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Love at First Like

A Novel

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About The Book

Named a Best Book of Summer by Glamour, BuzzFeed, Cosmopolitan, and many more!

From the author of Playing with Matches, the rollicking tale of a young jewelry shop owner who accidentally leads her Instagram followers to believe that she’s engaged—and then decides to keep up the ruse.

Eliza Roth and her sister Sophie co-own a jewelry shop in Brooklyn. One night, after learning of an ex’s engagement, Eliza accidentally posts a photo of herself wearing a diamond ring on that finger to her Instagram account beloved by 100,000 followers. Sales skyrocket, press rolls in, and Eliza learns that her personal life is good for business. So she has a choice: continue the ruse or clear up the misunderstanding. With mounting financial pressure, Eliza sets off to find a fake fiancé.

Fellow entrepreneur Blake seems like the perfect match on paper. And in real life he shows promise, too. He would be perfect, if only Eliza didn’t feel also drawn to someone else. But Blake doesn’t know Eliza is “engaged”; Sophie asks Eliza for an impossible sum of money; and Eliza’s lies start to spiral out of control. She can either stay engaged online or fall in love in real life.

Written with singular charm and style, Love at First Like is for anyone growing up and settling down in the digital age.

Excerpt

Love at First Like • Chapter 1 •
Tonight’s date was the kind of disaster that makes people give up on finding love forever. For starters, I had eyeballed his height from his Tinder photos; I had guessed he was about six feet, maybe four inches taller than me. Instead, I arrived at the bar, Golden Years, to discover that he was approximately five-foot-four. When I ordered a whiskey, he made fun of me for being the kind of girl who orders whiskey to impress a man. (It stung because he’s half right; that’s why I first started drinking it, before I developed a taste for it on my own.) He spent the first round of drinks quizzing me: had I been to this restaurant, or that museum, or that new club that had just opened up downtown? My plans to excuse myself were dashed when he insisted the bartender bring us a second round. It turned out his alcohol tolerance is much lower than mine, and by the time our glasses were empty again, he slid off his bar stool and tottered toward the door. “Eliza, you got the bill, right?” he called over his shoulder. “That’s what the feminists always say they want!”

Now, alone at the bar, I wince at the check: sixty dollars plus tip for my hot date. I lock eyes with the bartender, a guy with a mop of dark hair wearing a gray hoodie with the sleeves scrunched up. I lean over the bar.

“Can you believe that guy?” I mutter, shaking my head. I toss him a flirty smile and cross my arms under my chest to give him a better view of my cleavage. “Hi, I’m Eliza, by the way.”

The bartender glances up from polishing a glass.

“Raj. Hi. Sorry about your date,” he says. For a split second, his dark eyes flash sympathetically. But then he shrugs. “Better luck next time,” he says, returning to his task.

So I’m stuck with the bill. I slide my credit card across the bar. While I wait for the bartender to run it, I pull my phone from my purse and begin deleting the neat row of dating apps from my home screen. Enough is enough. Muscle memory triggers a spree through my phone: I toggle through my work email, personal email, and Instagram. I’m scrolling through my feed when my heart drops.

Holden is engaged. Holden, engaged? Holden, my on-again, off-again ex whose birth name is Hayden but who goes by a J. D. Salinger reference because he thinks it makes him sound smarter. Holden, the one who used to say that monogamy isn’t natural and that he would always want the freedom to pick up and move to Borneo or Mexico City or wherever else pops into his head. Holden, the guy with a Bernie Sanders tattoo who forgot to register to vote. I repeat, Holden is engaged.

Right there, at the very top of my feed, a photo of him kneeling in front of his girlfriend, Faye, who appears as if she’s based her entire personality off a Free People catalog. A fringed, floor-length robe slides artfully off one shoulder as she claps a hand over her mouth in surprise.

“Two souls became one today,” Holden solemnly captioned the photo.

I navigate to Faye’s profile, where she’s posted not only that photo, but also a close-up of the diamond ring on her hand against a backdrop of lush green trees. Her caption: “I went hiking with the love of my life today . . . and I said YES!!!” She geotagged a misspelled version of the Appalachian Trail.

I sign the check and get the fuck out of the bar. My apartment is just across the street. It should be an easy walk—except, of course, it’s suddenly pouring. Water squelches into my shoes as I break into a sprint. My purse slaps against my side.

