Playing with Matches: A Novel

Hannah Orenstein

Jun 2018 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

Named a Best Book of Summer by Refinery29, Bustle, and PopSugar

“The best rom-com of the season…overflowing with charm and heart.” —Bustle
“The perfect Summer read—smart, funny, escapist, and bursting with charm.” —PopSugar

In the tradition of Good in Bed and The Assistants comes a funny and smart comedy about a young matchmaker balancing her messy personal life and the demands of her eccentric clients.

Sasha Goldberg has a lot going for her: a recent journalism degree from NYU, an apartment with her best friend Caroline, and a relationship that would be amazing if her finance-bro boyfriend Jonathan would ever look up from his BlackBerry. But when her dream career falls through, she uses her family’s darkest secret to land a job as a matchmaker for New York City’s elite at the dating service Bliss.

Despite her inexperience, Sasha throws herself into her new career, trolling for catches on Tinder, coaching her clients through rejection, and dishing out dating advice to people twice her age. She sets up a TV exec who wanted kids five years ago, a forty-year-old baseball-loving virgin, and a consultant with a rigorous five-page checklist for her ideal match.

Sasha hopes to find her clients The One, like she did. But when Jonathan betrays her, she spirals out of control—and right into the arms of a writer with a charming Southern drawl, who she had previously set up with one of her clients. He’s strictly off-limits, but with her relationship on the rocks, all bets are off.

Fresh, sweet, and laugh-out-loud funny, Playing with Matches is the addictive story about dating in today’s swipe-heavy society, and a young woman trying to find her own place in the world.

Ratings and reviews

Sasha has everything she thought important on graduating from NYU: a great apartment in NYC, a roommate/best friend, a boyfriend and the world at her feet. But, when her dream job isn’t at her fingertips, she’s got to find something, and the advert for Bliss, a matchmaking service just may be her only option. Oh sure, people can scoff at arranged relationships, or even internet dating: but she knows that it works – her parents are her example. Yep – you read that right, Sasha’s father found her mother on a ‘Russian brides” site, and their relationship has stood the test of time. So – she applies for and joins the team at Bliss – and soon she is busy doing all the things one would expect when finding the ‘One” for one of her clients. And Sasha is good at her job: she’s able to get down to the core of people quickly, she sees potential and offers advice on everything from patience to conversation topics – all while her own relationship is moving from rose-colored perfect, to sensing flaws, to being merely a spectator to the life her boyfriend is experiencing. So – here’s where things go a bit pear shaped for Sasha, if not unexpectedly. She finds another potential match for a client – and realizes that this man would be the perfect match for her: there’s just one issue. She’d be committing career suicide in a joy she not only likes, but is good at, should she step over that line. Orenstein has written a lovely character in Sasha - a solid, good-hearted and ambitious young woman who, despite her occasional uncertainty and inexperience manages to keep herself out of most of the major pitfalls that are looming around her: until she doesn’t. She’s never really given up her desire to use her journalism skills to work for a major magazine, and when her life starts to unravel after discovering her boyfriend is less than she had believed, she’s also got someone in the wings who is much more than she had previously. That doesn’t come without it’s complications either – and leaves her with one HUGE decision to make – one that perfectly fits the new-found confidence and dreams for her future. A bit expected when things start to fall apart, with a lovely relationship that Sasha has with the hustle and bustle (and hidden gems) in New York – the story is a wonderful light read: easy to follow along, feeling plausible and possible, with a heroine in Sasha who is resilient and determined, and proof that sometimes life steers you in unexpected directions, it’s how you choose to deal with the detours that matters. I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via Edelweiss for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

About the author

Hannah Orenstein is the author of Playing with Matches, Love at First Like, and Head Over Heels, and is the deputy editor of dating at Elite Daily. Previously, she was a writer and editor at Seventeen.com. She lives in Brooklyn.