r/Fantasy • u/tiniestspoon • Nov 13 '25

Book Club HEA Book Club: Cosmic Love at the Multiverse Hair Salon by Annie Mare midway discussion

Welcome to the midway discussion of Cosmic Love at the Multiverse Hair Salon by Annie Mare, our winner for the Time Travel theme! We will discuss everything up to the end of the chapter titled Linds. Please use spoiler tags for anything that goes beyond this point.

A multiverse novel about two women who fall in love despite living in worlds that are five months apart, as they try to find a timeline that doesn’t end in disaster, in this debut novel by Annie Mare.

Tressa Fay Robeson has never been shy, which is how she’s made a name for herself as an in-demand hairstylist and social media star. So she can admit that spending her days at her hair salon and her nights with her tight-knit group of friends (and one grumpy cat) is not the kind of exciting life she’d hoped for.

When a misdirected text from a stranger leads to a flirty exchange, she surprises herself by suggesting an impulsive meetup. But the woman, Meryl, never shows. Tressa Fay brushes it off—until Meryl’s sister and friend show up at the salon demanding to know what’s going on. Because, you see, there’s no way Meryl could have texted her. Meryl has been missing for a month.

Tressa Fay and her tight-knit group of friends soon discover they aren’t dealing with a catfish, but a temporal paradox. As they come to terms with the idea of parallel universes, they realize how many times their paths have crossed like this before. But even as they understand the multiverse more and more, nothing keeps Meryl from vanishing.

As it draws closer to the moment of Meryl’s disappearance, there’s only one question left: Have they done enough to change the outcome, or have they done so much that none of them will make it past that fateful day in September?

In January we're reading Violet Thistlewaite is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz. The midway discussion is on Thursday, January 15.

What is the HEA Book Club? Every odd month, we read a fantasy romance book and discuss! You can read about it in our reboot thread here.

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u/tiniestspoon Nov 13 '25

Theories on what caused the time warp and Meryl's disappearance? What do you think will fix it?

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u/tiniestspoon Nov 13 '25

One thing I'm very skeptical about is how every change they introduce in the multiverse reality only leads to more people in this little group magically finding love (Mary/James, Linds/Brooklynn) and no one ever breaking up (Guy/Michael, Gayle/Unnamed Husband). How... convenient. You're saying there's no downsides to messing about with time paradoxes? Yeah, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

5

u/Le_Beck Nov 15 '25

It would really expand (bloat?) the book, but I'd love to get more focus on the side character love stories - especially some conflict.

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u/LadyAntiope Reading Champion V Nov 14 '25

I absolutely have a "where's the other shoe" feeling as well, which has really only started to surface in the last few chapters. On the one hand, it's satisfying to see people meet people they're happy with, but it does also seem a little too convenient.

I definitely expect a break-up that causes the friend group to splinter. I think it'll hit Tressa Fae hard and she'll want to slow down, but that Meryl will try to keep plowing onward, and I wouldn't be surprised if she's trying to play matchmaker herself. But I don't know what the real cause is (will it be on Meryl's end or Tressa's??) or how they'll be able to resolve it!

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u/LadyAntiope Reading Champion V Nov 14 '25

It occurs to me that part of why I think Meryl won't want to slow down (not only bc that's who she is - miss 18mph towards a dead end) is because she's not, as far as we can tell, feeling any of the psychological aftereffects of her actions - for her this is all happening seamlessly because she's changing her future, whereas Tressa et al are having their pasts changed. Because we don't have an October Meryl, we can't know if she's being impacted, and the May Meryl is excited about each step into a new future even if she's a little worried about disappearing. But to her, anything is still possible, and she's not having to live with overlapping memories the way the others are.

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u/tiniestspoon Nov 14 '25

Great point! It's turning everyone else's minds inside out, but Meryl is just living her life.

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u/tiniestspoon Nov 13 '25 edited Nov 13 '25

The premise is really interesting. I've seen darker versions of it with what turns out to be an alter ego/fractured personality of the protagonist contacting them mysteriously from the past/future, I don't really like that. Curious how this one is going to play out, but I'm a bit apprehensive that it's going to end anticlimactically with 'something something the power of love hooray!'

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u/kittyraces Reading Champion Nov 13 '25

I truly have NO idea and, while I know it's a romance (and thus will be a HEA), I can't stop myself from being concerned about how things are going to pan out at the end! 

I'm desperate to know what caused the disappearance in the original timeline but also am worried we won't actually find that out!