Holden and I were caught in flash floods like this once. We were on vacation in Nashville for our one-year anniversary (if you didn’t count the three-month break we took halfway through), and the sky just opened up. We huddled under a tiny awning while he scrolled through Yelp reviews of nearby restaurants. I had begged him to just pick a restaurant, any restaurant.

“Eliza,” he said slowly, clearly annoyed. “I can’t eat just anywhere. I’m a chef, all right?”

He was not a chef. He was a cook at a second-rate grill on Long Island during the summers and was looking for a full-time job at a restaurant in Brooklyn. My shoes were waterlogged for the rest of our trip.

Fucking Holden. Engaged. I’m not like some of my friends who, at twenty-seven, are still deeply shocked whenever people our age announce they’re getting married. I acknowledge that twenty-seven is a perfectly reasonable age for Holden to propose to Faye. And fine, whatever, maybe he’s changed. It’s not exactly like we’ve been in touch often during the past four years since our final, brutal breakup. And more than anyone else I know, engagements are my bread and butter. Ever since my sister Sophie and I opened up Brooklyn Jewels last year, diamonds have become my world. I guess I just always assumed that between me and Holden, I would pair off for good first. I’m not good at losing; I’m not used to it. And his engagement means that I’ve officially lost the breakup.

I reach the door of my building and I’m home. I live in a second-floor walk-up on top of the shop. I dig my keys out of my purse and jam the right one into the lock. I know before I’m even inside my apartment that I won’t want to stay. From the sound of it, you’d think my neighbor was personally hosting New York’s most crowded EDM festival. I can feel the bass of his soundtrack vibrating in my chest. My walls are so thin that I need noise-canceling headphones just to sit in my own home.

I drop my rain-soaked purse on the floor of my bedroom, strip out of my damp clothes, and pull on my oldest sweats. Then I grab my phone, swing by the galley kitchen to pick up my bottle of Jack Daniel’s and the cleanest glass from the cupboard, and head downstairs to the quiet shop.

Holden and Faye may have a diamond ring, but I have an entire store full of them. It’s not a huge space, but we have a storefront in one of the most coveted parts of the city with a stable of chic customers to match. And it’s ours. Sophie and I opened it last year after years of planning; I handle the business side while Sophie masterminds our jewelry design. Running our own business felt like a natural choice after growing up underfoot in Mom and Dad’s store, the largest boating shop in Portland, Maine. When we were young, we loved to hang out after school at the jewelry boutique next to Mom and Dad’s place. Helen, the owner, was like the eccentric, indulgent aunt I always wanted. She’d let me try on every sparkly thing in the store and tell me stories about her two failed marriages and her romantic dalliances in far-flung destinations. As I got older, I started asking more serious questions about the jewelry: the story behind why she acquired each piece, how she works with customers to create bespoke works of art, and what makes each item so valuable. She taught me that jewelry isn’t just a product; in order for a customer to make a purchase, they have to develop a sentimental attachment to it that goes far beyond the price tag.

Helen retired and shut down her boutique during my senior year of high school. She said she was too old to run the business anymore, and I knew she was right, but I was upset. I missed spending time in the shop with her. It was a pivotal year for me; I was applying to colleges and browsing course catalogs, dreaming up a future for myself. That’s when the first seeds of my idea to open my own jewelry shop began to sprout. Eight years later, Brooklyn Jewels was born.

Grandma and Grandpa each left money for me and Sophie in their wills when they passed. We pooled it to open this store. The first year for any small business is notoriously make-it-or-break-it. We just hoped to stay afloat. We never expected to land the occasional celebrity client or build such a massive following on Instagram (100,000 strong and counting). I use @brooklynjewels as both my professional and personal account—it’s 90 percent jewelry shots with a few personal photos thrown in. Sophie never wanted to be the face of the brand, so I’ve gladly stepped in. We’re even doing well enough that we could afford to hire Jess, our resident sales specialist/office manager/all-around wizard. She’s Helen’s grandniece. When she got laid off from her position assisting a fashion stylist, we stepped in to hire her as a favor to Helen.

