Annabel Monaghan’s Dolly All the Time is the latest pick for the Good Morning America book club.
Monaghan’s novel, published Tuesday by Putnam, follows Dolly Brick, a woman who takes her son back to her hometown of Whitfield, Rhode Island, hoping to save the family house. There she meets a wealthy high-society man, Stewart Whitfield, who asks her to pretend to be his girlfriend; their fake relationship blossoms into something real. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called the book “a charming love story that absolutely radiates warmth.”
In a video on Instagram, Monaghan said, “I am beyond thrilled that my book Dolly All the Time is the June GMA pick. I started this book with Newport [Rhode Island] in mind. I went up there and I took in the rocky beaches and the beautiful old mansions, and I thought it would be fun to create a romance between a rich guy who lives in one of those mansions and has the weight of the world on his shoulders and the woman who’s been delivering fish to his house her entire life, who also has the weight of the world on her shoulders.”
She continued, “I didn’t know how I was going to get them together. It didn’t seem natural to make them date, but it did seem natural to make them fake date, which I did. This story is a little bit Pretty Woman, it’s a little bit Cinderella, and it’s a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy it.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
