3.5 stars. This cute and flirty m/f romance novella includes fake relationships, HGTV_esque tours of homes in New York, and great chemistry. A little slight in terms of relationship-development and conflict, due to the novella format. Overall, a sweet, fun, and light-hearted read with two Chinese-American protagonists!

Playing House starts with fake dating between acquaintances that run in the same circles for years when happenstance ensures they get closer than ever before. I love the sparse history between the two that turns out to mean more than anyone could’ve guessed.

It’s a short novel, packed with plenty to love and enjoy, with my only caveat being could’ve been longer! I would’ve been quite tickled with more fake dating time, more of the real deal, or any stage in between really.

Don’t get me wrong though. The characters are well done, the plot worked through, and it sticks the landing so it’s not like there’s anything missing necessarily. I just would’ve liked more time there, is all. So obviously, I can’t wait to get the next installment in this series. I’m particularly interested in Oliver’s little brother’s story, and as well as Fay’s business partners.

THE RUNDOWN:
› Cute, short, & sweet.
› Quick & easy read
› Left me satisfied & wanting more
› Knew nothing about urban planning going in. Enjoyed their mutual geeking out and community concern
› Love their touch flirting and comfort & calm between them.
› The enthusiastic consent.
› The hot & realistic sex scene with a bed on the floor.
› Yesssss my lost struggling millennial cohorts.
› Real talk about feelings re: traditional jobs and freelancing for Oliver and Fay’s upstart business with friends.
› Fay’s apartment unpacking stalemate and her BFF chats.
› Oliver crashing with his gay younger brother
› Already itching for more of this series!
›Haven’t read any of Lang’s work before and will be soon!

Short and sweet is the perfect description of Playing House. Charming and humorous, this novel will be a complete delight for contemporary romance fans.

Oliver Huang is going through a serious slump. He’s lost his job, which means he can’t afford an apartment and is forced to live with his far more successful younger brother. His mother implies he’s as shiftless as his father – who deserted them years ago – and family gatherings on Sunday afternoons seem to be held for the sole purpose of having everyone tell him “that his lack of ambition is a disappointment.” He can barely remember the last time he went on a date but he does remember that she dumped him. When he sees casual acquaintance Fay Liu on the historic Mount Morris home tour and winds up spending the afternoon playing her significant other, it’s the best thing that’s happened to him in a long time.

Fay can’t remember the last time she had fun. She’s been all work and no play since the very successful launch of her business and the subsequent crash and burn of her marriage. When she attracts a particularly pushy admirer while on the Mount Morris home tour, she exhausts all her usual arsenal of predatory pest deterrents and is desperately seeking help when she spots Oliver, who is willing to play her boyfriend in order to discourage her determined suitor. She’s known Oliver for years since they are both urban planners and they work in “such a small community”, but this is the first time Fay has spent real one on one time with him. She’s happy to get to know him better and maybe move their relationship from confrère to friend. But Oliver makes architectural details sound like foreplay and his good looks and gentlemanly demeanor work like an aphrodisiac on her too long denied libido; she laughs easily around him and feels genuinely happy and hopeful for the first time in a long time. By the end of the afternoon she’s moved him from potential friend to potential friend-with-benefits. When he fails to ask for her number when the tour is done, she gets his from a buddy and texts him, arranging to meet up again.

Neither mentions the word date as they walk through Marcus Garvey Park and climb the stone staircase outside Mount Morris Fire Watchtower while playing “a game of building-nerd-I-spy where they tried to identify landmarks and streets.” But they both wonder if that’s what this is.

When they’re done with the game at the watchtower they go inside a couple of open houses to get a closer look at the interior of the local architecture. Then meet again the next day to go through another open house. For some people, exploring homes for sale is a slog but for these two discovering hidden period details in homes and checking out the traffic patterns in neighborhoods is sheer bliss. They bond over crown molding and transom windows and delight in sharing the joy of finding the hidden potential in fixer uppers.

But with their own lives in need of some major renovations, neither is sure this is the right time to take their relationship forward.

