SEAT MATES

A young woman meets a man on a plane and ends up relying on him to get her through an awkward wedding weekend in Harbom’s romance novel.

As Daisy races to make her flight to her mother’s wedding weekend in Washington, D.C., she gets cut off in traffic by a buttoned-up guy in an obnoxiously fancy car (“I register dark hair, a straight nose, the shadow of a beard, and a cocky grin”). After exchanging a variety of hand gestures, it’s just her luck when Charlie, the driver of the car, ends up in the seat next to hers on the plane. Though they snip at each other throughout the flight, the conversation gradually turns to more flirtatious sparring. Of course, they end up staying at the same hotel (Charlie’s in town for work). Daisy’s mother is marrying the father of Daisy’s ex-fiance, Rob, so the social dynamics of Daisy’s weekend are uncomfortable, to say the least. Daisy finds that bumping into Charlie around the hotel is a distraction that helps her keep her sanity amid the family chaos and the expectation that Daisy ought to have found a replacement for Rob by now. Before long, Charlie offers to help Daisy through the weekend by serving as her fake boyfriend for the remainder of the wedding events. Though it’s a ruse, with each moment they spend together, the emotions Daisy feels toward Charlie seem increasingly real. Full of punchy dialogue, laugh-out-loud moments, and spicy sex scenes, this engaging, plot-heavy story moves at a delightfully propulsive pace. The subplot about Daisy’s relationship with her mother does strain credulity, as her mother seems to care far too much about Daisy’s opinions to be guilty of all the insensitive actions attributed to her. Luckily, this implausibility is offset by the novel’s deft handling of many complex and nuanced issues, including self-doubt, the politics of second chances, and what it means to be professionally and personally successful.

A satisfying and delightfully predictable fake-dating romance.