Some books pull you in so deeply that you forget the real world exists – this is one of those. I consider myself a fast reader, but I was surprised by just how quickly I devoured this book. I just couldn’t put it down! As someone who now has strong ties to the Netherlands due to love, you bet that I needed to read this book. I’ll admit that sometimes it makes me slightly more critical of how the setting is written, and while I will never consider myself an expert on everything Dutch, but the things I do know from an ex-pat standpoint? Oh wow – I can say that Rachel Lynn Solomon NAILS IT. What Happens in Amsterdam is a beautiful book, and I am so glad that I had the chance to read it.
In this book, we meet Dani Dorfman, who finds herself running away to Amsterdam to escape the life that she has always known. She’s never been able to follow her true passions, as she feels that she doesn’t have any, and has had to deal with her overprotective parents watching her every move. Following the aftermath of a work relationship gone wrong, Dani applies for a job in Amsterdam, and surprise! She gets the job. However, when she arrives, she realizes she’s left the only life she’s ever known, and maybe the idyllic dream world she had imagined in a different country isn’t exactly what she expected.
To make matters worse, she crashes – literally – into her high school ex-boyfriend, Wouter van Leeuwen, who was once an exchange student that Dani’s family hosted. During Wouter’s time with Dani’s family, the two had a secret relationship that ended in a painful breakup. Despite the years that have come between them, they seem to almost pick up where they left off. Well, except for Dani’s anger over how Wouter left things, of course.
As luck would have it, crashing into Wouter while biking through the city provides a lift that Dani needs. After dealing with a flooded apartment, Wouter offers her the ground floor apartment of his grandmother’s home. When Dani suddenly loses her job and finds herself face-to-face with the possibility of having to leave Amsterdam due to her work visa’s requirements, Wouter once again steps in to save the day with a mutually beneficial solution: a marriage of convenience. As it turns out, Wouter wants to remain in his grandmother’s home, but to inherit it, she has the condition that Wouter must get married. Since Dani needs a way to stay in the country, getting married is the obvious choice. After all, the two already know each other and have history – how hard would it be to pretend to be happily married to each other?
Throughout the rest of the book, we experience Dani and Wouter’s relationship as they learn to navigate through a life together again. We see snippets of the life they had dreamed of together, work through the awkward moments of them trying to learn who the other is as an adult versus a teenager, and learn what happened so many years ago. There’s a ton of sweet, a decent amount of spice, and a whole lot of fun romance tropes mixed in together to build this book out.
I loved this book so much because Rachel Lynn Solomon captures Amsterdam in the way I always try to explain the city to people. But where I fail miserably, Solomon has captured the essence perfectly. Perhaps that’s because my heart also belongs in an entirely different area of the Netherlands, but all the same – Amsterdam has played an essential part of my own love story.
There is a certain kind of magic that can be found within the city that I feel those looking to escape something (or find something) can understand. There are the stereotypes of stroopwafels and windmills, but there is so much more to the Netherlands; from trips to Albert Heijn (though I prefer Jumbo, myself) and HEMA, to realizing coffee shops aren’t actually coffee shops, the horrendously tiny bathroom sinks with freezing cold water (why???) and hagelslag. There are the little touches of the strange placement of the KFC and H&M in relation to important monuments and buildings – even the mention of buying a hotdog in front of the palace in Dam Square. These small little touches make a huge difference, and these are only a few things of note! Solomon has sprinkled so many little touches of Dutch life and culture into this book in a way that it’s not cheesy or over-the-top but snippets of reality.
While my journey to the Netherlands was for love and not for a job leaving my experience to be a bit different, it doesn’t make the little touches any less special. I know that Rachel Lynn Solomon is currently living in the expat life in Amsterdam, and I’m so grateful that she has been able to put together so much of how I feel into the very words that I haven’t been able to put together just yet.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book to basically any romance lovers looking for a beautiful and incredibly well-written setting. If you love second-chance romances and can get on board with the marriage of convenience trope (with an added “there was only one bed!” trope) then this book absolutely belongs on your TBR.
Thank you to Edelweiss and Berkley for the opportunity to read this fantastic book early!
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