People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry (best story books to read .TXT) 📕

PRAISE FOR

People We Meet on Vacation

“Emily Henry is my newest automatic-buy author, and People We Meet on Vacation is the perfect getaway: a heartfelt, funny, tender escape that you wish could last forever.”

—Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Two Ways

“People We Meet on Vacation is a gorgeous slow-burn romance, full of sexual tension and tantalizing possibility. I fell head over heels for Alex and Poppy, and loved traveling all over the world with them both.”

—Beth O’Leary, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Flatshare

“A compulsively readable book full of sparkling wit, dazzling prose, and a romance that grabbed me by the heart and wouldn’t let me go.”

—Abby Jimenez, USA Today bestselling author of Life’s Too Short

“Emily Henry is a STAR! Deeply emotional and starkly funny, People We Meet on Vacation cements [her] as the Queen of Banter. Rom-com fans will swoon over this slow burn friends-to-lovers romance. Poppy and Alex are real and flawed and ultra-lovable, and their summer trips will scratch an itch for those of us who’ve missed traveling. A perfect summer read!”

—Alexis Daria, bestselling author of You Had Me at Hola

“An absolute delight: swoony, legitimately moving, and packed with witty banter that makes Alex and Poppy jump off the page. We are already waiting impatiently for whatever Emily writes next.”

—Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, USA Today bestselling authors of The Royal We and The Heir Affair

PRAISE FOR

Beach Read

“It’s in [the] tension that Henry’s writing truly sings—the accidental touches that linger, the hand-caressing beneath an Olive Garden table. Very few writers can capture this kind of pretending it didn’t happen while desperately wishing it would happen again, and it’s not only convincing but infectious.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“Once I started Beach Read I legit did not put it down.”

—Betches

“That Henry can manage to both pack a fierce emotional wallop and spear literary posturing in one go is a testament to her immense skill.”

—Entertainment Weekly

TITLES BY EMILY HENRY

Beach Read

People We Meet on Vacation

A JOVE BOOK

Published by Berkley

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

penguinrandomhouse.com

Copyright © 2021 by Emily Henry

Readers Guide copyright © 2021 by Emily Henry

Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

A JOVE BOOK, BERKLEY, and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Henry, Emily, author.

Title: People we meet on vacation / Emily Henry.

Description: First Edition. | New York: Jove, 2021.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020036305 (print) | LCCN 2020036306 (ebook) | ISBN 9781984806758 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781984806765 (ebook)

Subjects: GSAFD: Love stories.

Classification: LCC PS3608.E5715 P46 2021 (print) | LCC PS3608.E5715 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020036305

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020036306

First Edition: May 2021

Cover art and design by Sandra Chiu

Book design by Ashley Tucker, adapted for ebook by Kelly Brennan

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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I wrote the last one mostly for me. This one’s for you.

Contents

Cover

Praise for Emily Henry

Titles by Emily Henry

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Readers Guide

About the Author

PROLOGUE

Five Summers Ago

ON VACATION, YOU can be anyone you want.

Like a good book or an incredible outfit, being on vacation transports you into another version of yourself.

In your day-to-day life, maybe you can’t even bob your head to the radio without being embarrassed, but on the right twinkly-light-strung patio, with the right steel drum band, you’ll find yourself whirling and twirling with the best of them.

On vacation, your hair changes. The water is different, maybe the shampoo. Maybe you don’t bother to wash your hair at all, or brush it, because the salty ocean water curls it up in a way you love. You think, Maybe I could do this at home too. Maybe I could be this person who doesn’t brush her hair, who doesn’t mind being sweaty or having sand in all her crevices.

On vacation, you strike up conversations with strangers, and forget that there are any stakes. If it turns out impossibly awkward, who cares? You’ll never see them again!

You’re whoever you want to be. You can do whatever you want.

Okay, so maybe not whatever you want. Sometimes the weather forces you into a particular situation, such as the one I’m in now, and you have to find second-rate ways to entertain yourself as you wait out the rain.

On my way out of the bathroom, I pause. Partly, this is because I’m still working on my game plan. Mostly, though, it’s because the floor is so sticky that I lose my sandal and have to hobble back for it. I love everything about this place in theory, but in practice, I think letting my bare foot touch the anonymous filth on the laminate might be a good way to contract one of those rare diseases kept in the refrigerated vials of a secret CDC facility.

I dance-hop back to my