The store’s back room is a combination of an office for me and a small production studio for Sophie. My favorite item in the room is Helen’s old leather armchair, and I slump into it. I use a heavy hand to pour myself a drink, and then I pull up Faye’s ring shot again. It looks like an old European-cut diamond on a gold band—small, but surprisingly expensive, since that cut is no longer made. The only available stones in that style are antiques. I try to zoom in to get a better look at the diamond’s quality, but my finger slips and I accidentally graze the “heart” button. Fuck. I liked it. I liked Faye’s engagement announcement.

In desperate times like these, I have a game I like to play. I unlock one of the TL-30 safes in the back. (You can’t get insurance for a fine jewelry business without them. The safe’s door is six inches thick and can survive a continuous half hour of destruction by every imaginable thief’s tool before it’ll break—and the minute it senses damage, it triggers a call to the police.) I select a three-carat, round-cut ring with side stones. It’s not what I’d ever choose for myself, were I really to get engaged (too glitzy, too heavy, too trendy), but I slide it onto my left ring finger anyway.

Here’s my dirty secret: when the irony of being a single girl who sells engagement rings for a living becomes too much, I blow off a little steam by making fake engagement announcements. I stage ring shots and pair them with overwrought captions like, “I can’t wait to marry my best friend!” or “?‘You don’t know how long I’ve waited for you.’ —Stephenie Meyer, Twilight” and pile on hashtags like #engaged, #isaidyes, #waitingforthewedding. Of course, I never actually post any of them; I save them as drafts. It’s like writing a nasty letter to an ex to unload all your feelings, then ripping it into pieces.

But now I need a backdrop—the shop feels too stale. I fling open the front door, stepping out into the twinkling darkness. I splay my left hand out in front of me and use my right hand to snap a picture. The rain has stopped by now, leaving a glinting sheen to the street. Behind my hand, pretty string lights pop. The streetlights cast an angelic glow. Perfect.

I shut the door and return to the cozy armchair. Even after all this time, it still smells faintly of Helen’s perfume. I take a hearty swig of my drink and pull up the photo on Instagram. I up the contrast and saturation and take a second to dream up a schmaltzy caption: “They say when you know, you know . . . and I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” I add a red heart emoji for good measure and jab my finger at the screen to triumphantly save the post to my drafts.

It’s silly, but the pressure that’s been building up behind my eyes ever since I left the bar seems to ease up a tiny bit. It’s not fair—I spent the first three years of my twenties in a joke of a relationship, and the next four completely single. It’s not that I’m a leper. But running a business doesn’t exactly leave me with tons of free time or energy to bother much with dating apps. When I do go out on dates, they either fall flat or they just don’t blossom into real relationships.

I have a Word document on my laptop that I’ve been keeping since college, titled “LIL BLACK BOOK <3.” The name seemed cute at eighteen. It’s organized by year, a chronological list of every single guy I’ve gone on a date with. A name gets italicized if we sleep together and bold-faced if I actually like him. Only one name is highlighted in pink: Holden. It means he was actually my boyfriend. The list is too depressing to look at for long, but I like to keep it up to date so I can scroll through it when I’m old and married and nostalgic for the adventures of my youth.

There haven’t been any pink or bold names in ages. Instead, recent dates included Todd, the startup engineer who drinks Soylent instead of having real meals because he claims eating food tanks his efficiency; Marcus, the guy who rambled for four hours straight and then texted that he didn’t feel chemistry because I was “too quiet” for him; and Zachary, who mentioned after we ordered forty dollars’ worth of oysters that he’s saving himself for marriage.

And meanwhile, Holden has apparently found the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with. I was in love with him, once upon a time. It’s not so easy to remember now; so many years have passed that it feels like recalling the hazy details of a movie I fell asleep halfway through watching. I believe that what I had with Holden was real at the time. But that doesn’t mean it was good, or right, or the kind of love that should last forever.

The music is no longer blasting from upstairs. I lock the ring back in the safe, trudge up to my apartment, and flop down on my own bed. The whiskey lulls me to sleep.



Morning hits like a truck. I’m jolted awake, not by the harsh light streaming through the narrow window and not by the hot, sticky sensation of my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth, but by my phone vibrating at full blast. Sophie is calling—and I can’t remember the last time she actually used her phone to make a call. My thoughts in order: Who died? Was it Mom, Dad, or Waffles the cat? Is it dumb that I’d be almost as sad about the cat as I would about a real human being?

“Sophie? Is everything okay?” I ask. My voice is groggy with sleep.

