“Gilmore Girls ”Meets “Schitt’s Creek” in Lucy Score’s “Story of My Life ”— Read an Excerpt Here (Exclusive)

The bestselling romance author will publish the new novel in 2025, including three different special editions — and we’ve got a sneak peek inside

Lucy Score fans, rejoice!

PEOPLE can exclusively announce that two deluxe editions of the bestselling author’s forthcoming novel, Story of My Life, are on the way. The new book will be published in spring 2025 via Bloom Books and will launch with three (yes, three!) deluxe editions.

Score, who is also the author of novels like Things We Left Behind and the Riley Thorn romantic-mystery series, announced her latest book on Oct. 24 via Instagram and PEOPLE has an exclusive peek inside.

Story of My Life follows Hazel Hart, once a famed romance novelist who is now struggling with her work after a breakup of her own. Hazel decamps from Manhattan to the tiny town of Story Lake, Pa. in hopes of finding inspiration, where she meets contractor Campbell Bishop. But the “historic” home she bought isn’t as advertised, the town is struggling and her new house comes with a seat on the town council so the introverted writer gets a “front row seat to all the small-town shenanigans,” the book’s description teases.

As Hazel becomes infatuated with Campbell, she must balance her own romance writing process with the fact that she may be living in a romantic story of her own, in this book described as “a Gilmore Girls meets Schitt’s Creek redemption romcom.”

Book collectors have options for which edition they’d like to pick up, too. Each of the three deluxe editions of the novel, which kicks off Score’s “Story Lake” series, include a map and POV story art.

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The WalMart exclusive features bright pink sprayed edges and a collectible postcard, as well as some pretty adorable end pages. The Barnes & Noble exclusive edition has a foiled cover, printed edges and a collectible town postcard.

Read below for an exclusive excerpt from the Story of My Life deluxe edition.

I debated driving on by the roadside disaster.

I had places to be, shit to fix.

But Story Lake wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolis, and there was a good chance no one else would stop either. Besides, the way Goose was perched on the trunk, he was likely to give someone a heart attack.

On an aggrieved sigh, I swung my pickup onto the shoulder behind the mangled convertible.

Of course they were New York plates.

My boots had no sooner hit the ground than twin screams cut through the dust and the quiet.

“Everybody okay?” I demanded gruffly as I approached.

Both driver and passenger were too busy screaming and wrestling with their seat belts while staring over their shoulders to notice me.

Goose spread one impressive wing, keeping the other tucked into his side.

“He’s gonna eat our faces,” the redhead shrieked from the passenger seat.

“Just give him his fish back,” the dust-covered driver hollered.

Swearing under my breath, I opened the driver’s side door. “Anyone hurt?”

They screamed again, this time looking at me. The driver, a brunette with sunglasses that sat crookedly on her nose, was bleeding profusely from a cut on her forehead.

Biting back a few colorful f-bombs so word wouldn’t get back to my mom that I’d been swearing a blue streak in a couple of tourists’ faces, I leaned in and released the driver’s seat belt.

“Get out,” I commanded. When she didn’t move fast enough, I picked her up and deposited her next to the car. “You’re bleeding.”

“No, shit. I thought it was strawberry jelly,” she said, slapping a hand to her forehead. “Zoey, are you okay?”

“You’re the only one bleeding,” I pointed out.

“Sir, I don’t know who you are or if you’re a good person or like a serial killer, but I will be your alibi for any murder you commit if you get this fish out of my lap,” the passenger shrieked.

I glanced down, and the redhead held both hands in the air like she was under arrest. A fat rainbow trout stared up lifelessly from her lap.

Goose squawked his annoyance.

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“Shut up, Goose,” I told the bird.

He fanned his wing in an almost human shrug.

“Will someone please explain what just happened?” the driver said, starting to pace as she clutched a hand to her bloody forehead.

I walked her backward until she was leaning against the hood of my truck. “Stay.”

The redhead was still sitting stock still, hands up, face scrunched up, refusing to look down, when I opened her door.

“F—ing ridiculous,” I muttered as I picked up the fish.

Its scales were slippery, and it almost got away from me, but I got a better grip an inch before it whapped her in her movie-star-sized sunglasses.

She pursed her lips together and muffled some kind of internal scream.

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I tossed the fish into the grass off the shoulder of the road, where it landed with a wet thud.

Goose hopped from the trunk to the ground and swaggered John Wayne-style toward his lunch.

“Can you walk or you wanna sit there screaming?” I asked the redhead.

“I think I’ll whimper for another minute if that’s cool.”

Women. Specifically of the New York variety.

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I headed back to the wounded driver, who had shoved her sunglasses up over the wound into her dusty, blood-soaked hair. Wide brown eyes turned to me. “Is that a…”

“Bald eagle,” I filled in.

“I was attacked by a bald eagle,” she said almost dreamily. Suddenly she stomped her foot and squinted up at the cloudless sky. “Why does the universe hate me?”

 Copyright © 2025 by Lucy Score

Story of My Life will be published on March 11, 2025 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.