Playing House is an amusing, character-driven romance between two lovely people who are better together than apart. Oliver’s kind, calm nature makes a perfect foil for Fay’s driven, forthright personality, and their shared career and culture make for strong similarities between them that adds depth to their physical attraction. The story spends most of its page space on personal growth, and the emotional aspect of the relationship. Fay makes it clear from almost the very beginning that she doesn’t want “a giggle and a cuddle. I don’t need a fling. . . I want something serious with someone serious.” I loved that this was an adult relationship with two people who were done with playing the field and were looking for something more.

That said, the tale could have used a bit more sensuality. In the single sex scene there is so much double checking that this is what they both want that as a result the entire process came across as mundane. Fortunately, the author redeems it with plenty of post-coital glow and tenderness. I loved how Oliver spent the time Faye slept off their lovemaking doing something special for her. He expresses concern that it’s “a sign that he already cared too much” but for me it showed what a fantastic, romantic, thoughtful guy he is.

We know from the start that the obstacle to their relationship will be work related since Oliver has applied for a job at the firm that Fay owns and is very interested in the position. Fay has delegated the hiring process for that job to one of her partners and is blissfully unaware Oliver is a candidate for the position. He’s equally unaware that she doesn’t know, and stays silent only because he can’t figure out how to bring the issue up during their outings. When she does learn about it from her business partner, it causes tension between them. I liked that the author uses that conflict to both move the relationship forward and have a character growth moment for Oliver. Both Fay and Oliver are still working out who they are after the significant recent life changes they’ve been through and it makes sense that each new hurdle they face will have them learning something new about themselves as well as each other.

Another reason the issue between them is work-related is that very nearly every aspect of their lives is work-related. They both absolutely love being urban planners and “geeking out over architectural details is Oliver and Fay’s shared love language”, and for both of them, their sense of self-worth very tied to their careers. For Oliver, a lot of that comes from his own father’s inability to hold down a job. While Oliver is currently doing freelance work and making an adequate living at it, he can’t see anything but corporate employment as success. His mother calling him “shiftless” the minute he loses his job confirms the idea that success lies in being employed by a lucrative firm. Fay loves her work and the success of her small company and can’t imagine a world where that isn’t important to her, but she often feels self-conscious because people tell her she is too driven and achievement oriented. She’s developed the perception that this is unfeminine and will result in her never having a strong romantic relationship. Both of them need to change their mindset regarding these concerns before they are able to move forward with their relationship.

Playing House doesn’t have an HEA but it has a lovely HFN which left me very hopeful for the couple’s future. The humor is perfectly done, making the story comical rather than farcical and the author does a lovely job of capturing the hopeful emotions that course through us as we start a new, meaningful relationship. This is a perfect read for those who enjoy lighthearted contemporary romances.

Just like the cover shows, this is a cute and humorous novella about two thirty-something urban planners finding love among NYC architecture.

“I think you might be the most driven person I know.” Then, thinking it sounded cold or off-putting somehow, he hastily added, “That’s a compliment, by the way.”


After her divorce, Fay has little time for anything other her work as a partner at an urban planning firm. So it’s just her luck that when she finally decides to get out and enjoy a house tour, she gets cornered by a creep and has to enlist the help of Oliver, an old friend, to pretend to be her boyfriend so the guy leaves her alone. Oliver and Fay reconnect, and as one thing leads to another, they end up on a series of dates revolving around historic architecture.