“What the hell did you post on Instagram last night?” she snaps.

I rack my brain. “I didn’t post anything on Instagram last—” Wait. Shit. “Can you hold on for a sec?”

I can’t see her, but I know the exact haughty way in which she probably just rolled her eyes. Liv is probably patting her knee, as if that could help calm her down.

I open Instagram and am horrified to find an avalanche of notifications. Fourteen thousand people have liked my ring photo, which apparently did not save as a draft, but instead, must have been posted to my feed. This is terrible. I scroll through five hundred comments. Sasha, an old friend from college who I haven’t seen in months, wrote, “Omg WHAT?!” Rachel, a girl I met while drunk in line at a bar bathroom three years ago and haven’t seen since, wrote, “I’m crying!! This is beautiful!!!!!” Kate, a cousin I see a couple times a year, wrote, “I didn’t know you were dating anyone???” Holden commented, “This is simply wonderful news.” And the rest are variations on “Congrats!” or “So happy for you!” Some are from followers whose names I recognize, but most are from total strangers. As if that’s not freaky enough, it looks like the account gained more than a thousand new followers overnight. My phone is warm to the touch, as if all the activity is overheating the delicate device.

I sit up in bed, steadying myself against a mountain of pillows. My heart thumps against my rib cage.

“Okay, Sophie, I know what happened. . . .” I tell her everything about the date, Holden’s engagement, and my bad habit of letting off steam on Instagram. I leave out the part about the whiskey.

“Mom and Dad are gonna flip,” she says. “Kate’s probably already sent a screenshot to Aunt Linda, who probably called Mom.”

I check my phone’s notifications, which are overflowing. Sure enough, buried among emoji-laden texts, an avalanche of Instagram likes, and an email from Helen, are three missed calls from our parents. It’s not even 8 a.m.

“You’re taking the photo down, right?” Sophie asks.

It’s clear she doesn’t really mean it as a question. Because Sophie is five years older than me, she’s convinced that she’s right about everything.

“I’ll call you back,” I say, hanging up before she can protest.

I stare at my phone, scrolling through the endless stream of praise. I’m amazed at how many people think I’m actually engaged, but even more so, I’m surprised by how positive the reactions are. People are happy that I appear happy. Nobody knows how crushed and alone I felt last night. America is a sick place in which girls still grow up thinking that getting someone to fall in love with them is some kind of achievement. I know it’s not, because I see that anyone can fall in love at any time; it’s not like Holden deserves to be in love, and yet, he is. It’s unfair that we give relationships such importance; I can’t even begin to count how many Thanksgiving dinners I sat through during which Aunt Linda asked about my love life instead of, oh, I don’t know, the business I was building. I recognize that I’m not totally innocent here—selling engagement rings as a dream luxury item means that I’m part of the problem. If only people saw what I see now: I might look “engaged,” but instead of feeling happy, I feel hungover, defensive, and panicked.

My phone buzzes with an incoming email. It’s a Google Alert for the shop. We’re mentioned in a story on a wedding blog that trumpets the news: cofounder Eliza Roth—yours truly—is engaged. “While nothing is known about the mystery man quite yet, one thing is clear: he knows how to pick out a rock,” it says. Within minutes, there’s a rush of new followers on Instagram. Judging from their profile pictures—mostly engagement photos with their significant others—they must have seen the story. I want to be happy about the good publicity; any press is cause for celebration, and this site is massively popular. But instead, I only feel panic creeping up my chest and closing in around my throat.

An automated email from the e-commerce platform we use comes in, alerting us that we made a sale. It’s unusual for us to sell a product without some kind of catalyst; typically, our customers prefer to buy pieces in person from the shop, so online purchases mostly happen when we send an email blast about a flash sale or a celebrity wears one of our pieces. (Not to brag, but Blake Lively purchased a five-carat, emerald-cut, platinum-band vow renewal ring from us last month, and both Ariana Grande and Cardi B like to wear our stackable rings.) Sales online tend to be smaller than ones in-person. It makes sense—before you drop an entire paycheck on a piece of jewelry, you probably want to see it up close. So, I didn’t have any expectations of greatness when I read the e-commerce email.

A new customer bought a $10,000 diamond necklace. Engagement rings aside, it’s the most expensive piece we carry. And now, it’s sold.

