Accidentally Yours is a work of contemporary fiction, which falls under the subgenre of romantic comedy. The novella can also be classified as a modern epistolary novel, as it incorporates digital letter-writing into its more traditional prose.

Works of contemporary romantic fiction typically follow a central romance between two characters, tracing their meeting and attempts to work out their differences or overcome obstacles in pursuit of a happy romantic future. The two most quintessential elements of a rom-com are “a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending” (“About the Romance Genre.” Romance Writers of America). As the two main characters fall in love and seek their ideal future, they often overcome obstacles in the form of tropes. Such tropes include forbidden love, workplace, enemies-to-lovers, or forced proximity. These tropes intensify the stakes of the lovers’ romance, either through circumstantial barriers to their relationship or by challenging them to confront and work through the internal issues that threaten their connection.

In Accidentally Yours, Lauren blends several traditional romance tropes, such as workplace romance and forced proximity, into Jude and Veronica’s love story. Because the couple works together, there’s a taboo element that initially makes them hesitant to begin a romantic relationship. However, the virtual nature of their workplace blurs the lines of more traditional workplace protocol, giving them license to continue sending intimate emails despite the potential complications. As residents of the same apartment building, the characters are forced into close proximity, encountering each other in the hallways and the mailroom. After Veronica discovers that Friday from 2C and Jude are the same person, she’s forced to grapple with whether to date someone she potentially won’t be able to avoid. 

With Accidentally Yours, Lauren creates a hybrid epistolary rom-com by incorporating email and texting exchanges into the narrative prose to nuance the overarching storyline and subvert genre expectations. Epistolary novels are traditionally divided into three categories:  “monophonic, which feature a single voice, or letters written by a single character; dialogic, which feature a correspondence between two characters; and polyphonic, which feature letters written by three or more characters” (Chaplinsky, Joshua. “A Brief History of the Epistolary Novel.” Writer’s Digest, 5 Aug. 2024). Accidentally Yours can be classified as a polyphonic novella, as it features Veronica’s exchanges with Jude, as well as emails, texts, and messages between other characters such as Clara, Veronica, and Adam. 

The use of digital epistles positions the lovers’ story in a contemporary, romantic comedy context in which dating is indelibly linked to technological communication. The characters’ digital epistles augment the narrative tension and pacing, emphasizing the virtual aspect of Veronica and Jude’s connection and illustrating their more conversational first-person voices. Lauren incorporates overt references to popular 1990s romantic comedy films like You’ve Got Mail, which tells the story of two rivals who fall in love anonymously over email, reinforcing the novella’s thematic examination of The Impact of Technology on Intimacy in a post-COVID era. Lauren’s novella joins the ranks of other hybrid epistolary rom-coms, such as Kristina Forest’s The Neighbor Favor and Casey McQuinston’s Red, White, and Royal Blue.