This is pretty short – only 113 pages – so there’s not much room for the relationship to really grow. A lot of it is built on remembered experiences from college rather than things than happen in the present day. The fake dating thing is a bit odd. They only pull that out for the initial meet-cute and then again when touring apartments they have no intention of buying, which felt a bit off to me (as well as the fact that they basically go for third-base during a house showing). The main conflict of the story revolves around the fact that Oliver has applied for a job at Fay’s firm, but Fay isn’t aware of it. At several points, Oliver considers discussing it with her, but he never brings it up for one reason or another. I didn’t like this part of the book at all – it verged too close on outright lying, one of my personal pet peeves – and Oliver knows exactly how badly Fay would take it if (when!) she finds out. There is the excuse that Fay refuses to talk about their jobs, as her ex was particularly defensive about talking about his and outright dismissive when she talked about hers. I loved that Fay was a very successful woman, though it was something that her ex deeply resented. I also loved how upfront she was with Oliver about exactly what she wanted in a relationship. After he lost his job when the firm he worked at folded, Oliver has been doing contract work and living with his brother. He feels like a failure, especially compared to Fay. I loved Oliver’s brother Nat, and he absolutely stole the scenes he was in.

Overall, while I had my quibbles with the main plot device, I liked the writing and the humor, and will probably pick up the next in the series.

I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The second house renovation book I’ve read in a month, is this a new theme?

Playing House is the first book in the Uptown series by Ruby Lang. Our protagonists are Chinese-Americans who are urban planners. I’ll be honest until this story I didn’t know such a job existed and that’s the beauty of romance, teaching me about things I never knew and with a love story to boot.

Oliver Huang and Fay Liu know each other, the circle of urban planners is small, but they’ve never hung out. At least not until the fateful day when Fay runs into Oliver and asks him to help her by pretending to be in a relationship so she can rid herself of an overbearing suitor. I make this contemporary sound so historical, but it’s true. What starts as a simple favor quickly turns into hanging out for sheer pleasure and goes from innocent to hot as fast as you can fall backward and pull down a shower curtain.

The story itself is cute. There are modern day elements around Oliver and Fay’s careers that add conflict. From Oliver’s standpoint he’s living with his brother after being laid off, working freelance, and having to figure out if he can still be the person he’s worked so hard to become. For Fay her career is everything, after escaping a dead-end marriage, the boutique company she’s set up is her baby. Without the company who is she. When Oliver and Fay’s work life crashes with their personal adventures plenty of tension arises.

I enjoyed the characters. Oliver is just the type of hero I always end up writing, very beta and not the most adept at navigating tough conversations with anyone from Fay to his mother. His growth in the story is fun, though I wish he would have faced the conflict a bit more head on. Fay is the bull. She’s a spearhead that chargers constantly. I liked seeing her own the wheels and Oliver respecting that part of her, but found her tendency to take over with assumptions frustrating. The author doesn’t leave holes, just for me those things were turn offs.

For a novella, these characters were fully fleshed out. There are plenty of side characters to carry a series and Lang has made New York appear much more appealing to a person who’s never been there. I would be willing to go to experience the architecture alone. Overall, this is perfect for readers who enjoy Mia Sosa or Sarah Morgan.

~ Landra

3.5 stars, rounding up

Okay well the first thing you should know about this is that this is a novella, not a full-length book. I thought it was a short book but I’d definitely classify this as a novella instead.

We are dropped right into the action: Fay spots an old acquaintance, Oliver, and pretends he is her boyfriend to get a creepy dude to back off. I wouldn’t consider this book to be the fake dating trope necessarily (beyond this scene) but they do go to house viewings for fun together where realtors assume they’re a married couple.

Oliver and Fay are great characters. Fay is recently divorced and a partner at her own urban planning firm and Oliver, also an urban planner, is self-employed and living with his younger brother. He doesn’t tell Fay he’d previously submitted his CV to her firm months ago for a possible job. This becomes the main internal & external conflict of the book.

Fay has a lot to re-learn about herses as a divorcée who felt stifled by her husband’s lack of enthusiasm about her work, so it’s easy to reconnect with Oliver whom she’s known for a decade in the urban planning circles. Oliver is feeling down about himself as he’s self-employed and living with his brother. He doesn’t feel as successful, career-wise, as his siblings or Fay.

There are some fun scenes that people who geek out over historical details in homes and love house hunting shows will love. I certainly did. And I liked that these were two emotionally mature adults in their mid-30s who can reflect on their behavior and talk about their feelings.

