Book Review: "Love on Lexington Avenue" by Lauren Layne

This was such a fun read!!

When Claire’s husband dies, it turns her world upside down, especially when she learns he was cheating on her. She meets his mistress and his girlfriend, and surprisingly, all three bond strongly, and vow to protect one another from making a similar mistake with another man.

In an effort to excise her husband’s memories (and stop feeling so bored), Claire decides to renovate their old, cluttered townhouse on the Upper East Side. She also wants to challenge her tendency to be non-adventurous—she feels like she always makes safe choices, always blends in—and she feels it's time to break out of her vanilla shell.

Enter Scott, one of the best contractors in the business. He sees the possibilities in Claire’s house and can’t pass up the job even though it’s much smaller than his usual ones. He plans to ignore Claire’s suggestions to incorporate the color pink into the renovation ideas, however. (She's decided to become more strawberry lemonade than vanilla.)

While she can’t ignore how attractive Scott is, Claire doesn’t like his know-it-all attitude or his seeming indifference to her and what she’s gone through. And while Scott understands how hurt Claire must be he doesn’t think she knows what she wants, and finds her indecisive nature irritating.

As the renovation process continues, the two recognize their attraction to one another and fight it, since both are warned by their friends not to get involved for fear that Claire will get hurt. When both people want different things, isn’t that a plan for disaster?

Well, if you’ve read a rom-com before you know the trajectory of this story. But it doesn’t matter that it follows your expectations—these characters are so winning and the story is just so enjoyable that I couldn’t get enough, and I devoured the book in just a few hours.

This is the second in a series—I haven’t read the first book, Passion on Park Avenue, yet—and the third book, Marriage on Madison Avenue, comes out next year. I’ll be reading both, as Lauren Layne has made a fan of me!!