Paper Heart is a contemporary romance and drama novel by bestselling Irish author Cecelia Ahern. The book won the Irish Book Awards Popular Fiction Book of the Year 2025. The story follows Pip, a 32-year-old woman working at a local service station deli. After getting pregnant at the age of 16, Pip’s independence was stripped away by her controlling, narcissistic mother. For the last 16 years, she has lived under her parents’ roof, raising her daughter Bella while shrinking her own identity to conform to her family’s strict expectations.

Pip’s world is small. But it’s about to become a whole lot bigger.

For years she’s tucked away her dreams, shrinking herself into the space left behind – like the delicate origami she creates alone in her room.

Then hope comes from an unlikely place: an astronomer from the local observatory. He teaches her to look up at the stars, and to see a world far bigger and more beautiful than she ever imagined.

And perhaps in that big, beautiful universe there’s someone waiting for her. If she can find the courage to open her heart.

Pip never stopped dreaming, but now it’s time for her to live – and maybe even to fall in love.