But the length of this novella did not entirely work in its favor as I felt the ending was rushed and rather abrupt. Even like, an epilogue might have been nice? (And I don’t always think books need epilogues!) I think because I loved both of these characters and this world that I wanted to see more of them in it and more of them together as they grew as a new couple.

As usual, though, I really enjoyed Lang’s writing and look forward to the next story!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Oh my god! This book was so cute! I loved the blurb and I was soaking it all up with the PoC leads and I was just so excited about reading it, that I didn’t expect to love it so much. I did finish it in one day, because I was determined that I was going to get to the end of the story.

Right from the start, you love Fay and Oliver. The way their story begins is one that I loved so much. It was so cute and fun and flirty and it carried their story on further, which just made it that much more perfect. I love that while they’re strangers, they’re also very aware of each other. Fay has noticed Oliver before, she’s interacted with him and between her and her best friend, they’ve oogled Oliver and his gorgeous cheekbones. And Oliver isn’t completely disconnected either, he’s noticed Fay before. So their attraction to each other, this lust at first sight thing is totally normal. Which makes the story even more perfect.

The characters are relatable, all the monologues they have and the struggles they go through with their jobs and each other and their families (because that is so important) are things that every single one of us has faced at some point of time in our lives.

Fay and Oliver have a mature relationship, they want each other, but they also don’t know where they stand. There’s the confusion with Oliver applying for a job at Fay’s firm and Fay being surprised by it and handling it like anybody would handle that kind of situation. It’s….just like how you or I would handle it. None of it is too fast, they take their time figuring out what they want, where they stand. They interact with the people in their lives and balance that with what they feel for each other and at the end, it’s a great fit.

Everything about their story puts a spring in your step, a smile on your face and joy in your heart. I can’t wait to read the next in the series and I really hope all of you will pick up this book and squeal about Fay and Oliver with me!

A pretty good debut for Ruby Lang!

I enjoyed the characters and felt like you really had a good grip on them despite the length (novella). It really helped that Fay and Oliver had both been running in the same circles for a few years because things progressed pretty quickly after the first kiss. The down-side is that since this was a novella, I felt like Fay and Oliver's relationship really needed more time to grow and develop for me to be truly satisfied.

While I found this story quite sweet I felt like it ended too soon. Fay had the beginnings of that feisty girl I love in books but there wasn’t enough time for that to truly show through. There was also the build up of Oliver discovering himself but again we didn’t get to see that either. I did like that Oliver and Fay’s relationship wasn’t forced, that they took time to get to know one another. I feel like there was so much potential for a full length book that was missed. I also found Oliver's brother very intriguing and would love to read a full story about him.

Apparently this was a novella?! Holy moly this was short, which sucked, because it made the story unbelievably meh.

I avoid novellas mainly for the very reason I’m about to list: there is nothing to sink my teeth into.

There’s literally no time to get invested before the scant plot reaches its end. And in this case it’s made even worse because this could have been such a great story if full length. The premise is right up my alley, which is why I pounced on it. I loved Oliver and Fay, and I thought their chemistry was great! But there were so little details and background to make me care. Everything moved so fast and felt all over the place but at least the ending was sweet.

Apparently when you dream of a house, the house is you. (The other people in your dream are also all supposedly you? I don't know. I love interpreting other people's dreams but I do think it's a lot of the time nonsense.) When you dream of finding new rooms in your house, for instance, it's meant to represent exploring new sides of yourself. Whether that's true of dreams or not, I don't know, but I like the alignment of house with self. One of the reasons (I suspect) house-hunting and house-renovation shows are so popular is that it's fun to daydream about houses as if we're trying on possible selves, maybe new shinier versions of ourselves who never have hangovers or feel too exhausted to wash our hair before bed or let the mail pile up unopened on the dining room table.

Playing House is about a woman finding her place in the world after a divorce (that's Fay) and a man finding his place in the world after losing a job (that's Oliver). In the relatively small world of urban planning, they've been casual friendquaintances for years. But when they run into each other at a home tour, and pretend to be dating to scare off a pushy guy harassing Fay, sparks fly.

