Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir
Recommended for fans of Fiction
Mistakes Were Made (Deluxe Edition)
by Lucy Score
A warm, funny, steamy small-town romance pairing a chaotic, commitment-shy literary agent with a planner who wants a wife, served with Lucy Score's signature banter and found-family charm.
What It's About
Mistakes Were Made is the second novel in Lucy Score's Story Lake series, set in the same struggling Pennsylvania small town introduced in Story Lake. This time the focus shifts to Zoey Moody, a big-city literary agent whose career has collapsed down to a single client, her best friend Hazel. Broke and stuck somewhere she never wanted to live, Zoey is counting on Hazel's next book to buy her ticket back to Manhattan. Her landlord, Gage Bishop, is the opposite of everything she wants: organized, grounded, family-minded, and openly ready to settle down.
The setup is classic opposites-attract, and Score leans into it with sharp, teasing dialogue and plenty of physical comedy. When a painful family revelation shakes Gage, a single night together complicates their carefully drawn lines, and the story becomes a slow push-and-pull between what each of them thinks they want and what they actually need. Expect explicit, open-door love scenes alongside the jokes.
Reading it feels like returning to a busy, noisy town full of meddling neighbors, sibling rivalries, and community projects. The tone moves between laugh-out-loud scenes and genuinely emotional family drama, and the romance is the kind that rewards readers who like to settle in with characters for a while. It works best if you enjoy the comfort of a guaranteed happy ending and the pleasure of watching two stubborn people get there.
Read this if you…
- loved Things We Never Got Over or the first Story Lake book and want more of Score's banter-heavy small-town world
- enjoy opposites-attract romance with explicit scenes and a reliable happy ending
- like romantic comedies that mix big laughs with real family drama
Skip it if you…
- prefer closed-door or low-heat romance, since the intimate scenes are explicit
- want a tight, fast-paced story rather than a long, leisurely book packed with side characters and town subplots
Key Ideas
- 1
Opposites who challenge each other's plans
Zoey runs on impulse and avoids commitment; Gage schedules his life years ahead. Score uses that friction for comedy, but also to question whether either approach is really working. Each character's habits are shown as a kind of armor, and the romance becomes a way of loosening the defenses they built to avoid getting hurt.
- 2
Family secrets and what they shake loose
A hidden truth in Gage's family is the catalyst for the central relationship, and it adds real emotional weight beneath the banter. The book explores how sudden revelations can upend someone's sense of identity, and how loyalty to siblings and parents gets tested. It keeps the story from being pure fluff without turning it heavy.
- 3
Small town as found family
Story Lake is a character in its own right, with quirky locals, community rivalries, and a collective effort to keep the town afloat. For Zoey, a city person who sees the place as exile, the gradual pull of belonging is as important as the love story. Series readers will enjoy seeing familiar faces return.
- 4
Friendship and the publishing world backdrop
Zoey's bond with Hazel, her best friend and sole remaining client, anchors the book outside the romance. The literary agent angle adds a playful insider flavor, with a romance novel's success tied to the heroine's future, letting Score wink at her own genre while keeping the focus on loyalty between friends.
Limitations
Like many of Score's books, this runs long, and some readers find the middle sags under side plots and ensemble scenes. The opposites-attract and one-night-stand setup follows familiar genre beats, so there are few true surprises in how the romance unfolds. The humor is broad and occasionally over-the-top, which suits fans but can grate on others. It can be read alone, but it lands better if you know the town and characters from Story Lake. The Deluxe Edition is the same story in a special format, not new content beyond what the edition advertises.
Questions Readers Ask
- Do I need to read Story Lake first?
- Not strictly. Mistakes Were Made centers on a new couple, Zoey and Gage, and explains enough to follow along. However, Hazel and other characters from the first book appear throughout, and some town history and relationships carry over, so reading Story Lake first gives you richer context and avoids spoilers for the earlier romance.
- How spicy is Mistakes Were Made?
- It is an open-door romance with several explicit sex scenes, in line with Score's other recent bestsellers. The heat builds gradually alongside the emotional story rather than dominating it, but readers who want fade-to-black scenes should know going in that this one does not cut away.
- Is it similar to Things We Never Got Over?
- Yes in spirit: a small town, a grumpy-meets-chaotic dynamic, ensemble humor, family drama, and steamy scenes. It is generally lighter than the Knockemout books, with less suspense or danger and more workplace and community comedy. If you liked Knockemout's tone and banter, this should feel familiar and comfortable.
- Published
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9781728297064
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Category
- Fiction
Book details and cover from Google Books.
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