A Lucy Score Deep Dive
Things We Never Got Over, like why the dog and the daughter have almost the same name.
Forgive me if this newsletter doesn’t feel timely - the first book in Lucy Score’s Knockemout series was published in 2022. But I’ve visited a lot of Targets and bookstores lately, and the sheer proliferation of Lucy Score books, from paperbacks to special editions, finally got to me. As I’m sure you can tell if you read this newsletter, I’m a prolific romance reader (and have been since I was a teenager buying historical romance paperbacks at Borders (RIP) and the local used bookstore). But I hadn’t read any of Lucy Score’s books. So I decided I needed to change that.
After all, one of the (many and frankly, increasing) projects of this newsletter is to shed light on popular, bestselling authors that you might not know about and unpack the reasons for their popularity and success. And all told, the three books included in the Knockemout series have 1.8 million Goodreads ratings.
Which is why I scheduled a visit to Knockemout, Virginia this week (and yes, there is an in universe explanation for such an unlikely town name). Here are a few things I learned, some TikToks and quotes from big Lucy Score fans, and what I think it all means for the state of contemporary romance.
Book Covers and Special Editions
Of course this idea started with me noticing these covers everywhere - just look at them! They’re different enough from mainstream cartoon romance covers, eye catching, and pretty - to the extent that when I asked a friend if she’d ever read Lucy Score, she said “the one with the daisies?”
The other covers that jump to mind for me when looking at these are Colleen Hoover’s covers — text heavy treatments in jewel tones or pastels that indicate little about the content of the book inside. A reader could be forgiven for assuming Score’s books were YA, or at least new adult. So you’ll understand my surprise when I finally picked one up and discovered that they were about actual adults. And not your typical early 20s romance protagonists. The MMC of Things We Never Got Over is 43! (More on that later).
Since these covers don’t scream romance, one of my hypotheses here is that these books have served as an entry point into the genre for readers who wouldn’t typically pick one up, just like Colleen Hoover.
Also like Hoover’s books, Score’s have been wildly popular since the BookTok boom of the early pandemic. As such, they’ve been on and off the NYT bestseller list for the past several years. And when hardcover special editions with sprayed edges were released in November 2024, all three books in the series hit the NYT list again. Because as we’ve learned, if readers like something, they’ll like a hardcover special edition of it even more.
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Welcome to Knockemout
So, if these books aren’t YA love stories, or new adult romances, or Colleen Hoover styled melodramas, what are they? They’re small town romances, of a sort. They have all of the hallmarks of the genre, and a few extra things thrown in for good measure (BookTok girlies love maximalism).
Knockemout, Virgina (named for the local history of settling disagreements with fists) has all of the charm of Stars Hollow - a coffee shop, a library designed to take care of all of its citizens, a barbershop, a bar called the Honky Tonk, and a sprawling cast of quirky, nosy characters. In fact, this sprawling cast is the source of the some of the books’ greatest appeal - the members of the town are all well developed, and they aren’t all just sequel bait. It adds a cozy, lived in, found family feeling to the series.
“This town has always settled its differences with a good old-fashioned fight. None of this dragging things out in court, getting hoity-toity lawyers involved. Somebody does you wrong, you ring their bell, and then you’re sqaure.”
The town elementary school’s mascot is “an oversize boxing glove named Punchy.” If this is all sounding reminiscent of recent BookTok sensation The Pumpkin Spice Cafe, you’d be right. Except there is something else lingering at the fringes of Knockemout. Some of the friendly locals are members of a biker gang, there’s a floating high roller poker match with some shady characters taking place in the back room of the bar, and there’s a mystery related to organized crime swirling under the placid surface. Small town romances always have my conservative politics radar tingling, but while these books aren’t overtly political, they do include a broadly diverse cast, with racial and LGBTQ+ representation.
Let me back up. Thing We Never Got Over begins with a runaway bride (Naomi Witt) entering the town. She’s been called by her twin sister, always a bad seed, who swears she’s in trouble. Instead, she steals her sister’s car and leaves her with the 11 year old niece she didn’t even know about. Enter Knox Morgan - he’s grumpy, looks like a Viking, and has a protective streak a mile wide (sound familiar?). After winning the lottery several years ago, he’s invested everything he has in the town - he owns the barbershop and the bar, and his name is even on the town’s brand new police station.
