Still want to hold on to that summer feeling a little longer? ‘Fun at Parties’ by Jamie Harrow is the road trip romance for you.

PHOENIX — Everyone has embarrassing moments: forgetting what you’re supposed to say in the middle of a big presentation, or accidentally wearing your shirt inside out on a date. 

But very few people can say they have ranted about their breakup on a livestream spin class.

That’s the start of Jamie Harrow‘s “Fun at Parties” novel, a road trip romance and Harrow’s second book.

RELATED: Here are 6 books to add to your reading list this fall

Fun at Parties follows Quinn Ray, an online cycling instructor who has a meltdown mid-livestream spin class after her breakup with another cycling instructor, who decides to take a road trip to clear her head and her heart. But when her old friend and secret crush, Nate Reed, asks to join so he can meet up with the pair’s mutual chaotic friend, Logan, Quinn’s journey goes from a quiet nature road trip to party hopping and chasing Logan across the country, all while wondering if she and Nate can really ever just be friends.

Will the pair make it to their final destination with their hearts intact? Or are they on a wild goose chase with love?

This is Harrow’s second book, but her first book since she became a full-time writer. She said she’s always loved writing and wanted to be a journalist when she was in high school.

“I wrote a family Christmas newsletter every year that nobody wanted,” Harrow said with a laugh.

But when she graduated from college in 2009, she decided to go to law school and then practiced law for about ten years. While she was practicing, she wrote her first book, “One on One,” in 2024. 

“It was just a project for myself, just to see if I could do it,” Harrow said. “I’d been reading a lot of romances and romantic comedies, and I was like, ‘You know, I think I might have one of these in me.'” 

Her own road trips with friends inspired “Fun at Parties,” Harrow said.

“Every road trip I’ve ever been on has been a complete adventure, and something has always gone wrong, and I love that in a romance book when like, everything goes wrong, and the characters, you’re sort of torturing the characters a little bit, you’re giving them the opposite of what they want, right?” Harrow said. “I loved the idea of having the opportunity to do that.”

And in a road trip romance, Harrow said she had a unique opportunity to find fun moments because of literal forced proximity.

“Any setup where you can make the two main characters sit two feet away from each other for a really long time is gonna produce a lot of fun moments,” Harrow said.

There are many fun moments and hijinks as the main characters travel across the country, party hopping from one place to another. But if she has to sum up the book in just one sentence?

“The main character thinks she’s doing ‘Wild,’ or ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’ but she’s actually doing ‘The Hangover,'” Harrow said. 

Quinn’s journey of self-discovery—prompted by her very public breakup—is broadcast on social media, something that is both fun and stressful for Quinn in moments throughout the book. It’s a struggle, Harrow knows, too.

“I don’t have a huge social media following, but when you start writing… I at least started sharing more on social media than I had in the past, and so I’ve had moments where I’m like, oh, I don’t really feel like posting today, but I should probably figure something out,” Harrow said. 

Social media also plays a part in Quinn’s fulfillment in her job as a cycle instructor and even in her relationships with her mom and Nate.

“Quinn’s own relationship with her social media and everybody else’s relationship, how she perceives it; it really does, I think, illustrate that social media is really cool, but… it can also have a very complex relationship,” Harrow said.

Main character Quinn’s relationship with her mom is a big part of this story: Quinn’s mom was part of a multilevel marketing scheme, which left her family bankrupt and left Quinn with a lot of stress around money. 

Readers see Quinn’s mom pop up on the page in text messages or social media videos, and when Quinn handles certain situations, she credits her mom’s perspective in helping her get through challenges.

But until the end, readers don’t get to meet her mom on the page.

“I knew that near the end, there would have to be a confrontation, because, Quinn’s growth, while a lot of her growth involves being honest and putting herself out there with Nate, the love interest, she’s also got some internal personal growth that she needs to go through, and that confrontation with her mother is really where that’s tested,” Harrow said. 

After that confrontation, Quinn also has to confront the financial anxiety her mother’s choices caused her to experience. To Harrow, finances are a central part of real-life love stories, whether that love story is between two people in a relationship or between friends and family members. 

“In romance, we’re dealing with people making huge life decisions about who to choose as a partner, and oftentimes they’re deciding where to live, if they and the other character live in different places, or am I gonna leave my job, and finances are a huge part of that for people in real life,” Harrow said. “… I like my books to feel real.”

And of course, this story is not complete without the romance between Quinn and Nate, friends to almost-lovers to estranged acquaintances and then friends again, oh my! This pair truly runs the gamut in their relationship status. 

Harrow said one of her favorite parts of bringing their relationship to the page was writing flashbacks to when Nate and Quinn first met as teens in Nate’s beachside hometown. 

“It was a lot of fun to dig into those a little bit of like a nostalgia factor,” Harrow said. “…I really enjoyed writing those flashbacks because that’s partly how the reader gets to know these characters and why they are the way that they are, and it was also showing how they got to know each other.” 

Now that the book has hit shelves, Harrow said she hopes readers get comfortable on the couch and are ready to dive into all of the crazy road trip stops along the way of Quinn and Nate’s story. 

“You can be cozy under a blanket, but you get this, what I hope comes across as a very sparkly, fun love story with lots of adventures,” Harrow said.

To learn more about Harrow’s work and her upcoming project—which she tells 12News is going to be a little something different than what her readers are used to—keep an eye on her social media pages.

For more book and literacy stories, check out “Reading Arizona” on YouTube and 12News.com. If you have a story pitch for Reading Arizona, email koconnor@12news.com or reach out via Instagram, @thatjournalistwhoreads. 


Watch 12News+ for free 

You can now watch 12News content anytime, anywhere, thanks to the 12News+ app! 

The free 12News+ app from 12News lets users stream live events — including daily newscasts like “Today in AZ” and “12 News” and our daily lifestyle program, “Arizona Midday”—on Roku and Amazon Fire TV. 

12News+  showcases live video throughout the day for breaking news, local news, weather and even an occasional moment of Zen showcasing breathtaking sights from across Arizona. 

Users can also watch on-demand videos of top stories, local politics, I-Team investigations, Arizona-specific features and vintage videos from the 12News archives. 

Roku: Add the channel from the Roku store or by searching for “12 News KPNX.” 

Amazon Fire TV: Search for “12 News KPNX” to find the free 12News+ app to add to your account, or have the 12News+ app delivered directly to your Amazon Fire TV through Amazon.com or the Amazon app. 


Reading Arizona

Go beyond the TV broadcast and learn more about all things books in State 48 on the 12News app and YouTube channel. Subscribe for more digital-exclusive content!