In a New York Minute (2022)
A cute romance built on a cascade of coincidences.
This is a fun little romance novel that’s been on my TBR files for a while. No.
Franny is having a terrible day – she’s been laid off from work, she doesn’t know how she’ll make ends meet, and her dress tears when she gets on the subway. A handsome stranger (Hayes) steps in to give her his jacket, so she can retain some dignity. They enjoy a brief moment of social media fame (as Subway QTs), but both expect it to be a one-off moment.
Coincidence keeps bringing them both together. After being reunited on a TV talk show, Franny’s friend Lola starts hooking up with Hayes’s cousin Perrine. When Hayes needs a new interior designer for his office, his partner suggests Franny as somebody trying to launch a new interior design business. And when Franny’s friend Cleo is involved in a gala night, the couple meet yet again.
Everything unfolds exactly as you’d expect: they both realise they’re catching feelings for one another, they start going on dates, and they’re briefly torn apart before being happily reunited. (In this case, Franny snaps in hospital just after her mother has a heart attack.)
I always enjoyed romance novels that have a sense of place, and this is a good example. The plot is rooted in New York, and I’m glad I read it after I’d visited – I can understand their shed love of the city, and why they’d choose to build a life there.
I thought maybe the book would have more to say about filming people without consent and shipping real people – their initial moment of viral fame comes on somebody else’s Instagram account. However, the meet-cute is dispensed of quickly and doesn’t go anywhere further
Overall a fun and enjoyable book; perfect light reading for a day off.
Quotes and highlights
The book is told from alternating points of view – one chapter from Franny, then one from Hayes, and repeat.
In chapter eighteen “Hayes”, I love the energy of their first kiss
“Good night, Hayes,” she said with one final smile. I stood there as she headed down West Thirteenth Street, losing her to New York City once again.
Feeling the weight of her absence deep in my chest, I turned toward the building and headed back to the party inside. I still had at least an hour of schmoozing left. I let my hand graze the edge of the building, feeling the cool cement against my fingertips. Anything to bring me back to reality.
Just as I reached to pull open the doors to the lobby, I felt someone tap my shoulder. I turned to find Franny, slightly out of breath. She exhaled as she took a final step, meeting me almost toe to toe.
“Surprise,” she said, still breathless.
I furrowed my brow in confusion and opened my mouth to reply. But before I could get a word out, her lips were there, soft against mine, lingering for what felt like years or a split second—it was hard to tell. Time didn’t so much stop, but rather sped forward, blasted me off to space and back down to Earth again. The tips of her fingers brushed my cheek, and the sensation of her skin against mine set off an electrical fire inside my skull. I reached for her face, her delicate curls brushing against my fingers.
Before my brain could catch up with my body and process what was happening, she leaned back with an enormous smile, her eyes alight with something feral. And without a word, she dashed down the street and into the night, leaving me standing dumbstruck.
In chapter twenty-one “Franny”, they’re on a date exploring New York together, and their love for the city is palpable:
He pointed to the spires of [City Hall]; they looked like fingers dipping into the inky blackness of the night sky.
“I love that this building is a relic that seems to last as everything around it changes,” he added. “That dichotomy is New York to me, in a nutshell. Everything changes, and somehow it still stays the same.”
I tried to see what he saw; it was beautiful, sure, but it was magic only to him. I didn’t mind. I didn’t say it out loud, but that was my New York in a nutshell: those special things that we share only with ourselves, the treasures whose shine only we can see. The unremarkable street corners or nameless coffee shops that held worlds of their own.
When they’re walking across the Brooklyn Bridge at night (Franny’s first time on foot):
“I know it’s crazy that I’ve never been here before,” I said. “But honestly, that’s what I love so much about this city. That you can live here for years and still not have experienced everything. That there are still surprises left. That it’s still…”
I stopped, searching for the right word.
“Magical?” he suggested.
“Yes!” I smacked his leg, and he laughed, my new favorite response to get out of him.
The whole chapter is great; here’s the ending:
“Are we doing that thing?” I asked him, pulling my knees into my chest. “Are we being tourists in our own city?”
“I mean, sure,” he mused. “But I think it’s good to look up and not take all of this for granted once in a while.” He gestured with his free hand, waving it like a magician at the city and the river and the skyline stretching out in front of us. I knew exactly what he meant—New York could be overwhelming and all-encompassing, but sometimes—often —you moved through it without really seeing it.
And then his fingers pressed ever so gently against my neck, as if to say “This too.” It sent a jolt through the parts of my body I often forgot existed; I could feel the tendons in my calves come to life. I dared to glance to my right and caught a glimpse of his eyes crinkling into a smile as he stared straight ahead. He kept finding new ways to drive me crazy, and I didn’t mind it. Not one bit.
In chapter twenty-nine, when Franny sees Hayes profess his love for her on TV, and she needs to get across town quickly, a stranger has a lovely gesture:
The old man leaned forward in his chair, pulling a wallet out of his back pocket. “Here,” he said, passing a yellow MetroCard to me. “I always keep one on me that has at least ten rides, just in case.”
“I want to say that I can’t accept this, but I’m going to accept this,” I said, clutching it to my chest. “Thank you so much.”
“He’s cute!” his wife shouted at me as I hustled for the door. “Go get him.”
And off I went, to do exactly that.
The chapter and the book ends with them travelling in the wrong direction, which is so much cuter than any time I’ve made the same mistake:
The subway doors opened at the next stop, and we both looked up. We weren’t heading toward Brooklyn at all. In our stupor, we must have gone to the wrong platform. We were on a train heading uptown.
“Franny,” he said, pointing to the station sign as the doors closed, “this isn’t the right train. We’re going the wrong way.”
I laughed and looked at him, grabbing his hand and bringing it to my lips with a kiss.
“Well, let’s just ride it, then,” I said. “And see where it takes us.”