If it looks good for me to be engaged to a mystery man, and that translates directly into sales, then damn it, I’ll be engaged to a mystery man. What’s the harm? I call my sister back.

“You saw the sale?” I ask.

“Yeah, I did.” She sounds awestruck.

“That photo is working to our advantage,” I say, summoning my firmest voice. “I’m not taking it down.”

Reading Group Guide

This reading group guide for Love at First Like includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Hannah Orenstein. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

In Hannah Orenstein’s Love at First Like, a New York jewelry shop owner accidentally leads her Instagram followers to believe that she’s engaged—and then decides to keep up the ruse.

Eliza Roth and her sister, Sophie, co-own a jewelry shop in Brooklyn. One night, after learning of an ex’s engagement, Eliza accidentally posts a photo of herself wearing a diamond ring on that finger to her Instagram account, beloved by 100,000 followers. Sales skyrocket, press rolls in, and Eliza learns that her personal life is good for business. So she has a choice: continue the scheme or clear up the misunderstanding. With her landlord raising the rent and mounting financial pressure, Eliza sets off to find a fake fiancé.

Fellow entrepreneur Blake seems like the perfect match on paper. And in real life he shows promise, too. But Blake doesn’t know Eliza is “engaged”; Sophie asks Eliza for an impossible sum of money; and feels drawn to someone else—Raj, the bartender down the street.

With a wedding to drum up more business on the horizon, Eliza’s lies begin to spiral out of control, and she’ll have to decide whether to stay engaged online or fall in love in real life.

Topics & Questions for Discussion

1. The novel begins with Eliza’s ex-boyfriend Holden becoming engaged. They’ve been broken up for many years, but she worries that “his engagement means that I’ve officially lost the breakup.” Why do you think this engagement gets under her skin so much?

2. When defending her choice to leave her Instagram photo up, Eliza notes in chapter 2 that there are some female entrepreneurs “whose businesses are bolstered because the founders have enviable lives.” Do you agree with this statement? Can you think of other business owners who have grown their brands by having what seem like interesting personal lives?

3. When Carmen and Eliza look for a potential fake fiancé at Dorrian’s in chapter 3, Carmen describes Eliza’s ideal as “eligible bachelors who would look amazing on Instagram and are dumb enough to not question whatever scheme you’re cooking up.” Do you think Blake meets this criteria?

4. Eliza and Sophie are inspired to open their own business by their parents, who own a boating store in Maine. How do you think opening a small business has changed since the time when their parents did so?

5. How do you think Sophie feels about Eliza being the face of the brand, especially when Sophie worries she may hurt the business in the long run?

6. Eliza’s many Instagram followers are a significant presence in this novel. In chapter 10, she claims that, “It’s good for customers to see that I’m a real person who eats cheese and drinks wine, too. It helps them feel like, you know, they know me. And that translates directly to sales.” How do you think having so many strangers following her life affects her? Is Eliza using Instagram as a tool for promoting her business or as an outlet for herself?

7. When Sophie asks Eliza for a large sum of money for her IVF in chapter 11, she tells Eliza, “You’re getting everything you want.” Do you agree? Why or why not?

8. Eliza wrestles with her feelings for Blake for much of the book, saying in chapter 16, “It’s hard for me to wrap my head around how I feel about Blake. . . . I don’t doubt that I have feelings for him, but I do doubt that they match the strength of his feelings for me.” Do you think her ruse hinders her ability to express her feelings for him?

9. Blake and Raj represent two opposites: the guy who looks good on paper and the guy Eliza’s drawn to in real life. Think about the way her relationships with each progress. How do they differ?

10. Why do you think Eliza keeps Blake in the dark about the fake engagement and wedding for so long?

11. In many ways, Eliza’s ruse picks up steam when she’s offered free or sponsored products for her wedding. Do you think her sponsored wedding is something she would have picked for herself?

12. Sophie and Eliza are very different people, and yet they share a close bond as sisters and business partners. How is this tested throughout the novel?

13. When we talk about dating in the digital age, we often talk about dating apps. How do you think other forms of social media—like Instagram—influence the way we find and fall for partners?

14. At the end of the novel, Eliza turns down Raj’s suggestion she take a photo on her flight in order to “live in the moment.” Months earlier, in chapter 8, she was staging covert vignettes at Blake’s apartment with the hashtag #ElizaFoundHerJewel. What do you think this says about Eliza’s growth throughout the novel?

