Married with Benefits

"The romance is perfection. An absolutely gorgeous book." --Laurie Gilmore, #1 New York Times bestselling author

A trope-filled delight of a rom com about two strangers who enter into a marriage of convenience that becomes anything but convenient.

For better or worse is just the beginning.

Lainey Davis can't wait for the day she'll be able to escape her tiny Wisconsin town. But she's not even close to covering her health insurance premiums and pricey migraine medication, let alone saving up enough to start over some place new. That is, until Lainey learns that through the archaic legal doctrine of adverse possession, she's inadvertently squatted her way into owning a marvel of modern architecture.

But Lainey owns only the house. The surrounding property, a lakeside money pit the previous owner used as a front to deal illegal reptiles, has been willed to Elliot Hodges, a D.C. architect who wants to rent out the place to fellow architecture lovers. Their assets are tied together, but neither can move forward without the other.

Desperate, Elliot proposes an unconventional arrangement: marry him for health insurance and in exchange, Lainey will allow him to buy her out. Win-win: Lainey will finally have a way out of town, and he'll own the house designed by his idol. Married in name only and living together while fixing up the property, Lainey and Elliot find themselves unable to keep their hopes, dreams, or bedsheets from getting entwined. And as their connection grows, Lainey's no longer sure what's more terrifying: leaving Elliot behind or letting him in.

Author: Ellie Palmer
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Published: 07/21/2026
Pages: 384
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.57lbs
Size: 8.01h x 5.21w x 0.91d
ISBN: 9798217179596


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 04/01/2026 pg. 60

About the Author
Ellie Palmer is the author of Four Weekends and a Funeral and Anywhere With You, and is a prototypical Midwesterner who routinely apologizes to inanimate objects when she bumps into them. When she's not writing romantic comedies featuring delightfully messy characters, she's at home in Minnesota, eating breakfast food, watching too much reality television, and triple texting her husband about their son.