Review: "In Every Possible Way" by Alicia Thompson

In Every Possible Way by Alicia Thompson
Published June 2026 via Berkley
★★★★

Jess is fresh off a bad first date in her home of Florida, and she's ready to throw in the towel when life throws her for a loop: She's mugged, she hits her head...and she wakes up in Ireland. No passport, no money, no idea how she got there or how to get home. And no contacts except Eamonn, the first man she meets there...

I am predictable: I like travel books (even if that travel is accidental), and I like books set in places I don't know well, and I like nontoxic relationships. Also, I don't always read (or remember) the entire description before I commit to reading a book, because aren't books a bit more fun with an extra element of surprise?

Fortunately, this one delivered. Jess ends up seeing a fair amount of Ireland over a short couple of days, some of it touristy and some of it a little more off the beaten path. There's a sort of dreamy sense to her experience there, because she knows full well that she shouldn't be there, that it makes no sense that she's there, that it can't last. And every so often we get a reminder from Florida that the universe, too, knows that the time can't last. (Jess tries to go to the US embassy to get things sorted out, but it is conveniently a holiday weekend, so there's time to get caught up in things.)

The romance is sweet. Jess and Eamonn have a good dynamic, initially pretty uncertain but always respectful. We have some of the typical "he thinks she's dating someone else", but they get over that reasonably quickly. The chemistry is there early, but the figuring out what to do with it is more complicated...especially for Jess, who of course knows things Eamonn doesn't.

A few quibbles: I didn't like the epilogue—in retrospect I should have just skipped it, but of course you never know that going in! Late-in-game POV shifts always throw me for a loop, and it just didn't feel necessary. I'd also like to know just what Jess would expect at the US embassy in Ireland. Contacting the embassy is the logical thing to do if you've lost your passport on vacation, yes...but imagine the questions for someone in Jess's situation! No passport, but also no record of ever entering the country...and also no record of her ever having a passport, because, well, she doesn't have a passport. I mean, obviously there's a reason the story goes off in a different direction, but I am bad at suspending disbelief (see: me being predictable), and I think I just could have used a bit more acknowledgement that as complicated as things are, they have the capacity to get much worse, very quickly.

But overall? Much fun. This is the second of Thompson's books that I've read, and it was a better fit for me than the first (which was also fine, just—it wasn't set in Ireland). Would read more along these lines.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.