Enhance Your Book Club

1. Read Hannah Orenstein’s first novel, Playing with Matches with your group. (Did you catch Sasha’s and Caroline’s cameos in Love at First Like?) Think about the differences between these characters and stories.

2. Look up the Instagram profiles of some of the influencers mentioned here, such as @emilywweiss, @leandramcohen, and @whitney. Do you have favorite Instagram influencers you follow? Share them with your friends.

3. Do as Eliza and Carmen and plan a happy hour night out. If you’re in New York, try AOC East, Le Boudoir, or Dorrian’s. If not, visit your favorite local spot or the place where you would most likely find a fake fiancé.

A Conversation with Hannah Orenstein

You last novel, Playing with Matches, was about a matchmaker in her early twenties. This is about a small jewelry shop owner nearing thirty. What was it like to write these two different protagonists?

I started writing Playing with Matches when I was twenty-two. I wanted to create a protagonist who struggled with the same postgrad challenges that I did, like adapting to adulthood, navigating the ways in which old friendships evolve over time, and striving to create a fulfilling career. I loved writing about that exciting, exhausting, exhilarating time. By the time I wrote Love at First Like three years later, I wanted to explore the life of a protagonist who was a little bit more confident in her career and her own capabilities. People say to write what you know; I felt a little older and wiser than I did with my first book, and that helped me find Eliza’s voice.

Stories about fraud or cons—like the Fyre Festival or Anna Delvey—particularly about “influencers,” are popular right now. Why do you think this has become a cultural fascination of ours? Did these kinds of real-life stories help inform Eliza’s?

Yes! I had been playing around with the concept of a jewelry store owner whose lies start to spiral out of control when I first learned about Anna Delvey. The cultural fascination with her story gave me confidence that I was on the right track.

Jewelry is a big part of this novel. How did you come up with the pieces Eliza and Sophie might sell in the store?

I did a lot of research on jewelers like Eliza—people who found big success on Instagram. The jewelry sold at Brooklyn Jewels is inspired by a lot of current trends I’ve seen lately (yellow gold, three-stone settings, pear-shaped diamonds), as well as trends that have been popular for several years now (diamond halos, diamond pavé bands, birthstone jewelry). Eliza’s engagement ring is actually inspired by Meghan Markle’s!

Who was your favorite character to write and why?

I loved getting inside Eliza’s mind. It’s easy to see Instagram influencers and assume their lives are a certain way, so to explore the messy, impulsive, imperfect aspects of her life—all while she maintains a façade of success and perfection—was a really enjoyable challenge for me.

Dating apps aside, how do you think social media affects the way we pair up and settle down?

Social media isn’t important to everyone, but if you do care a lot about it, it can be frustrating when the person you’re dating doesn’t respect your interest. In the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty harmless if you like to photograph your brunch before you dig in, or if you ask your significant other to take a picture together on date night. But anecdotally, I’ve experienced and heard so many stories of men who seem to have really negative opinions of women who love social media. Because of that, it was important to me to include scenes in which Eliza discusses social media with both Blake and Raj, respectively. Blake challenges her interest in it and teases her for it, while Raj later encourages it (in that final moment on the plane).

Raj and Blake are so different from each other. What do you think they represent for Eliza?

Growth! There are a lot of books out there in which the heroine falls in love at first sight. This is not one of them. In real life, dating can be messy and complicated; the process of figuring out who you’re compatible with can be tough. Ultimately, as Eliza gets to know Blake and Raj better, she gets to know herself better. Through the process of dating both men, she learns a lot about the kind of life she’d like to lead. Blake represents the life she feels she’s supposed to want—he’s ambitious and successful, just like she is, though their connection isn’t the strongest. Raj offers her a new way to imagine her life: she can pursue her career with a supportive partner who makes her feel like the best version of herself.

Friendship and sisterhood are big parts of this novel. As people pair off in their late twenties and thirties now, how do you think we rely on these relationships?

Friendship is important at every age, but particularly in your twenties when you’re single. Eliza has different relationships with Sophie and Carmen—one is her sister and one is her best friend—but functionally, they fulfill very similar roles in her life. I liked casting Eliza and Carmen with this dynamic because it’s important to me to celebrate strong friendships in my writing.

