Publication Date: July 21, 2026
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.
Married with Benefits by Ellie Palmer is Lainey and Elliot’s story and had me chuckling throughout. The chapter titles are interesting and show the playfulness that we’ll be surrounded by.
Lainey and Elliot are adversaries since she “owns” the notable house that he needs for his resort plans, and he owns the land under it along with some rundown cabins he inherited. She and her grandmother have squatted in it for many years, although she didn’t know that and had paid the property taxes. After not being able to come to an agreement, he proposes they marry, especially since she needs health insurance for her very expensive migraine medication and he has great insurance since he works for the government.
What starts as a marriage of convenience may not stay that way for long since they are definitely fighting their chemistry and their impulses! There seem to be real feelings between them as time goes on. Could it possibly be love? Although they both have trust issues and problems saying what they really feel or mean. Their emotions are definitely intense.
Set in a quirky small town in Wisconsin, the story spans seventy days until busy season, which means tourist season, and then extends thirty days more to the longest day of the year and then starts the countdown all over again.
There are vivid descriptions, especially of the repairs, wildlife and other creatures, the land, her art and other creations from trees. The story has a good flow for the most part and definitely has some wild twists and turns. The epilogue was better than expected, tying up loose ends and leaving us with a happily-ever-after.
Married with Benefits is a quirky romcom that drew me in from the beginning and had some laugh-out-loud moments throughout.
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.