In my master list of romance novel recs organized by trope (which I am keeping private until it reaches some not-yet-defined state of finished-ness), one of my favorite tropes is "Shared Project," which is nearly, but not exactly, a subset of "Forced Proximity." It's a trope I love because it offers a tidy way for the characters to externalize their interest in each other and it humanizes them by showing us what they love (apart from, eventually, each other). It's impossible not to love Fay and Oliver for loving what they do. Look at this adorability:

"What have you been up to today, then?"

"Helping my mom. Yard work. She lives in Forest Hills."

"In Forest Hills Gardens--?"

They chorused, "One of the oldest planned communities in the United States."

It was the first real laugh they'd had together that morning. Oliver had thrown back his head, and he was looking at her with something like affection. Blink and it was gone. "No, not the Gardens area. If she lived there, I'd lead with that. Hi, I'm Oliver Huang-my-mom-lives-in-Forest-Hills-Gardens-which-was-conceived-by-Omlsted-and-Atterbury."

"They're right when they say Asian names are difficult."

I defy you not to feel love for these two charming nerds.

As they're seeing each other, and looking at houses, they're also both trying to figure out what they want their lives to look like. Oliver's long-time firm recently shuttered, and he's currently awaiting a call back from Fay's quickly-expanding firm (which Fay doesn't know). In the meantime, he's living with his brother, working contract jobs, and struggling with the feeling that he's disappointed everyone who knows him. Fay, for her part, is coming out of a marriage that made her feel isolated and unsupported, and she doesn't feel much like taking a chance on anyone, let alone someone who's friends with all her friends.

Playing House is the perfect book for a grim day when all you need is a cup of tea and a book that will make you feel cozy and safe and hopeful. There's no operatic stakes here: Nobody's threatening anyone's livelihood, or getting murdered in an adjacent hotel room, or escaping a stabby step-parent. The biggest conflict Fay and Oliver face is he doesn't tell her right away that he's up for a job at her firm, and she's mad about it. But that's exactly what I love about Ruby Lang in general and Playing House in particular. The stakes are normal human stakes, because these are normal human people, albeit wittier and better at banter than normal human me. Even within the length constraints of a novella, Fay and Oliver feel like entire people with entire messy lives. Playing House isn't pure fluff exactly because Fay and Oliver's lives feel so real, from the things they love (penny? tile? I don't understand house words) to the things they fear (inadequacy, parental disapproval). I was so happy for them to talk through their problems and get their relationship on track.

Ruby Lang continues to be one of my favorite romance novelists working. I have languished many years in the dark after her Practice Perfect series ended,[1. Fact check: Two years.] but now she is returned! Playing House is but the first in a new series about REAL ESTATE, a setting that now seems such an obvious one for romance novels that I am shocked I don't have an entire raft of housing-related romances on my bookshelf. Please hit me with any real estate-focused romance novels you may know of. Like maybe one where the protagonists are bonding over home renovations?

Note: I got an e-ARC of this book from the author for review consideration, probably because of my noisy and boundless enthusiasm for her previous books. This has in no way influenced the contents of my review.

This is a novella. I wish I knew that going in, because I would’ve moderated my expectations for an in-depth story. As it stands, having not known beforehand, I was a bit disappointed by the story. It started with a bang. She approaches him and kisses him out of the blue. They’ve been acquaintances for several years and he’s always had a little crush but she was married. They stumble upon one another touring a house and continue touring houses together for a couple of weeks. The author does try to make the most of the novella -- there’s a misunderstanding, a job offer, a meeting of the minds and an agreement to start fresh. Then it ends. Honestly, I was scratching my head. Looking back now, the book is only nine chapters, had I realized that going in, I’d have been clued in to the novella nature of it all.

