Poemsia

 Leav, Lang. Poemsia. 2019. 294p. ISBN 9781524851071.

Verity and her best friend Jess are in the early twenties, and both of them are stuck in personal ruts. Her parents died when they were little, and she's lived with her grandparents since then. She works in her grandfather's bookstore, and she knows a lot about books. Her passion is poetry, and she writes and thinks it all the time. She would love to be like her favorite poet, Mena Rhodes. She's never admitted to Jess that this is what she would love to do with her life, but Jess nevertheless knows, and when she binds a collection of poems Verity has written and encourage her to sell them, Verity is touched, and she agrees to place a few of the books in her grandfather's shop, and she also agrees to keep up the Instagram page her friend created.

Sash, the cute boy that comes in requesting a book of poem soon becomes more than an acquaintance, and as Verity begins to date him, she soon gets snared into his former girlfriend Penelope's traps, as she is undermined at every turn. Verity doesn't know what to do about this situation.

While browsing the shop's poetry section, she comes across an old book, called Poemsia. She posts a few of the poems from the book on Instagram, clearly identifying them as not hers. But in the mix of all of the poems she wrote and posted, her page takes off and soon she's inundated with requests. People love her poetry, but the most popular are the poems from Poemsia. Verity is not sure how to handle this newfound fame, but when calls from New York start to arrive, Verity must now make a very serious decision: Move to the poetry publishing capital of the world and pursue an exciting career as a poet while accompanied by Mena Rhodes, or remain in her country with friends Jess and Sash, running an old bookstore that hasn't been successful in a long time? 

A fun dive into the backstabbing universe of poets and writers, fans of poetry and life struggles will appreciate Verity's progression from a beginning writer to her ultimate decision guiding the rest of her writing career.