Check Out Playing House (Uptown, #1) Imagined By Ruby Lang Distributed In Electronic Text

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, A sweet story and a quick read, Ruby Langs novella Playing House is a fun spin on romance, Centering around two characters who are both ChineseAmerican and both Urban Planners, I had a lot of fun with the theme of this book around architecture and pretending becoming reality!

Outofwork urban planner Oliver Huang is on a tour of the historic Mount Morris home when he finds himself the recipient of a snuggle and a kiss from longtime acquaintance but NOT longtime lover Fay Liu.
Much to Olivers confusion, fellowurban planner Fay gazes adoringly at him, calling him her boyfriend Olly to deflect the attention of another man on the tour who is clearly pursuing her.


Oliver is happy to play along with Fay, She feels good snuggled up against him, But it is complicated, Oliver doesnt know what this means, Hes up for a job at Fays firm and he doesnt want to cross any lines, But then again, Fay is beautiful, smart, interesting, and funny, How is he supposed to turn that down

Newly divorced Fay isnt sure if she is ready to put herself back out there, She hasnt even unpacked in her new place yet since she became single, But she cant get Oliver out of her head A girl needs friends, right

As the two begin scheduling nondates to tour luxury real estate all over Manhattan, they find themselves playing at being a couple so often that suddenly its not clear whether they are playing house or falling in love.
Bonding over their love of old architecture, strategicallyplaced windows, and large closets good for making out in, Fay and Oliver begin to fall for one another, Perhaps they arent playing house after all

This one is a mix of sweet and steamy!!! There were a few scenes that made me blush on the train as I wondered if the man next to me was reading over my shoulder! This is a super fast readmore novella than novel I would guess not sure what the exact definition is to categorize this.
I didnt worry about the length though because this is already billed as book, so it promises to have more to follow, I dont think we are quite done with the theme of love and architecture,

I will say that this book could have actually been a bit longer, Not only because I was enjoying it and wanted more, but also because I did find it to be a tad jarring the way it leapt straight into the meat of the story.
I like a bit of literary foreplay in my romance books! The ending is adorable but also a bit rushed, I did think we jumped straight to the HEA and I wanted a bit more depth as we wrapped up their love story!

One of my favorite parts of the book was actually getting to read about the homes they were touring.
Theres a lot of descriptive architectural language in here and I was quite tickled at the idea of touring a beautiful home as foreplay!

All in all a cute book that is a fun readinanevening pick!

Thank you to Harlequin Publicity for my copy.
Opinions are my own. There's honestly not a lot for me to say about this book, This is a short romance novella which I didn't know before requesting the ARC but thankfully found out before I started reading with two ChineseAmerican protagonists,

It is an enjoyable and fun little novella if you need something light for an afternoon read, Both characters are interesting and have a surprising amount of development in this small novella,

I liked their relationship a lot, even though you should definitely not go into this one expecting much of a fake relationship trope, It is there in the very beginning but it gets pretty real rather quickly, which I appreciated simply because of the length of this book, This didn't really have much time for a fake relationship if you want to build an actual relationship in onlypages but it was a fun start to the story.

And just a heads up for all the smut fans out there this isn't a very smutty read, There's one small sex scene but it's not very explicit and fades to black after the oral sex,

As with most novellas, I just find it hard to be invested in the characters, if I don't already know them from another series or book, which is why I ultimately could not give this more thanstars.
And in all honestly, had I known that this would only be a novella, I probably would not have requested the ARC in the first place,
In the end I enjoyed the reading experience but will probably not return to this series,

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I received an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review! I love Ruby Langs voice: fresh, original, droll, sophisticated.
“Playing House” is first in a series set amidst NYCbased realestateinvolved characters, whether urban planners, brokers, etc, In “Playing House,” unemployed, gigeconomyvictim, urbanplanner Oliver Huang is touring houses in Harlem when he meetcute runs into recentlydivorced, collegemate Fay Liu, He helps her avoid “Clompy Brent”, a dude coming on to her who cant hear, or understand the word “no”, Its obvious from the getgo that Oliver has harbored an attraction for Fay and Fay reciprocates, They fall into a pattern of pretending to be newlyweds, Olly and Darling, for the chance to urbanplan geek out on beautiful NYC properties, They enjoy their pretend dates and become lovers, In the meanwhile, a potential conflict rears its mild head because Oliver has applied for a job at the urbanplanning firm, Milieu, where Fay is partner, Neither Oliver, nor Fay take their affair too seriously and they have a lot of stuff to figure out, given theyre both in transitional lifespaces, But it is serious because feelings are involved, the acquaintance too shortlived to result in anything but misunderstanding, doubts, and hurt feelings,

