Nothing serious A novel

Emily J Smith

Book - 2025

"Edie Walker's life is not going as planned. At thirty-five she feels stuck: in her career, in her love life, and in her tiny San Francisco studio apartment. It doesn't help that her best friend, Peter Masterson, is basically the über successful male version of her--and she's hopelessly, unrequitedly in love with him. But when Peter breaks up with his girlfriend of seven years, Edie thinks her life might finally be turning around. He'll discover how toxic dating-app culture is and realize Edie has been right for him all along. Except Peter almost immediately lands a date with Anaya Thomas, a gorgeous, whip-smart professor and writer of feminist literature whom even Edie - reared in the culture of tech bros - is smi...tten by. Unlike the women Peter has dated before, Anaya is like an alternative-reality version of Edie, one with shampoo-commercial hair and a meaningful career, who definitely doesn't spend her weekends scrolling social media alone in her apartment. It's only a matter of time before Peter falls head over heels for this woman; Edie herself is infatuated after one meeting. Then Anaya is found dead in her apartment. Right after a date with Peter. Driven by her near-fanatic love of Anaya's work and a desperate need to prove Peter's innocence, Edie begins searching for clues to what really happened that night. As her obsession with the investigation grows, so do her doubts about Peter. When the truth finally comes to light, Edie must decide where her loyalties lie, who deserves justice - and who deserves to be punished. Provocative, tense, and copulsively readable, Nothing Serious is a shrewdly obsereved, astonishingly heartfelt debut combining a darkly funny takedown of online dating with an honest examination of the challenges women face every day - but don't dare discuss - from a brilliant new voice in contemporary fiction." -- Jacket flap. more