The novel pays homage to the classic romantic comedies of the 1990s, particularly those written or directed by Nora Ephron. Films like When Harry Met Sally… (1989), which Ephron wrote, and Sleepless in Seattle (1993) established a popular formula that shapes the central relationship in And Now, Back to You. The “opposites-attract” dynamic, in which two protagonists with conflicting personalities clash before eventually falling in love, is exemplified by other classic rom-com films from the 1990s such as Ten Things I Hate About You (1999), She’s All That (1999), and Clueless (1995). 

B. K. Borison’s work joins the echelon of contemporary rom-com novels that pay tribute to this cinematic legacy, including Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game (2016), Jasmine Guillory’s While We Were Dating (2021), and the first novel in Borison’s Heartstrings series, First-Time Caller (2025), an homage to Ephron’s 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle. Jackson, with his rigid routines and preference for predictability, and Delilah, with her whimsical and chaotic nature, situate Borison’s novel within this legacy. Their relationship develops through witty, fast-paced dialogue, another hallmark of this genre, which emphasizes intelligent conversation and verbal sparring as a primary mode of courtship.

The structure of these stories often relies on near misses and serendipitous encounters that build romantic tension over time, a pattern reflected in Jackson and Delilah’s frequent, disastrous run-ins in their shared parking lot. Like the protagonists in You’ve Got Mail (1998), business rivals who unknowingly fall for each other online, Jackson and Delilah begin as professional adversaries who are thrown together by their work. This “forced-proximity” plot device, common in 1990s rom-coms, such as the Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock film Forces of Nature (1999), is also reflected in contemporary rom-com novels such as Funny Story (2024) by Emily Henry, in which the protagonists’ forced proximity allows their initial animosity to evolve into romance. By invoking these genre conventions, the novel creates a sense of warm nostalgia, tapping into the lasting appeal of stories where love blossoms from unlikely circumstances.