American
Lucy Score is an American romance author whose small-town contemporaries — including Things We Never Got Over — have built a massive self-publishing following through their humor, heat, and warm ensemble casts.
Lucy Score began her career as an indie author, building a substantial readership through social media and ebook platforms before her books crossed into broader bestseller territory. Things We Never Got Over, published in 2022, became a phenomenon — a grumpy/sunshine small-town romance set in Knockemout, Virginia, featuring a buttoned-up woman whose chaotic twin sister abandons her niece, and the town’s most infuriating — and attractive — man. The banter is sharp, the emotional beats genuine, and the pacing efficient.
Score is a skilled genre practitioner who understands exactly what her readers want: witty dialogue, slow-burn tension that releases with satisfying heat, and community-rooted storylines that create a sense of return visits to a place that feels lived-in. The Knockemout series rewards readers who stick with the ensemble, as secondary characters recur and develop across multiple books. The humor is a particular strength — Score has genuine comedic timing, and her male leads, who can tip into alpha-male territory, are usually redeemed by self-awareness and capacity for growth.
The criticism most often directed at Score is that her books prioritize fantasy and wish fulfillment over psychological realism, which is both true and largely beside the point for the genre. Her heroes are extraordinarily competent, wealthy, and emotionally generous once they stop being difficult, and the conflicts that drive the plots are sometimes manufactured to sustain tension rather than emerging organically from character. For readers who approach her books as escapist entertainment executed with craft and warmth, she consistently delivers.
Lucy Score’s career is a model of the modern self-publishing success story, a trajectory that has reshaped the romance genre and the publishing industry more broadly. Long before she became a fixture on bestseller lists, Score built her readership the hard way, releasing book after book independently, cultivating a direct relationship with her audience through social media and email, and steadily honing her craft across a substantial backlist. This sustained, entrepreneurial approach paid off spectacularly when Things We Never Got Over caught fire, propelled in large part by the enthusiastic recommendations of the online reading community and especially BookTok, where readers championed its grumpy-sunshine romance and small-town warmth. The book’s runaway success carried Score from the ranks of prolific indie authors into mainstream phenomenon territory, demonstrating once again how reader-driven discovery and word of mouth in the digital age can transform a self-published author into a publishing powerhouse. Her story exemplifies a fundamental shift in how careers are now built in popular fiction, with persistence, productivity, and community connection often mattering as much as traditional publishing support. Having built her audience one book at a time, Score arrived at her breakthrough with a deep backlist ready for newly arrived readers to devour, a position that amplified and sustained her success.
The heart of Score’s appeal lies in her creation of immersive small-town worlds and the warm, interconnected communities that populate them, most notably the fictional town of Knockemout, Virginia, where her breakout series is set. These settings function as a key part of the fantasy, offering readers the pleasure of returning again and again to a place that feels lived-in and welcoming, where secondary characters from one book become the protagonists of the next and the sense of community deepens with each installment. Within these worlds Score deploys the tools of her trade with genuine skill: sharp, genuinely funny banter that crackles between her leads; the slow-burn tension of the grumpy-sunshine dynamic that releases into satisfying heat; emotional beats that land with real feeling; and a brisk, propulsive pace that keeps pages turning. Her comedic timing in particular is a notable strength, and her gruff alpha heroes, who can verge on the domineering, are typically redeemed by self-awareness, vulnerability, and a capacity for growth that softens their hard edges. Score understands precisely what her readers want from a comfort read and supplies it with consistency and warmth, building ensemble casts and community-rooted storylines that reward ongoing investment. Hers is escapist entertainment executed with genuine craft rather than cynical formula, and that craft is the foundation of her devoted following.
Score has established herself as one of the most commercially successful and beloved authors in contemporary romance, a leading figure in the genre’s surging popularity and a name that reliably draws large and devoted readerships. Her books have sold in enormous numbers, dominated bestseller lists, and earned the kind of passionate fan engagement that drives long-term loyalty, with readers eagerly awaiting each new release and recommending her work enthusiastically to others. Beyond the Knockemout series, her extensive backlist of small-town contemporaries, romantic comedies, and related stories gives new fans a wealth of material to explore, and her continued productivity keeps her audience consistently supplied. Her success reflects both the broader boom in contemporary romance, fueled by online reading communities, and her own particular gifts for humor, heat, and warmth. While her work makes no claim to literary complexity or psychological realism, and readers seeking those qualities will look elsewhere, within the realm of escapist, feel-good romance she is a confident and accomplished practitioner who delivers exactly what her audience seeks. Score stands as a prime example of the contemporary romance powerhouse, an author whose hard-won indie success blossomed into mainstream stardom and whose reliable craft and infectious warmth have made her a fixture of the genre. Her place among the most popular romance writers of her moment is firmly secured.
The natural starting point is Things We Never Got Over, her breakout bestseller and the first book in the Knockemout series, which best captures her signature blend of grumpy-sunshine romance, sharp humor, satisfying heat, and warm small-town community; its immersive setting and crackling banter make it both immediately appealing and the gateway to a wider connected world. New readers should approach Score expecting escapist, feel-good contemporary romance executed with genuine craft and warmth rather than literary complexity or psychological realism, the kind of comfort reading designed to delight and engage. Those who enjoy the first book should continue through the Knockemout series in order, since secondary characters recur and develop across the books and the sense of community deepens with each installment, rewarding ongoing investment. Readers eager for more can also explore Score’s substantial backlist of small-town contemporaries and romantic comedies, a benefit of her prolific indie career. For anyone curious about the BookTok-driven contemporary romance phenomenon, Things We Never Got Over is both an ideal introduction to Score and a representative example of the reader-powered successes that have defined the genre’s recent boom, the book that carried her from prolific indie author to beloved bestselling name.
Add Things We Never Got Over to the list once the best-known books are behind you.
by Lucy Score
A woman arrives in a small town to rescue her twin sister and ends up stranded there, falling into an unlikely arrangement with the town's most infuriating man while raising her niece.
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