Laurie Gilmore

Laurie Gilmore is the pen name of American author Melissa McTernan, used for her small-town contemporary romance novels, most notably the Dream Harbor series set in a cozy, fictional New England coastal town explicitly inspired by the TV series Gilmore Girls. The series began with The Pumpkin Spice Café in 2023, which became a TikTok Shop Book of the Year and a breakout bestseller, and has continued with The Cinnamon Bun Book Store, The Christmas Tree Farm, The Strawberry Patch Pancake House and The Gingerbread Bakery, each centered on a different small business and romantic pairing within the same town. New readers should start with The Pumpkin Spice Café, both the series' origin and its most widely read entry, which sets up the town of Dream Harbor and its recurring cast of shopkeepers and locals that later books continue to revisit. Gilmore's books are known for their cozy, low-conflict, feel-good tone and strong seasonal theming, making them popular comfort reads. There is no film or television adaptation of the series to date, though its rapid social-media-driven success has made it one of the most talked-about small-town romance series of recent years.