Love by the Book Summary: Friendship, Secrets & a Double Life
TL;DR: Two Women, One Unlikely Bond
A spilled glass of red wine at a North London bookshop sets an unlikely friendship in motion.
Remy Baidoo, a 30-year-old novelist, is stuck on her second book while her closest friends scatter across the world.
Simone Beduah, a primary school teacher, hides a secret life as a high-end escort and the family rift that came with it.
Love by the Book, the second novel by British-Ghanaian author Jessica George, follows the two women through pregnancy, broken trust, and second chances.
- Remy — a bestselling author facing writer’s block, a scattered friend group, and an unplanned pregnancy.
- Simone — a Year One teacher secretly working as a luxury escort, estranged from her religious Ghanaian family.
- A chance meeting grows into daily voice notes, shared secrets, and a bond neither woman expected.
- A publishing accident puts Simone’s private life in front of Remy’s agent, and both worlds begin to crack.
- Core themes: female friendship, loneliness, motherhood and choice, double lives, family reconciliation.
Dive Into the Full Chapter-by-Chapter Summary of the Book
Love by the Book Summary: The Full Story
Warning: spoilers ahead, including the ending.
Remy Baidoo is 30, with a Sunday Times bestseller behind her — her debut, These Four Friends, built on her lifelong friendships with Lin, Mel, and Nova.
Then the group scatters.
Mel marries Felix and moves to Hertfordshire, Lin takes a promotion to New York, and Nova slips back into a painful cycle with her ex, David.
Broke, blocked, and pressured by her agent Tara Shah to deliver book two, Remy moves back in with her mother Ada at her late grandparents’ house in North London. Ada works in theater, reads palms, and offers blunt guidance.
Simone Beduah, 29, teaches Year One at Linwood Primary School and keeps a pristine flat in Highbury.
She pays for her independence through secret work as a high-end escort.
Six months earlier, a client named Dominic walked into a family dinner as her sister Jenni’s new boyfriend, exposing her double life.
Her father Fredrick, a pastor, and her mother Afua cut her off. Simone has lived in strict solitude ever since.
Their worlds collide at a book talk at Ink@84, where Remy spills red wine across Simone’s shirt.
Simone lends her a jumper and mentions they attended the same secondary school. Bookshop owner Clyde urges Simone to accept Remy’s dinner invitation, and the two meet at Mantl, a Turkish restaurant. Simone spots Jenni inside, panics, and bolts — but leaves her phone number behind.
To break her block, Remy starts drafting a journal-novel titled Untitled S&R, with fictional avatars “R” (herself) and “S” (Simone).
After a one-night stand with Ishir, a man from a dating app, Remy discovers she is pregnant.
She collapses in public from nausea and panic, and Simone finds her and gets her to the hospital, where Dr. Odell confirms eight weeks. Back at the house, Ada reads Simone’s palms and predicts that two separate worlds in her life are about to collide.
The friendship deepens through daily voice notes.
At a panel called To Be or Not To Be a Mother, the two put their opposing views on family on record. Walking through central London afterward, Simone confesses the escort work and receives no judgment — only warmth. Remy, meanwhile, weighs single motherhood against abortion and adoption.
Complications stack up. Cillian O’Connor, an Irish supply teacher at Linwood, turns out to be one of Simone’s regular clients; she enforces strict boundaries at school.
Remy visits a Brixton church her grandparents attended, meets Jenni and Pastor Fredrick, and bonds with Jenni over ice cream sundaes. At a gathering at the Beduah home, Fredrick confronts her for meddling in family affairs.
Then the mistake. While emailing a pitch to Tara, Remy accidentally attaches the unedited draft of Untitled S&R.
Tara is thrilled by the raw commercial hook — a pregnant author and a sex worker — and pitches it as a lead title at the New York Book Fair.
Love by the Book turns here on its story-within-a-story premise: Remy has put Simone’s real trauma in front of publishers without her permission.
Before Remy can fix it, Simone finds printed manuscript pages by the printer. Reading her private life framed as research, she cuts Remy off completely.
Disaster hits from another direction at the same time.
Cillian’s jealous wife, Lara O’Connor, traces Simone through his bank statements and a school lanyard, then reports her to headteacher Edwina Andoh.
Simone is suspended and fired for violating school ethos, loses her clients, and sinks into a depressive episode, staying in bed for days.
Rebuilding starts on parallel tracks.
Remy confesses everything to Jenni, who visits Simone’s flat; the sisters tearfully reconcile and agree to rebuild their bond.
Over a bank holiday weekend, Remy reunites with Lin, Mel, and Nova — the four clear the air and renew their friendship vows. Remy also meets Ishir, sees he is unready for fatherhood, and decides to raise her baby as a single mother.
The ending brings repair. At a cafe, Remy offers a full apology and Simone proposes a clean slate. Remy goes to Linwood Primary and defends Simone directly to Edwina.
Tara, sensing the power of their combined voices, offers a co-authoring contract for S&R, and Simone accepts — this time controlling her own narrative.
