Story of My Life

Story of My Life (2025) is a contemporary romantic comedy by Lucy Score that follows a big-city rom-com author, Hazel Hart, who has lost all writing inspiration following a failed marriage to her toxic ex-husband, Jim. To save her career, Hazel must regain her confidence and her inspiration, so she makes the impulsive decision to buy a ramshackle mansion in the small town of Story Lake. As Hazel finds inspiration—mainly in the grumpy contractor Campbell “Cam” Bishop—she manages to write her romance novel while also finding love for herself. The novel explores themes including The Challenges and Rewards of Personal Reinvention, Happiness as a Lifelong Project, and The Healing Power of Community.

This guide refers to the Kindle e-book edition published by Sourcebooks in 2025.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of illness, death, emotional abuse, sexual content, substance use, and cursing.

Plot Summary

Disillusioned by love after a messy divorce with Jim, her toxic ex-husband who despised and sabotaged her writing career more than he supported it, Hazel Hart is a has-been rom-com author who has been struggling to find inspiration for the past two years. When her best friend and agent, Zoey Moody, delivers news that her publisher will drop her if she doesn’t turn in a book soon, Hazel becomes determined to dig herself out of her creative rut. This feeling only becomes stronger when Zoey is fired after missing another author’s event while helping reintroduce Hazel to the reading community.

One night, while mourning the fact that she must move out of her New York apartment in five days per her divorce settlement, Hazel comes across her old story inspiration folder, where she finds an old article about a small town in Pennsylvania that came together to aid an elderly resident, Dorothea Wilkes, in repairing her home, Heart House. The project was led by Bishop Brothers Construction, and the photo depicts all three Bishop brothers: Campbell, Levi, and Gage. Campbell, or “Cam,” looking grumpy in the picture, gives Hazel the first hint of inspiration she’s had in over a year. Spurred into action by the idea of a big-city girl who moves to a small town for personal discovery but falls in love with the small-town hero, Hazel impulsively buys Heart House in an online auction and takes Zoey with her. Even after a rocky start—striking a bald eagle with her rental car, crashing the car, meeting the amusingly grumpy Cam, and discovering that the picture-perfect Heart House is a run-down, ramshackle mansion—Hazel finds inspiration in every corner of the quaint town of Story Lake, though most of it is derived from Cam himself.

After making a life for himself outside of Story Lake, Cam recently returned after his sister, Laura, was in an accident and he learned that the family construction business was going under. Desperate to save their family business, the Bishops take the well-paying job renovating Hazel’s house—a decision that also gives Hazel close proximity to her novel’s muse, Cam.

Determined to finish her novel, the success of which will define the future of Zoey’s career as well as her own, Hazel requests a desperate favor from Cam, asking him to pretend to date her so that she might conduct further research for her romance novel. While Cam initially plans to take Hazel on a deliberately awful date to dissuade her from seeking him out further, he eventually decides to take her on a real, romantic date for her research. However, the outing results in undeniable sexual chemistry that eventually leads them to agree to have no-strings-attached sex. As their relationship becomes more intimate—not only sexually but also emotionally—both Hazel and Cam are determined to ignore the signs. Meanwhile, Jim gives interviews to various presses and magazines in which he throws intentional jabs at Hazel and her career, threatening to dismantle her personal growth and the progress she’s made on her novel since coming to Story Lake.

Hazel’s progress is further threatened by the potential of losing Story Lake when the truth of its financial peril is revealed. When faced with the possibility that the neighboring town of Dominion might absorb Story Lake if the town can’t pull together the funds for a necessary sewage treatment plant, Hazel develops an idea to steal tourism from Dominion by orchestrating a Summer Fest event on Labor Day; Cam, whose feelings for Hazel have grown past their sex-only agreement, publicly declares that he and Hazel are dating and helps her with planning the event. Though the event is sabotaged by Story Lake resident Emilie, who is in cahoots with the mayor of Dominion, Nina, they manage to have a semi-successful Summer Fest.

Cam and Hazel’s romance continues to progress alongside Hazel’s personal growth and novel progress. When Jim and her mother, Ramona, show up in town with zero warning, Hazel finally has the courage to share her feelings with each of them. Hazel stands up for herself when Jim begins patronizing her and attempts to force her to go back to writing her former series. As part of their divorce settlement, Jim owns the rights to that series and makes royalties from it. The beloved local bald eagle chases Jim out of town. Hazel has a heart-to-heart with her mother, whom she’s never wanted to be like due to her history of marrying and divorcing man after man. However, when Hazel learns that her mother is happy and still supportive about everything she does despite the differences in their lifestyles, Hazel becomes more open to strengthening their mother-daughter relationship.

When Cam’s sister, Laura, has a minor fall and ends up in the hospital, his fears from after her accident return in full force. He fears losing Hazel just as Laura lost her husband, Miller, in the accident and breaks up with Hazel instead of confronting and working through that fear. Hazel wallows post-breakup but finishes her novel with Zoey’s encouragement. Meanwhile, Cam becomes miserable in his solitude and is encouraged by his own family to confront his trauma. After successfully acknowledging his fears and agreeing to work through them, Cam devotes himself to a grand gesture to win Hazel back.

Shortly after Zoey sells Hazel’s novel to a publisher in a very successful deal, Cam returns home from his own trip to New York, where he, alongside Ramona’s expensive lawyers, convinced Jim to sign the rights to Hazel’s novels back over to her. Cam has also worked hard with his brothers to finish the construction on Hazel’s house early in order to surprise her. Cam gives Hazel a romantic speech, reconciling their romance, and he also gifts her two pet cats. Thirteen months later, Hazel has married Cam and is pregnant, and Story Lake is growing in terms of both local population and tourism.