The 1990s belonged to Nora Ephron, Tom Hanks, and Meg Ryan.

Good romcoms come in the dozens, but odds are that the first scenes your mind picks out take place in New York, or Seattle: A soft voice asking for magic over a car radio and awakening a lonely heart. A clear spelling of the word FOX. The wailing of dial-up. The panic of an 8-year-old flying himself to the Empire State Building *without* being in *Home Alone*.

Movies like You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle defined more than just the romance genre. It put two of the biggest movie stars on the map, and it influenced love stories for decades to come. (fun fact: the concept animation for the Anastasia animated feature was a scene of Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle and led to her getting cast as the voice of the lost princess.)

Even today, as entrenched into romance and love stories as I am, I always find myself longing for that special feeling that comes from watching a Nora Ephron movie. For me, they’ve always seemed to have their own color, their own taste, their own sound. And even the best movies or books that callback to the OG as inspiration have never really met the expectations.

At least not until BK Borison announced First Time Caller.

I hadn’t read any of Borison’s books yet. I had several bookseller friends that really loved her Lovelight Farms series, and i myself just never got around to reading them. But something about First Time Caller stood out to me in a very similar way to my favorite Nora Ephron movies. Maybe it was the absolutely gorgeous cover art and color scheme that somehow evoked that same feeling. Maybe it was that I just really love Sleepless in Seattle, as much as I love to argue the ending with my mother (she is not a proponent of “ambiguous” endings). Regardless, i had the absolute honor of listening to an advanced copy of the audiobook for First Time Caller, and I fell in love with BK Borison’s writing as quickly as the entire country fell in love with Tom Hank’s soundbite all the way in Seattle.

The risk with any reimagining—not just Nora Ephron—is becoming derivative. A reimagining should never just be a repackaged plot that makes you long for the inspiration instead of the creation. It should be a re-imagining. Something all it’s own with whispers of its muse. Something that *honors* the original, not just *mimics* it. And unfortunately, when it comes to romance books that want to remix Ephron, it doesn’t hit. So while I was excited about *First Time Caller,* I was weary. *Sleepless in Seattle* is on my list of the top 10 movies of all *time*. Which may be a high bar, personally, but it’s not my fault. The cozy hopefullness; the wistfullness and yearning for magic, for true love, refusing to let go of that belief—it’s something you don’t just find anywhere. It is aware in it’s delusion and that maybe it is silly to want these things, but it refuses to let it go because in order to get by, you have to believe in *something*.

And that something lives in that studio booth somewhere in Baltimore with Aiden Valentine and Lucie Stone.

The static energy between two people that seems to suspend everything around them. *First Time Caller* is not just a repackaging of *Sleepless in Seattle*, it is truly INSPIRED: an entirely new story with it’s own soul, it’s own desires, it’s own magic. It says, *hey maybe sometimes reimagings are silly, but we aren’t going to let go of this one. We believe in Annie and Sam, and that’s why we will also believe in Lucie and Aiden*. It’s *aware*, and it takes off to become something all it’s own.

Aiden Valentine is a romance radio show host that doesn’t believe in love—which you would think disqualifies him from the job. And to be honest, he’s almost there. A string of less-than-positive phone altercations while on air has his show producer seething and ready to throw him out. He needs something to get him out of the funk. Something that isn’t the same people calling in just to listen to themselves talk, complain about their partners, or prove to this anti-valentine that love is dead. He wants something different. A different call, for once.

And one night, he gets a call from a 12-year-old named Maya. Not what he was expecting, or really wants because a grown man talking to a 12-year-old late at night on the phone in secret is definitely not the way to go. But Maya isn’t calling for herself, but for her mom.

Lucie is a mechanic and a single mom that’s been looking for love much longer than she’s willing to admit. Tired of the latest and more modern ways of dating, she’s resigned herself to just waiting for magic to hit her. Does she feel absolutely ridiculous to think like that? Yes, maybe. But she’s happy enough with her modern family, her job, and her daughter to sacrifice the daydream of true love and a partner (at least she thinks she is.) Throw in her mastermind daughter, and we are thrown into the whirlwind of Lucie’s Road to Love (sponsored by Mr. Tire).

When we start First Time Caller, we are Aiden. Striving for something different. Bored of the usual. And by the time Heartstrings starts this new segment with Aiden and Lucie, we are Lucie, eager and terrified and intrigued as to how it will pan out, if it will pan out. of course, we know that it will, and that her magic is sitting across from her, but it is an absolute wonder to be able to experience it with Lucie. She is as immediately lovable as Aiden as everyone sees her, deserving of the magic she’s looking for. And despite the fact that Aiden thinks he’s an asshole, we know that he isn’t. He’s just scared. But he’s good, his goodness is brought out by Lucie, and it makes him just as deserving of this magic. These two come alive in each other’s company. It is a perfect progression of strangers to friends to lovers, all with that same coziness, that wistful hope, the slow, sticky, sleepy fall into love.

Borison captures the desperation, the apprehension, the fear and the courage of falling in love when you don’t mean to with gorgeous prose, hilarious characters, perfectly sensual scenes, and deep emotions. And right at the end, she hits you with one of the best conversations a man has had with his father I’ve read in a romance.

“You aren’t broken. . . I think you’re just bruised.”

This is a book I will be cuddling up to re-read the same way I click on Sleepless in Seattle when I'm in need of a little reminder that there is magic in every corner, you just have to reach for it.