Jessica George closes the story six months to a year later.
The co-authored S&R publishes through Cohen Press and becomes an instant Sunday Times bestseller. Remy gives birth to a daughter, Amelia, and Simone leaves sex work entirely to write full-time.
At a launch party hosted at Clyde’s New Beacon Books, the full cast gathers — including a now-divorced Cillian, who arrives with flowers for Simone.
Holding baby Amelia, Simone reflects on how meeting Remy turned cold isolation into restorative love.
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Who’s Who in Love by the Book
- Remy Baidoo — 30-year-old Sunday Times bestselling author dealing with writer’s block, an unexpected pregnancy, and a scattering friend group.
- Simone Beduah — Year One teacher at Linwood Primary who secretly works as a luxury escort while estranged from her family.
- Ada Baidoo — Remy’s mother, a theater actress who reads palms and hosts Remy in the family house.
- Jenni Beduah — Simone’s younger sister, an artist who wears a purity ring and misses her sister.
- Fredrick Beduah — Simone and Jenni’s father, a traditional Ghanaian pastor.
- Afua Beduah — Simone and Jenni’s mother, a nurse.
- Lin (Linisha) — Remy’s lawyer best friend who relocates to New York for a promotion.
- Melissa (Mel) Ortega — Remy’s friend who marries Felix, moves to Hertfordshire, and has a baby.
- Nova (November Aura Knight) — Remy’s hairdresser friend caught in a cycle with her ex-boyfriend David.
- Cillian O’Connor — Irish supply teacher at Linwood Primary and one of Simone’s regular escort clients.
- Lara O’Connor — Cillian’s wife who uncovers Simone’s escort identity and reports her to the school.
- Tara Shah — Remy’s literary agent who pitches the leaked manuscript to major publishers.
- Clyde — 67-year-old owner of New Beacon Books and Simone’s weekly confidant.
- Ishir — the man from a dating app whose one-night stand with Remy results in her pregnancy.
What Drives the Story
- Platonic love and female friendship — The story centers Remy’s bonds with Lin, Mel, and Nova and her new tie with Simone, including a scene where the friends promise to stay in love with each other.
- Loneliness and solitude in adulthood — Remy’s isolation after her friends relocate runs parallel to Simone’s self-imposed solitude as protection from rejection.
- Motherhood, autonomy, and choice — Remy’s unexpected pregnancy, Simone’s decision to stay child-free, and Ada’s history as a single parent place three different answers side by side.
- Secrecy and double lives — Simone’s split existence as a teacher and escort, and the gap between her private reality and her family’s expectations, fuel the external conflict.
- Family estrangement and reconciliation — The break between Simone, her parents, and Jenni, and their slow return to each other, forms the book’s emotional recovery arc.
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Memorable Quotes from Love by the Book
“I just think love among friends deserves more discussion and praise than it currently gets. It’s not really its own genre yet so I used to hunt for it in every book I read.”
— Remy Baidoo
“If you can quit a thing and still be happy, quit. If you can’t leave a thing alone, it will have no choice but to happen.”
— Remy’s grandmother
“I don’t want to just get by; survival is a starting point, not an aspiration.”
— Simone Beduah
“It’s hard to miss what you didn’t love, but it’s even harder to miss what still remains.”
— Simone Beduah
“Selfish means putting yourself first—but so long as you do so without causing harm to anyone else, I don’t see the problem.”
— Simone Beduah
“Let’s promise to stay in love with each other.”
— Remy Baidoo
“Remy, every story in the history of the world is about someone.”
— Tara Shah
Love by the Book at a Glance
- Genre & Subgenre: Contemporary Women’s Fiction; commercial drama with domestic-fiction and modern romance elements.
- Core Narrative Tropes: Unlikely alliance between opposites; secret double life; story-within-a-story meta-fiction; found family and estrangement.
- Tone & Atmosphere: Witty, warm, intimate, urban, and reflective.
- Primary Conflict: Internal — Remy’s fear of isolation and her motherhood decision; Simone’s independence versus her fear of vulnerability. External — the exposure of Simone’s escort work and the leaked manuscript.
- Pacing Style: Character-driven, dual perspective, with time jumps between past and present.
- Book Structure: Four time-based parts — Six Months Ago, Now, Six Months Later, and A Year Later/Epilogue — totaling 60 alternating sections plus embedded manuscript chapters.
- Pages: 384 (St. Martin’s Griffin, April 6, 2027).
- ISBN: 978-1250853745 (ISBN-10: 1250853745).
Is Love by the Book Right for You?
This book centers friendship rather than a romance plot, told through alternating perspectives in a character-driven rhythm.
Dialogue carries much of the story, and the emotional weight lands in the second half as secrets surface.
It fits readers drawn to Black British fiction, British-Ghanaian family dynamics, publishing-world backdrops, and stories-within-stories — and those comfortable with heavier threads like estrangement, grief, and pregnancy decisions handled alongside humor.
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