Summer in the City

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Lightlark series, this is Alex Aster's debut romance novel.

Twenty-seven-year-old screenwriter, Elle, has the chance of a lifetime to write a big-budget movie set in New York City. The only problem? She’s had writer’s block for months, and her screenplay is due at the end of the summer.

In a desperate attempt at inspiration, Elle ends up back in the city she swore she would never return to, in an apartment she could never afford (floor-to-ceiling windows, skyline views, and a new coffee shop to haunt included). It’s the perfect place to write her screenplay . . . until she realizes her new neighbor is tech 'Billionaire Bachelor' Parker Warren, her stairwell hookup from two years ago. It’s been a lovers-to-enemies situation ever since.

When seeing him again turns into a full night of hate-fueled writing, Elle realizes her enemy/twisted muse might just be the key to finishing her screenplay . . . if she can stand being around her polar opposite. She writes anonymously, and he’s on the cover of every business magazine. He frequents fancy red-carpeted events, and she doesn’t like leaving her emotional support five block radius.

One summer. One wall apart.

He needs to fake a buzzy relationship during his company’s precarious acquisition. She needs to write a movie around a list of NYC locations. Both need a break from their unrelenting schedules, and a chance to rediscover the skyscraper-glimmering, pizza-crusted, sunlit charms of the city.

Summers always end, and so will this agreement. It’s all pretend. Promise.

Until it isn’t.