to spend my life writing love stories and carrying the boundless optimism that my own love story would begin on the next page, but what if that optimism has left me for good? What if I've run out of pages?
"I did see Kim," I say. "And she gave me homework." I pull a little Moleskine notebook from my purse and wave it limply. For years, these colorful journals were my constant companions. I took one everywhere I went, writing book plots, snippets of funny conversations, images that would pop into my head at random times. I called them my idea notebooks and used to scribble things down twenty, thirty, forty times a day. These scribbles were my deep well of ideas. For a few months after my romance brain came to a screeching halt in front of a thousand fresh college grads, I continued carrying one around in hopes inspiration would strike. But eventually, seeing it there in my purse stressed me out, so I left them in my home office, collecting dust with my laptop and desktop. "Kim told me I need to start carrying notebooks again," I tell Jess. "That I'm ready for...
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