Love Me Like a Rock Song

by Shelly Jay Shore

Genres: Fantasy; Paranormal; General Fiction; Romance; Contemporary Romance; LGBT & Pride

Synopsis

Delilah is a lyricist looking for a muse. Emmett is a golem ready to be unmade.

From the bestselling author of Rules for Ghosting comes a soul-stirring, romantic novel about a jilted singer-songwriter, her unexpected passenger, and the road trip of a lifetime, hailed as “a beautiful exploration of queerness, Jewishness, and full-throated love” (TJ Alexander, author of A Gentleman’s Gentleman).

When Delilah Cohen’s much more famous fiancée leaves her at the altar right before Delilah is supposed to start recording her first solo album, she’s left with a notebook of unusable love songs and a honeymoon road trip that’s now a last-chance search for new inspiration. She doesn’t expect to fall for the mysterious passenger she picks up two hours in, but what’s more inspiring than a rebound with a built-in expiration date?

But there’s more to Emmett than meets the eye. Emmett is a golem, a human-ish being of Jewish folklore, created from clay to serve a now-deceased master, who gave them one final, fatal task. Road-tripping with Delilah is the first thing they’ve ever chosen for themself. It’s not supposed to change their destination . . . but the longer Emmett spends with Delilah, who has plenty of secrets of her own, the more their ending feels like something to fight, rather than something set in stone.

As the California coast brings Delilah’s writing deadline—and Emmett’s fate—closer with every passing mile, Delilah has to decide whether making an unforgettable album is worth losing a love she never expected to find.

Release date: August 25, 2026

Publisher: Dell

Print pages: 368

Sample

Track 1

Delilah


TMZ
BREAKING—Insiders report that singer-songwriter duo Sam Knight and Delilah Cohen have called it quits, less than 24 hours before their wedding! Get the scoop

Us Weekly
There goes the bride??? Sam Knight hints at split from fiancée and songwriting partner Delilah Cohen on Instagram.

BuzzFeed
No statement yet from Sam Knight or Delilah Cohen on their reported breakup, just hours before they were scheduled to head down the aisle. Here’s everything we know about the rumors so far

Iris Gold
y’all PLEASE stop tagging me in posts about sam & delilah’s wedding, i am so obviously not going to say anything until they say something themselves!!!

It’s seven in the morning, the day after she should have been married, and Delilah Cohen is trying, and failing, to convince the girl at the rental office to hand over the keys to the honeymoon van.

Her fingers itch for the cigarettes she quit smoking when she was twenty-two. Six years on, the cravings still hit her anytime she’s emotional or antsy or hungover or high, which is most of the time, one way or another.

Today she’s emotional and hungover as hell, vodka-sweat prickling half-dried on her skin under the cardigan she threw on against the October air. In a universe with any kind of justice, she’d still have nicotine gum in her purse. Instead, she drums her fingertips against the counter like it’s a keyboard, tapping out a silent arpeggio of irritation and anxiety as she tries to make sense of the paperwork spread out in front of her.

The honeymoon road trip was Delilah’s idea, born out of a mix of nostalgia and romanticism. Sam wanted a tropical vacation, the kind they’d taken throughout their relationship: the two of them lounging on a beach, all skin and sun and the kind of sweet blended drinks that made Delilah’s teeth ache. Sam always befriended the bartenders as soon as they arrived, her Hollywood looks and natural charm more than enough to get an extra shot of rum poured down the straws of her piña coladas, and Delilah got to reap the benefits—for all she usually regretted it once the sugar and alcohol started adding up. Those vacations were always beautiful, luxurious, and picture-perfect, until the flash of the sun off the ocean turned into the flash of cameras from the paparazzi. Sam’s PA, Brooke—never far out of reach—would shoo them away, but it always took Delilah too long to relax again, no matter how many times Sam told her to stop looking over her shoulder. Even after five years together, Delilah never got used to the way paparazzi flocked to Sam like the gulls that circled the beach.

Delilah empathized with the birds. She knew exactly what it felt like to be searching for crumbs—not of dropped French fries or liquor-soaked fruit, but of Sam’s undivided attention.

Sam, music industry heiress that she was, could brush the paparazzi away with the ease of long practice, projecting effortless indifference even as she tilted her head or adjusted her posture to ensure they captured the most flattering shot for whatever tabloid had managed to track them down.

“You know you’re just rewarding them for stalking you,” Delilah had said once, brushing sand off the bottom of her feet in the entryway of their suite.

