”Not having hope is what makes people miserable.” This is a French translated novel about an actress named Mia who needs a break. She doesn’t want to be with her cheating husband anymore so she takes a getaway to Paris where she disguises herself and works as a waitress at her friend’s restaurant. We also see the point of view of Paul, who is an American author who is trying to write a new novel. His books are very popular in Korea but not really anywhere else. He’s kind of in a fling with his Korean translator but he’s more invested than she is. His friends think that he’s lonely and set him up on a date without him knowing by making a profile for him on a dating site. And of course the person he matches with is Mia. The date goes disastrously because Paul thinks this is a sort of work meeting and Mia thinks it’s a date. But they eventually deduce what happened and that the other isn’t crazy and it actually gets them talking. They end up meeting again when Mia accidentally takes his phone. Mia isn’t completely honest with him that she’s an actress, though. She tells him that she owns a restaurant when in fact it’s her friend who does. One day he asks to eat at her restaurant and she says no, then asks if he can try her food and her friend has to help her cook. He ends up figuring out when he goes by her restaurant that she doesn’t own it but she’s a waitress and he tells her he doesn’t care about that. He sets up a nice meal for her but she doesn’t show because her husband suddenly shows up in Paris trying to win her back and she goes as far as the airport with him but when she realizes the paparazzi are there that he was just trying to get them attention and he hasn’t really changed. She sneaks away from him at her airport and gets on a flight to Korea. That’s where Paul is going because of his popularity there. He’s very nervous to go alone because he’s scared of flying and having to do a bunch of interviews. But now Mia is with him. There’s an “only one bed” moment when they arrive at the hotel. She helps him navigate the interviews but realizes something is wrong when he gets in TV: they’re talking about a completely different story that he didn’t write. He realizes that the woman he was in love with was actually writing her own story under his name and he didn’t realize it because he can’t read Korean. He can’t be mad at her because it’s a very heartbreaking story about how her family was suffering in North Korea. He keeps the secret for her because the doesn’t want to get her family in trouble or killed. I didn’t expect this part of the plot; it was very deep. Mia leaves suddenly because the paparazzi found her and suddenly her photo with Paul is everywhere. Paul chases after her. We find out that he met up with the Korean woman he loved and she admitted what she did but they reconciled and he understood why she did it and cleared up for him that he doesn’t love her anymore, he loves Mia. He isn’t able to find Mia because she left and started a new life away from acting and her husband. Paul goes on to publish his own new book and he also admits that he did not write his other successful book. He then gets a note of a shopping list that is reminiscent of a Jane August shopping that he gave to Mia (can you imagine getting this as a gift?!!) and then runs into her. She said she watched his interview and it cleared up his relationship with her and that’s why she came back. And it sounds like he’s going back to the US with her. This was not a bad story, but nothing really happened that was new and exciting to me. It was just a nice romance story. I got the ebook a while ago so I’m glad I’ve been finally able to read it. It’s also interesting that it was originally written in French.