Georgie, All Along is a 2023 contemporary fiction romance by Kate Clayborn, an author well-versed in the genre of romantic fiction. According to her bio, Clayborn writes “contemporary romances about smart, strong, modern heroines who face the world alongside true friends and complicated families”, a description that fits Georgie to a T as all the listed criteria are on full display. 

I would most succinctly characterize this recent release as a Hallmark Channel romance without most of the schmaltz. Don’t worry, if your best friend in romantic fiction is a box of tissues, there’s still plenty of room for heartstring-tugging. There is an obligatory meet-cute with the small town’s gruff, bearded, and reclusive artisan with a heart of gold. While perhaps a tad bit predictable, the devil, so to speak, is in the details of the characters. 

When Georgie herself is presented to us in the first chapter, she is introduced as a woman on the younger end of the millennial spectrum, packed tight with all the accompanying neuroses we all grew up with. She feels an intense amount of shame over returning home from Los Angeles after recently being let go from her cushy, if hectic, career as a Hollywood magnate’s personal assistant. Left aimless after losing the drive that catering to her boss’ every whim provided her, she agrees to return home, temporarily. Her stated justifications are to both plant-sit for her vacationing parents and help her best friend move into a new home and handle her late-term pregnancy. In secret, though, Georgie has spent the last ten years unsure of the direction in her life and hopes returning home will remind her of a spark she’s lost.

During the course of her housesitting, Georgie meets Levi. The reclusive and insular Levi is the town hermit, known both for his dependable dock building skills and his history of petty crime. The romantic (*ahem* sexual) tension is dialed up to eleven and halfway through the novel they fall for each other. Mercifully, though, that’s nowhere near the end of their story and it isn’t until much later on that lingering issues are resolved and the ‘happily ever after’ occurs.

There are two main themes that run through Georgie, All Along. First, Georgie’s journey examines the difficulties a young person faces in deciding on an identity for themselves. A large portion of the novel involves Georgie revisiting her adolescent life and all the hopes and dreams she had held for high school that faded by the time she graduated. This narrative is immediately relatable to young adults, many of whom may also have struggled to find their own role in a confusing world.

Interweaving with Georgie’s thread is Levi’s, our other main character. He faces a contrasting problem: in his teen years he chose an identity for himself, one that put him at such odds with his family that he was effectively banished from the home. The experience leaves him psychologically scarred and creates much of the dramatic tension between him and Georgie as he chafes at her attempts to return to a time that only brings forth pain for Levi. Not to give too much away, but his character growth was what I was most excited for as I read, ending in a truly heartwarming series of encounters.

Clayborn writes Georgie, All Along with these two narrators, splitting the novel into two concurrent stories. The first time we get inside Levi’s head is also when he properly meets Georgie. Their meet-cute is more of a meet-fumble, with his decades of personal baggage with his wealthy family getting in between them on more than one occasion. At this early point in the book we as the audience have a vague hint of the past events in Levi’s life, but we’re mostly left confused and concerned along with Georgie as he reacts strangely to her innocent questioning about his locally famous family.

I freely admit that this sort of novel is not my normal fare. The few romance novels I do read are invariably focused on queer characters. So while the primary cast of Georgie is largely white and heteronormative (minus a couple of queer side characters), Levi provides a glimpse into class prejudice that brings some thematic weight to the story. His family is rich, and Levi’s ostracization from them and years of trouble-making have made him the black sheep of the normally sleepy town of Darentville, Virginia. Levi also provides a clear window into the effects of trauma, where any mention of his family can cause him to either seek escape from the situation or, if cornered, to fly into a rage. 

The dual perspective of this novel was a fascinating way to write. It removes a lot of the stereotypical drama involved in a romance by very clearly showing the reader that both characters positively have the hots for each other. That doesn’t take away from the romance, though; instead of focusing on the progression of falling in love, the bonds that grow between Levi and Georgie build toward a climax of healing past wrongs. Their romance is handled like an inevitability, leaving the dramatic tension to build toward whether each character will overcome their pasts. The most important journeys in this novel revolve around forgiveness and patience as both main characters reconcile their respective failures to launch and how they intermingle with each other’s.