Cori’s Pick: Love on Lexington Avenue by Lauren Layne

I’ve been reading some more ‘literary’ fiction lately and was feeling like I needed to change it up a bit.  I picked up this book without realizing it was the second book of The Central Park Pact Series, so I read the series out of order.  (Don’t fret if this happens to you – I didn’t feel like I missed out having not read them in order.)  I chose the second book in the series to review here because it was my favorite of the three.  The entire series was light, and funny, and romantic – the perfect beach read…or in this case, living room read. Sigh.

Love on Lexington Avenue focuses on Claire Hayes, a young widow who has next-level cynicism about love, and for good reason.  In her efforts to move on, Claire has planned a massive renovation of the Upper East Side brownstone that she wants to make her own.  Enter Scott Turner.  Scott is the flannel-wearing, bad-tempered contractor that has made it clear that he is doing this reno for a change of pace from the international corporate jobs he normally does which means he will be hopping on a plane, and soon.  Everything that happens in between is total chick-lit and fairly expected (there are some surprises!), but I just loved it.  It was entertaining and hysterical and exactly the escape I needed from this Coronavirus life we’re living right now.