Your little toe hangs off the side. Urgh.

Behind your ankle, your foot sticks out a half an inch, too, and you simply must face it: the sandals you lust after, the last pair marked down, are too small. Unlike Cinderella’s sister, you can’t cut off your toes. Maybe, as in the new novel “If The Shoe Fits” by Julie Murphy, you should just cool your heels awhile.

Taking care of preschool triplets is a great summer job.

On a plane from New York to L.A., Cindy Woods tried to tell herself that. It would be nice to see her little half-siblings. She missed her stepsisters and her stepmother, too, but it was hard to leave New York because all her dreams were there. At least they were, back when the world was hers for the taking; once she graduated from college with no job in sight, though, her hopes for a career in shoe design were dashed.

Caring for the triplets would at least be some sort of distraction, although not as good as the handsome distraction on the flight. That distraction flirted shamelessly with Cindy, and he admitted to having a thing for reality romance shows. Both of these surprised her: overweight her whole life, she wasn’t used to the “Prince Charming” type flirting with her. And since her stepmother, Erica, was the producer of one of those shows, and since Cindy knew allllll about them, well, she figured everybody saw through the silliness.

Alas, the ratings of Erica’s show needed a boost and a bold idea began to take place once Cindy arrived in L.A., one that secretly included her as contestant.

She couldn’t say “NO” fast enough, until she thought a minute.

She wasn’t the kind of girl that Before Midnight would normally have on-camera, but being a contestant could put her shoe designs in front of a national audience. It might lead to a move back to New York City, and a job with a designer. It might lead to a great career.

It might lead to love.

From here until Labor Day, your schedule is packed. Last-minute this, shoehorned-in that, your brain doesn’t have much room for reading, which is why you need “If the Shoe Fits.”

The easy thing to know about it is this: you already know how it ends. You do. Like any good fairy tale, there’s a Happily-Ever-After that’s promised and delivered, but not in a way that loses a reader’s interest between meeting and true love. Author Julie Murphy ensures that you won’t have to worry that the hero and heroine will lose their respective paths to bliss because this isn’t that kind of book. Predictability is key here, characters, setting, and all, but it’s exactly what you want in a romance.

Be aware that there’s a touch of minor profanity here but it’s realistically used and nothing you can’t handle, so go ahead. Immerse yourself in a little escapism with a kiss. For you, “If the Shoe Fits” is sized just right.

“If the Shoe Fits: A Meant to Be Novel” by Julie Murphy
c.2021, Hyperion
$26.99 / $33.99 Canada
304 pages