All things considered, Playing House is interesting and cute with some spice thrown in for fun. I’d definitely call it a HFN rather than a HEA, since we just don't see them together (not playing around) enough to believe anything else. If you have a longish train ride for a commute, you could easily start it one morning on the way in and finish it before arriving home.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Oliver's had a run of bad luck.  Still trying to find a job after the last company went under, he's (embarrassingly) staying with his brother.  Thus, when long-time acquaintance Faye pretends to be his girlfriend to make another man back off, he's not mad about it..... but the timing sucks.  He's always had a bit of a thing for Faye, and now that she's divorced he wouldn't mind seeing if there was anything there... but not right now.  Not when he's basically jobless and homeless.  Yet, they keep seeing one another to look at homes, and geek out over communities.  The more time they spend together the more they both realize there's something special between them.  Can the two stop pretending and "playing house" long enough to create something lasting?  Or will Oliver's job search get in the way?

         This was a really cute, fun romance.  I loved Oliver and Faye both as individual characters and as a couple.  They were good, (slightly neurotic) well developed characters.  The chemistry between them was completely believable, it was so much fun to watch them get together!  Told in dual narrative, I felt like you got a good understanding of each characters motives, and ticks.  The writing style was fast paced- it was a real page-turner!  Honestly, the only bad thing I could say was that it seemed far too short for the amount of sexual content in the book.  I would have liked more plot and story line, but I can't say that it was lacking too badly here.  For me, this is a four star book.

      On the adult content scale, there's some language and graphic sexual content.  It's not, like, erotica..... but it isn't for young teens either.  I would give it a six.

While I enjoyed this novella, I wanted to like it more than I did. I liked the characters well enough, but the pacing felt a little off for me.

Playing House is a quick read that will put a smile on your face! This book was an easy read (almost too easy) for me, but the characters were highly enjoyable. I'll definitely give the next one in the series a shot, but I was hoping for more depth from the plot of this one. A cute start to the Uptown series.

2.5 stars

A cute short story that I couldn't quite connect with. You never get to truly understand the characters. Oliver and Faye both are discovering new things about themselves from difficult situations from their past. When they meet and start touring apartments, as a pretend couple, they both start to learn and grow. I think at the books close I'd begun to understand Oliver's struggles with his career and Mom, but Fay not so much and, for me, it distracted from the love connection.

I would be interested in reading the second book Open House that releases in November.

I was provided an eARC from Carina Press via Netgalley.

It should be clear that this is a novella, and given that, there are a couple of things to note - one, it is inherently very short and therefore a very quick read, I got through it in an afternoon. Two, because it is a novella, there is not time for very much character development. With that out of the way, I enjoyed this story very much. It takes off right from the get go, and we jump right in to watching Oliver and Fay reconnect. Also, the romance factor was just the right amount of steam for me, which is about the middle of the road.

This novella is long enough to set up a storyline, it is the first in the Uptown series, and it was fun to go along with these two as they toured apartments and got into shenanigans along the way. A couple of times I was chuckling and smh’ing on how they were going to get out of the mess they found themselves in.

I am really enjoying Oliver and Fay and am curious to see where they go next. Overall, this is a fun, light, and steamy read that I recommend! I will definitely be reading the next one when it comes out this fall!

Thank you to @harlequinpublicityteam for the advanced copy to review. All opinions above are my own. This is available now, so go get a copy! Visit the author’s Instagram page (handle: @ruby.lang), and click on the link in her bio for details on how to purchase the book. Easy peasy!

I love Ruby Lang! This novella did not disappoint. I felt it was the perfect start to a new series. Sweet and sexy... I cannot wait for the next book in this series!

I was really excited to read Playing House - I love going on house tours, watching hgtv and learning about urban planning - so I was super excited to read a romance about two urban planners.

Unfortunately, the story just didn’t work for me and I ended up stopping at 50%. Some of it may be different pacing for a novella. I don’t normally read novellas and didn’t realize this was when I requested it.

It just felt really rushed to me and I wasn’t buying their connection. I was also frustrated that he wasn’t addressing the job situation up front.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance reading copy in exchange for my honest review.

I really struggled with this one. The writing was just so bland and the story so short, I just never connected.