“Photos sell albums, babe,” Sam had told her with a wink as she pulled her bikini top over her head, laughing her sunshine laugh when Delilah wobbled off her flip-flops. “And don’t we have better things to be doing than worrying about them?”

Unlike Sam, who made her People debut at six months old, Delilah grew up in the sweetness of anonymity. Her vacations were just her, her mom, their ancient Subaru, and the interstate. Together they would pick a line on the paper map in the glove compartment and carve a path between cheap motels and diners and world’s largest objects. She would tuck her legs beneath her in the back seat, watching the lines on the highway as the car followed them toward what felt like limitless potential.

Delilah and her mom had no plans, no assistant-arranged itineraries, no travel agents—the polar opposite of Sam’s world of all-inclusive resorts. Delilah had been determined to show Sam that different didn’t mean bad. “You’ve been showing me your world since we got together,” she’d said, twirling a lock of Sam’s hair around one finger as they lay together in bed, passing potential honeymoon destinations back and forth. “It’ll be an adventure.”

An adventure for just the two of them, she hadn’t said. No cameras, no constantly looking over their shoulders, just the open road and the endless sky.

Getting Sam to agree had felt like a tiny win in the planning of a wedding that was spiraling out of control. What had started out as an intimate, rustic gathering of family and friends had ballooned into something decadent and massive pretty much the instant Sam’s mother had gotten their wedding planner’s phone number. Delilah may have been overruled on flowers and venues and whether Liza Minnelli and Faye Dunaway could be seated at the same table as her aunts, but the honeymoon was just for them.

At least, it was until Sam told Vogue about their plans, and suddenly they were drowning in offers of free luxury camper vans with built-in showers, all theirs for the low, low price of five grid photos and ten story posts and an endorsement tag. Delilah had put her foot down as much as she could. “It’s not a real road trip unless you have to actually stop to pee,” she said, crossing off three more potential companies. Sam threw up her hands and gave Delilah carte blanche to choose her favorite, and they’d signed a contract for a refurbished camper van that balanced Delilah’s love of kitsch and vintage nostalgia with Sam’s love of social media aesthetics.

The note Sam left had shut the door on more than just the honeymoon van, but it’s the contract for that van that Delilah is staring at now that might push her back over the edge. Apparently, it’s no marital bliss, no honeymoon, no service.

It should probably help that the girl behind the counter looks about as mortified by the situation as Delilah feels, but it really doesn’t. She has a name tag shaped like the Mystery Machine clipped to her electric-blue polo. The label reads, Hi, my name is Jenna! How can I help you take an adventure today?

Delilah would like to adventure directly into a cave and never come out. Except then Sam would win.

“Look,” she says, “I get it. The influencer contract is scrapped, whatever. Can’t I still just make an actual reservation? With a credit card? Like a normal person?”

Jenna chews her lip. She looks about twenty. Delilah feels sort of bad for sweating vodka all over her nice clean counter. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to just change things around like that,” the girl says. “It’s a different system.”

Delilah will not cry in front of this child. She’s sure she’s got some dignity left, somewhere. Probably stuffed at the bottom of her bag, crumpled up next to old receipts and expired granola bars and half a bottle of Xanax.

She casts a help me look over her shoulder at the three women sitting in the little office’s waiting area, clustered in the aggressively yellow chairs that clash with the countergirl’s uniform like an eclectic entourage. Her mother, manager, and best friend exchange a silent glance, and then Alex gets to her feet in one long, elegant movement, sliding into the space beside Delilah with the grace of a panther. The lack of incessant buzzing from the phone in her hand must mean she’s finally silenced it—a relief and a terror. Delilah doesn’t want to think about how bad the notifications must have been for even the world’s most unflappable manager to shut them up in order to handle the damage control.

“I’m sure we can work this out,” Alex says with a scarlet-lipped smile, and Jenna goes a bright and predictable pink. Where Delilah is wearing yesterday’s makeup, her curves hidden under an oversized sweater she found in a bargain bin, Alex is all sleek black clothes and knife-sharp eyeliner, her red hair swept into a flawless fishtail braid, skin dewy with a ten-step skin-care routine she somehow found time to do even after spending the whole night talking Delilah down off a ledge. She looks exactly like her power lesbian reputation, radiating the terrifying competence that lets her ring up any record label in LA and cow them into submission. Mystery Machine Jenna doesn’t stand a chance.