Sadie Green is ready for her life to change. She’s spent years working every possible moment in her finance job, so that the big promotion could be hers. The one that would put her over the top. The one that would help her pay off her student loans completely. The one that would mean she wouldn’t have to live paycheck-to-paycheck anymore. The one that would change her life.
And when she went into the meeting, she found out that the promotion did, in fact, change her life. Because she didn’t get it. Her boss instead handed it to his soon-to-be son-in-law and asked Sadie to train him in his new position. After having worked with finance bros for years, holding her tongue while being ignored and used, Sadie couldn’t hold back anymore. She let loose with her real thoughts, including an F-bomb or two. And then she got fired.
Later that night, as she was commiserating with her three best friends and an inordinate amount of alcohol over everything that she had lost—not just that promotion, but all the sacrifices she had made along the way—she decided to change her life. And she was going to start with a date. She had let so many opportunities for dating go by, so many weekends she spent working, vacations she didn’t take, weeknights she worked late instead going to a neighborhood bar. She was going to make up for that immediately, and she grabs her phone, opens a dating app, and swipes on several handsome bachelors. And when one swiped for her too, she set up the date immediately.
The date Sadie had set up was in Brooklyn, at a cute coffee shop, with Jack Thomas. She put on an adorable spring dress and met with him, ready to ask and answer the first date questions, but his first date questions were just odd. She tried to go along with it, but she could only take so much before she calls him out for acting like a creepy date. Jack is confused, saying he hadn’t been looking for a date. He’d been looking for a roommate.
When Sadie had lost her job, and that beautiful promotion paycheck she’d been waiting on, she had toyed with the idea of taking on a roommate for her Manhattan apartment and had downloaded an app that matched people with potential roommates. At the bar, when she thought she’d opened the dating app, she’d opened that app instead. That was how she matched with Jack. Sadie was explaining that to Jack when he slid the lease across the table to her.
The price of rent he was asking for was absurdly low, low enough for Sadie to reconsider. She agrees to look at the property, and she finds herself walking into a beautiful Park Slope brownstone. There is a gorgeous kitchen, she’d have her own bathroom (with a clawfoot tub, no less), and there’s a small backyard. Every room Sadie sees is beautiful, except the yard. Still, it’s the one thing she wanted more than anything. Born in California, she loves a beautiful yard, but Manhattan is her home. She filled her apartment with plants, but that’s not the same as a real yard that she could clean up and make beautiful. She decides that maybe it is time to ditch her apartment in the neighborhood of finance bros and embrace Brooklyn.
And then she realizes that if she’s going to change her life, she might as well go all out and chase her biggest dream, to sell her own flower arrangements. She gets a weekend gig as a bartender to pay the bills, and she sets up her own website and Instagram to fill with her colorful floral creations in found-object vases.
She worries that Jack is going to kick her out of his beautiful Brooklyn brownstone, for her having flowers everywhere, or for her incessant talking, or for how her friends come over all the time to hang out. Or maybe she just thinks that because she believes that no matter what she does, she’ll never be good enough. But what she doesn’t know about Jack is that he’s been alone since his parents died, and what he needs more than anything is people in his life who see him and include him. He needs family, and Sadie and her friends offer that.
And as time goes on, Sadie realizes that the nerdy guy she moved in with is actually a thoughtful friend, and her feelings are growing the more time she spends with him, whether it’s watching him read a book in the bar where she works just so he can walk her home at the end of her shift or their weekly roommate dates of Real Housewives in his basement mancave. For once, Sadie wants more than a casual hookup. But what if Jack doesn’t feel the same way? Will she have to give up her whole new life and find a new place to live? Or can her plans for a new life include a new relationship too?
Lease on Love is spirited rom com about two people who have been damaged but are working on the issues keeping them apart. There is a lot of energy throughout the story, especially with Sadie and her friends, who seem to move through the world with an intensity that you would associate with living in Manhattan. Jack, on the other hand, seems to have a quiet peacefulness that works well as a counterbalance to the group. Their interactions, the frenetic energy followed by the quiet comfort adds a lovely rhythm to the story, and the sweetness of the long-burn romance makes this a charming treat of a novel.
There are some imperfections to this book. Sadie is a very strong character, and some of the character development for the others seems to take a backseat, especially Jack. Getting more of his perspective could have added some more texture to this romance. However, I have to admit that Lease on Love has been my secret pleasure all week. Whenever I needed a few minutes to myself, whenever I needed a quick smile, whenever I needed a sweet treat, I would open this book and read a chapter. I loved these characters, and I was sorry for the book to end. Lease on Love may not be as perfect as one of Sadie’s flower Instagram photos, but I still adored every minute I got to spend with it.
Egalleys for Lease on Love were provided by G.P. Putnam’s Sons through NetGalley, with many thanks.
