Maid for Each Other

In this sparkling rom-com, Painter (Happily Never After) pairs a maid and a millionaire. Abi Mariano needs a place to sleep while her apartment is being fumigated. Declan Powell, the wealthy owner of one of the apartments she cleans, is out of town for a week, so she thinks she can crash at his place without anyone ever knowing. Then his parents show up at his penthouse, see Abi walking out of the bedroom, and assume she's Declan's girlfriend, Abby, whom they've never met--for good reason: Declan made her up to get them to stop bugging him about his love life. Abi plays along before making a quick exit, but when Declan realizes what happened, he tracks her down and offers her $40,000 to continue the ruse during a weekend of work events. Faking romance (and staging some swoony PDA) leads to real feelings, but Declan and Abi both fear revealing that their emotions have deepened. With falsehoods, miscommunications, and socioeconomic disparity complicating their way forward, the path to happily ever after is rocky. Painter injects a familiar trope with both levity and genuine emotion. Readers will especially be drawn to Abi, whose smarts and sass make her the perfect match for the more staid but driven Declan. This is a treat. (July)

Creative writing student Abi Mariano, who's working two jobs while also in school, is dismayed to learn about an infestation at her apartment building, which means she must find someplace else to stay for a while. Finding few housing options that won't ruin her carefully managed finances, she decides to secretly spend the night in the fancy penthouse she cleans. The owner, high-powered businessman Declan Powell will never know; he is always off traveling for work. She makes herself at home, baking muffins in Declan's dreamy kitchen, only to wake up the next morning to find his parents eating breakfast, exclaiming over how great her blueberry muffins are. In a great rom-com twist of fate, it turns out that Declan has invented a girlfriend and named her "Abby," and his parents think they have finally met "the one." Willing to go along for a fee and a crash pad, Abi pretends to be the perfect girlfriend. Declan, at risk for deep humiliation and a lost promotion if his scheme falls apart, realizes there is no pretense about it. VERDICT Filled with laughs and a warmhearted spirit, this quick-reading romance from Painter (Happily Never After) is a charmer.--Neal Wyatt