What if the one that got away was never really gone?

When a mysterious woman summons Nancy Balbirer to a Russian restaurant in New York City, the near stranger’s shocking purple hair and even more shocking news send Balbirer simultaneously reeling back to her past and hurtling towards a future that, at almost fifty years old, she never dreamed possible. This romantic-comedy memoir tells the true story of how a pack of Hollywood television writers and the denizens of a fabled but cursed Manhattan apartment building helped the author and one of her best friends turn a thirty-two-year almost romance into a real one.

Witty and heartfelt, Nancy Balbirer’s sublime memoir proves that love is possible anywhere, anytime, and at any age.

Nancy Balbirer's previous books—Take Your Shirt Off and Cry and A Marriage in Dog Years—made clear the author had a singular skill for turning the trials and triumphs of her own life into unforgettable stories. In this new memoir, Balbirer tells the story of a romance more than 30 years in the making, and brings readers along on the equally funny, heartbreaking, and exhilarating adventure to make it work. ―Town & Country Magazine's 23 Must-Read Books of Winter 2022

The most compelling love stories often include missed opportunities. Overcoming such hardships makes the ultimate connection that much sweeter. Such is Balbirer's story... A lively, zesty memoir. Movie buffs, wordplay-loving readers, and hopeless never-say-die-to-love romantics will enjoy this happy-ever-after tale. ―Booklist

The laugh-out-loud wit and astute contemporary observations that distinguish Nancy Balbirer’s previous memoirs is on full display in this marvelous third book. She also gives us a deeply emotional, romantic story that makes us yearn for the two longtime friends to at last find happiness with each other. ―Charles Busch, actor, playwright, cabaret entertainer, novelist, and screenwriter

When Howie met Nancy more than thirty years ago, they both had a lot to learn about love―and themselves. Nancy Balbirer’s new memoir, Almost Romance, tells the story of two people (writer Balbirer and Howard J. Morris, co-creator of Grace and Frankie) who were always meant to be together if they could just get it together. And finally, in their fifties, they do. Fun and frothy and full of great callbacks to sex in the city over the last three decades, Almost Romance gives hope to romantics in an impersonal age for love. From Nancy’s first anguished email reaching out to her old friend Howie, we are rooting for this couple, who come to realize that, after lives spent living without each other, they can’t exist apart. Nora Ephron would approve. ―Nancy Jo Sales, author of Nothing Personal: My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno

Almost Romance is a modern-day romantic thriller, because what could be scarier for a cynical New York divorcée than believing in love again? Balbirer’s memoir spans the decades of missed opportunities with her soul mate from college. She is ballsy, insecure, and wickedly funny and overthinks everything. It’s a great ride and a great read!” ―Josann McGibbon, Emmy-nominated screenwriter of The Starter Wife and Runaway Bride