Eliza and Carmen have a weekly happy hour date where the location changes each week. In Playing with Matches, Sasha frequents Hotel Tortuga on Fourteenth Street. What’s your go-to spot in New York?

Hotel Tortuga was my go-to spot with my friends for years. The same year that Playing with Matches came out, though, the restaurant was bought by new owners, and I’m sad to say it’s no longer quite the same. Many of the spots in Love at First Like are tributes to places I love dearly in New York—Golden Years and the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, and AOC East, Dorrian’s, and Brandy’s on the Upper East Side.

In the last few years, we’ve seen a lot of influencer weddings that are partially if not completely sponsored. Were you thinking of any in particular while you were writing? How do you think these sponsored weddings influence those that are not?

The first time I remember a wedding from an “influencer” type (I’m using that term loosely in this case) is 2014, when #nellandteddy, the Instagram hashtag for Nell Diamond and Ted Wasserman’s wedding, suddenly appeared all over my feed. There’s even a HarpersBazaar.com story from that week with the headline, “The Internet Is in Love with Nell Diamond’s Gorgeous Wedding Photos.” It was one of the first times that wedding photos from a noncelebrity really dominated social media and digital media, and that concept certainly influenced Love at First Like. Just as I finished the first draft of the novel, Brides announced that fashion blogger Chiara Ferragni would appear on the cover of their Weddings of the Year! issue. The fact that an influencer would get that honor—instead of Meghan Markle or any number of high-profile celebrities who got married that year—speaks volumes about how influencer love stories and weddings are a source of cultural fascination right now.

What do you want readers to take away from this story?

My number one goal is always to entertain. If readers have a great time reading about Eliza’s adventures, I’m happy! Beyond that, I hope this novel helps people consider what roles ambition, love, passion, and social media play in their own lives.

What’s next for you? Are you working on anything new?

I’m currently writing a third novel set in the world of elite gymnastics, due out summer 2020 (in time for the Olympics!). I also work as the senior dating editor at Elite Daily, editing stories about single life, dating, and relationships, and I stay busy taste-testing every cheese plate in New York City.

About The Author

Photograph by Sylvie Rosokoff

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.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Atria Books (August 6, 2019)
  • Length: 336 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781982117795

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"Strikes a powerful chord."
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"Full of charm, whimsy, and giddy romantic tension."
—Buzzfeed

"Love at First Like is a fun romance with a digital twist. Hannah Orenstein proves that even though we present our lives through screens, it's important to live life unfiltered in the real world."
—Associated Press

"This glittering gem of a novel is a wise and witty take on family, ambition, and modern love."
—Andrea Dunlop, author of We Came to Forget

"Playing with Matches author Hannah Orenstein . . . returns to the world of rom-coms with a delightful story"
—Bustle

"Hannah Orenstein has really captured the pressures of relationships in the social media era."
Glamour

"Quick, witty, and compulsively readable . . . an ideal summer read.”
Kirkus Reviews

“Orenstein's (Playing with Matches, 2018) thoroughly modern rom-com is a delightful farce. With the gumption of Sophie Kinsella's Becky Bloomwood and the social aspirations of William Thackeray's Becky Sharp, Eliza is a frustrating, adorable, relatable heroine. Fans of the Shopaholic series will enjoy the ups and downs of Eliza's mission to save her store and her love life.”
Booklist

"There is no one who writes about modern relationships with more humor or insight than Hannah Orenstein. Love at First Like is a delight.”
—Dana Schwartz, author of Choose Your Own Disaster

"This frothy read will be a hit for fans of both Orenstein’s first novel and books by Christina Lauren.”
—Library Journal

“This appealing rom-com . . . smartly reveals the tremendous impact social media can have on someone . . . . Orenstein keeps the plot snappy and funny as the clock ticks down. Fans of romantic comedies where the characters discover what is most important in life will adore this one.”
Publishers Weekly

"Orenstein's second novel has all the charm of her debut novel, but with absolutely alluring writing, more nuanced plots and captivating characters."
DC Refined

“If you’re feeling pressured to commit, read Love at First Like… If seeing couple pics all over Instagram makes you want to throw your phone into the ocean, look no further than the story of Eliza, an influencer who mistakenly leads her followers to believe she’s engaged.”

Elite Daily

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