Any Trope But You by Victoria Lavine: My Review

Check out my review of the debut novel Any Trope But You by Victoria Lavine to see why she is now one of my favorite romance authors!

*Disclosure: This post may include affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Any Trope But You Summary:

Beloved romance author Margot Bradley has a dark secret: she doesn’t believe in Happily Ever Afters. Not for herself, not for her readers, and not even for her characters, for whom she secretly writes alternate endings that swap weddings and babies for divorce papers and the occasional slashed tire. When her Happily Never After document is hacked and released to the public, she finds herself canceled by her readers and dropped by her publisher.

Desperate to find a way to continue supporting her chronically ill sister, Savannah, Margot decides to trade meet-cutes for murder. The fictional kind. Probably. But when Savannah books Margot a six-week stay in a remote Alaskan resort to pen her first murder mystery, Margot finds herself running from a moose and leaping into the arms of the handsome proprietor, making her fear she’s just landed in a romance novel instead.

The last thing Dr. Forrest Wakefield ever expected was to leave his dream job as a cancer researcher to become a glorified bellhop. What he’s really doing at his family’s resort is caring for his stubborn, ailing father, and his puzzle-loving mind is slowly freezing over—until Margot shows up. But Forrest doesn’t have any room in his life for another person he could lose, especially one with a checkout date.

As long snowy nights and one unlikely trope after another draw Margot and Forrest together, they’ll each have to learn to overcome their fears and set their aside assumptions before Margot leaves—or risk becoming a Happily Never After story themselves.

Any Trope But You: My Review

Phenomenal debut – I’ve just found a new favorite author!

There’s something REALLY special when you start a new romance, especially a debut novel, that hooks you from the very first chapter and only gets better and better.

I am honestly blown away by Victoria’s amazing writing in Any Trope But You which is romance that gives such love to all the popular romance tropes that us romance fanatics devour.

After just reading the book summary alone, this book made my list of Top 10 Most Anticipated New Romance Book Releases for April 2025. I loved that it is about a popular romance author who has lost her faith in love (if she ever really had it) and who secretly plots happily never afters for all of the main characters in her books. Her list of happily never afters gets outed, she’s shunned by readers and dropped by her publisher and then shipped off to this remote lodge in Alaska by her sister to find her muse as a thriller/mystery writer. But of course there she meets a hunk of a man who just may turn her thoughts on love on their head.

Who wouldn’t want to read that, right?! Well you shouldn’t if you are a romance reader because this is one of the best romance books of 2025 that I read in one sitting but honestly didn’t want to finish because that would mean that my time with Forrest and Margot were over.

My first impressions of this book was that there was no way this was a debut novel because the writing is phenomenal. Victoria Lavine’s prose was perfection, creating characters who jumped off the page and moving a storyline along that hooked you from the start. I will absolutely be reading whatever this woman writes next because she created the full package in this romance.

Forrest and Margot are amazing characters who had the most adorable meet cute and who were clearly meant for one another. I loved their commonality as caretakers to family members they loved and how that connection really helped them to understand and truly see the other.

OMG is Forrest my new favorite book boyfriend! Of course the man is not only a HOT lumberjack chopping wood but he’s extremely intelligent and top in his field of cancer research. He can cook, has a heart of gold and is such a good caretaker of everyone in his life.

I loved Margot as the heroine of the story and my heart bled for her when her professional life imploded but it was also the personal set backs you come to learn about that really hit home as well. I loved that she would do anything for her sister but that her sister in turn helped her to grow as well.

As a romance book lover, I adored how Victoria paid homage to so many romance book tropes in this story without force feeding them or making the story too hokey. From enemies to lovers, to forced proximity to Margot mocking the only one bed/tent trope and more, it was such a fun nod to everything I love about this genre.

I don’t want to forget the amazing author’s note where you learn about Victoria’s health struggles while writing this book. It only made me more in awe of this author.

I loved this book and cannot recommend it enough.

*Thank you to Atria Books for this advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

Related Book Lists:

• Best Forced Proximity Books
• Best Romance Books That Inspire Travel
• Best Romance Heroes With Wounded Hearts

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