Which leads us to…
Plot Moppets and Sequel Bait
Another hallmark of the recent small town romance boom? Lots of babies. But just like our MMC (43) and FMC (36), our baby here is aged up a little bit. Waylay Witt is an 11 year old spitfire, used to fending for herself. Her hobbies include fixing old people’s tech gadgets at the library. Named because she was a detour to her mother’s plans, Waylay is present to provide just the right amount of sass and poignancy, a perfect plot moppet (smart bitches trashy books tm). Her partner in crime? Waylon, Knox’s basset hound.
Rounding out the expansive cast of characters are Nash, Knox’s younger brother who serves as the town’s chief of police, and Lucien, their childhood best friend of mysterious origin who has turned into the kingpin of an enterprise of dubious legality. Clearly, these are the heroes of books two and three (and their heroines have already popped up here, too). I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart in a lineup, but maybe that’s the point. They’re brooding, strong, powerful men, hurt in their past and unwilling for various reasons to open their hearts to love. They’re grumpy and overprotective - not quite to the dark romance level, but you can see a little bit of the origins of that trend here as well. If you hurt their woman, they’ll punch you (as long as there are witnesses that can testify you punched them first).
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The Long and Short of It All
As I’m sure you’re beginning to gather, another recent romance trend present in the Knockemout series? These books are LONG. Things We Never Got Over clocks in at 572 pages, and the next two books in the series are both even longer. And they do contain a lot of plot. Aside from the central love story, the story of an aunt connecting with her niece, a found family story, and the heroine’s journey to overcome her people pleasing tendencies, there’s also a mystery, an evil twin plot, and someone gets shot by a member of an organized crime family.
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And the central romance is a slow, slow burn. I don’t think the MMC and FMC even kiss until almost halfway through the book. But once it’s on, it’s on. These books are spicier than the daisies on the cover would suggest. In fact, when I was poking around reading what people thought about the series, their spice level was a recurring theme. Which raises another question that I’ve been pondering for a bit, now: do new romance readers imprint on the first really spicy book series they read? Please discuss in the comments.
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After a deal in 2023, the books are set to be adapted into a television series by Amazon, and I can see why. They have a similar feeling to wildly popular streaming shows like Virgin River and Sweet Magnolias. We can only hope they don’t stretch the love stories across multiple seasons (I’m looking at you, Virgin River).
So why do I think these books have been so successful?
The mass appeal of the covers
Older protagonists, something that readers are desperate for
A maximalist approach to contemporary romance
A mystery plot that carries across all three books
The writing has a brash frankness that I think people appreciate. Some of it I took issue with (I don’t need a subplot about all of the waitresses who work at the bar’s periods syncing up) but it appeals to a broad audience.
Relatable conflict - the FMC is a recovering people pleaser working two jobs to make ends meet and take care of her family. In that way, it’s more grounded in reality than a lot of what’s out there.
To that end, a lot of quotes from the book feel like they could be on a sign in HomeGoods. For instance:
“We’re the new generation of hot soccer moms,” Stef decided. “I’ll drink to that,” Sloane agreed, hoisting her tumbler that said This is Definitely Not Wine.”
An Aside
My biggest pet peeve with Things We Never Got Over was a running joke between the FMC and the MMC, where he continually calls out her use of big words. But the vocabulary she was using when he would bring it up included words like benevolence and ignoramus. I think we need to raise our standards a little bit here. Something I often see on BookTok is readers expressing that they’re intimidated to read books by authors like Kristin Hannah, books that are highly commercial even if they are sometimes historical. This all feels of a piece with our broader cultural moment, and it’s been bubbling in the back of my mind.
Beyond Knockemout
While Knockemout is Score’s most successful series, she is the author of more than 30 books, including the requisite small town Christmas romances. The Knockemout series has even propelled some of her other books onto bestseller lists years after their release dates.
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Interesting to note that @bookbclubwannabe explicitly calls out the fact that she prefers the new “discreet” covers to their previous, more obviously romance versions.
Her newest series begins on March 11 with Story of My Life, which she describes as “a Gilmore Girls meets Schitt’s Creek redemption romcom.” The plot sounds very spicy Hallmark movie, as a woman flees the city to renovate a house in small town Pennsylvania and falls in love with her contractor. I’ve already seen it making it’s way into the hands of delighted BookTok creators, but it remains to be seen if it can reach the heights of Things We Never Got Over. It, of course, has sprayed edges.
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Have you read Lucy Score, or just seen her books in every bookstore in America? Please let me know.
Oh, that's interesting to think of imprinting on your first spicy series! If Kushiel's Dart counts then yes, it's true for me, haha
My Lucy Score entry point was the Riley Thorn series, which I recommend to just about everyone. There is a spite cow and a farting wonder dog, so it leans way more comedic than Knockemout.