Marley Kamal has spent 6 years helping people style themselves at a top department store. Her dream is to be a personal shopper, so when she is offered a chance to be a personal stylist for a celebrity, she jumps at it. She only has a couple of weeks to work with this celebrity, as she’s scheduled to have surgery and will be off for several weeks to recover, but she’d love to lend her style ideas to this celebrity while she can and get a shot at the personal shopper job she’s been wanting.

Marley is asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement before even getting to find out who the celebrity is, and she does without hesitation. She is all in on this. And then she finds out that the celebrity in question is Nik Sharma, aka Nikhil Shamdasani. Nik has just been cast as the Bronze Shadow in the Ironis, and fans of the comic book were not happy about that. Nik has been cast in comedic roles before, so he’s not a typical action star, like the other A-listers who had been rumored to be offered the role. He’s also South Asian, which is different than the comic book, and now he’s having to look good for the press and the upcoming comic book convention, where he will officially be introduced to fans of the previous movies.

Nikhil, however, is the kid Marley went to high school with. He tried to make her laugh in chemistry class and asked her out o prom. They had a great night, and then he ghosted her, running off to L.A. to chase stardom. Marley had seen him through the years in bit parts on television or an indie film, but this role has the potential to make him a superstar. And now she’s been asked to find him a series of outfits that will make him look good to the Ironis fans and to the movie studio. And she only has days to find the right look.

Nik’s first interviews don’t go particularly well, with him coming across as awkward and stiff. But he is saved by his new look. Fans are impressed with his style, so they can’t write him off completely. The studio wants to keep Marley on, to help keep Nik likable. But she has been tested for the BRCA1 genetic mutation and has decided to get a prophylactic double mastectomy. Marley watched her mother and her aunt struggle with breast cancer, and she just doesn’t want to take the chance. She wants to stay on as Nik’s stylist, but she can’t get the surgery at the same time.

Because she’s known Nik for so long, Marley explains her situation to him, and he not only offers to work with her while she’s recovering from her surgery, he even says he would move in with Marley and help take care of her. Her original plan had her roommate Shayne staying with her, but he got the chance to work as a photographer in Paris for several weeks and won’t be in town for her recovery after all. So then she was going to move in with her parents for those weeks, but Nik could tell that she was reluctant to stay with her family. He offers to stay with her as she recovers, which sounds like a lot, but it would give him the opportunity to move out of his parents’ house for several weeks. And her cousin will be by often to help take care of Marley.

Marley agrees, so she can stay at home for her recovery. And it gives her a chance to continue to be Nik’s personal stylist. Plus, she’d never completely gotten over her high school feelings for him, and she thinks he feels the same. But when the pressure of his job, the studio micromanaging his life, and dealing with the paparazzi starts to threaten Marley’s job, she has to decide exactly how she wants to face her future and all its uncertainties.

Just Playing House is the latest romance from Farah Heron, and it tackles serious issues while looking at first love. Marley and Nik are both facing difficult challenges in their lives, Marley with the BRCA1 gene and its inclination towards cancer, Nik with a brother in prison and how that has affected his family. But they are also both caring, compassionate, intelligent individuals who are facing these challenges with strength and determination.

I couldn’t help but fall in love with Marley early on in the story, and Nik turned out to be a good guy too. These are characters that I were rooting for, and I wanted everything to work out for them. I got invested in this story early on, and I loved the twists that it took along the journey. This is a heart-warming read, even with the grief of family members struggling with cancer, and I think that reading this story brings a sense of healing with it. I have lost members of my family to breast cancer, and reading about Marley taking such positive action for her own health is lovely. I’m so happy that medicine has evolved enough to find ways to fight the scourge of cancer, and I love that Marley’s friends circle around her and celebrate her choices and her strength with her. This book is a warm hug for all women everywhere.

Egalleys for Just Playing House were provided by Forever through NetGalley, with many thanks.