“Playing House” was too slight for me to say I loved it, but I can easily say I liked it, It had a few bugaboos, Oliver and Fay go from meetcute bumpingintoeachother to this elaborate pretending to be newlyweds, This happened out of the blue and I honestly thought I must have blanked out an entire chapter while this was arranged, But nope I kindlebacktracked and the disjointedness wasnt “its not you, its me”, As a couple, Oliver and Fay arent together a whole lot and even though their potential HEA is possible, Im not thoroughly convinced itll gel, If youre okay with that, then my HFNdislike shouldnt deter your enjoyment,

What I loved best about “Playing House” was Olivers relationship with his family, As a secondgeneration Canadian, the child of immigrants, I totally understand the expectations, chasms of noncommunication, and feelings of obligation, guilt, and love, I loved Olivers brother and his relationship with his mother, Their nearmute understanding at the end was the better HEA of the two, Case in point, this wonderful exchange between mother and son:

“Yes, Oliver was right,” Ma said, She flicked a glance at her middle son, “Dont let it go to your head, ”

“When am I ever allowed to let anything go to my head”

I smiled and smiled, They were funny, dissimilar, and real, “Playing House” wasnt as perfect as the last Lang I read, Clean Breaks dont you dare miss it!, but there was enough of her signature poignancy, humour, and sharp insight into character to see me return for the rest of this series and what she can do with a meatier length.
With Miss Austen, we deem “Playing House”offers “real comfort,” Emma,

Ruby Langs “Playing House” is published by Carina Press, It was released on August, I received an egalley from Carina Press via Netgalley, This is an assured and competent novella, though it definitely engaged my head more than it did my heart,

The setup is fun: Oliver and Fay run in the same professional circles, but we first encounter them during a historic house tour in NYC, A random man in the tour group has been bothering Fay, and when she sees Oliver arrive, she seizes the opportunity to pretend Oliver is her boyfriend, and thus rebuff the other man's advances.
I really enjoy when bitesized novellas take bitesized approaches to beloved tropes, and Oliver and Fay pretending to be a couple while they tour houses together is the perfect "fake dating" snack.


This novella shoots for a lot of complex characterization in a short span, and mostly succeeds, Fay is recently divorced and struggling to get back out into the dating scene while she balances a demanding job and a move to a new apartment, Oliver is recently out of a job and freelancing, He seems to enjoy the work, but he has a lot of insecurity around his perceived failure to have a "typical" job, the fact that he's living with his brother, and pressure from his mother about his career.
He's applied for a job with Fay's firm, a fact that he somewhat contrivedly, I think fails to mention to her, and provides the eventual conflict between them,

I kept coming across these incredibly rich single sentences that highlighted just how much thought the author had put into the characters: like a moment where Fay realizes that she struggles to verbalize praise to people she cares about, or when Oliver worries that his career uncertainty will intersect with Fay's drive and ambition to turn him into one of Fay's "projects.
" There's an entire passage, at the end, where Fay muses that the way she and Oliver got together by putting on borrowed identities in strangers' houses let them experience the fun of being in a liminal state, as opposed to the very real stress of being in the liminal states of postdivorce and jobseeking in their lates.
To be able to sell that level of thematic complexity in an lthour read is truly impressive,

That being said, the balance of authorial reflection vs the onpage experience is also where the book lost me a bit, emotionally, There were times when the emotions felt like they'd been preprocessed for me, developed and thought through with care by the author but then placed carefully on the surface of the text for me to consume with ease.
Whereas most of the time, I want to work for it, For me to get really emotionally involved in a story, the themes and the character beats need time and space to emerge, and there just wasn't enough of either here.
That's not to say it can't be done in a novella it certainly can but I do think there's an added level of difficulty, Though that's a very subjective and individual reading experience, and I think anyone looking for good writing, keen observation, a bit of steam, and carefullytreated characters would be glad they picked this up.
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