Summer in the City

Summer in the City (2025) by Alex Aster is an adult romantic comedy set in New York City. The novel follows 27-year-old screenwriter Elle, who begrudgingly returns to New York City, a city full of bad memories, to finish her latest script while housesitting her sister’s lavish apartment during its renovations. However, her next-door neighbor is Parker Warren, a tech billionaire whom she’s hated since their first and only disastrous encounter at a New York City nightclub two years ago. When they pretend to date for mutual benefit, they are forced to acknowledge the false assumptions they initially made about each other as they fall in love.

This guide is based on the 2025 Harper Collins Publishers Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of death, emotional abuse, and sexual content.

Plot Summary

Twenty-seven-year-old Elle Leon is a successful, albeit anonymous, screenwriter who is struggling with writer’s block. In an effort to gain inspiration for her latest script—a love story set in New York City—she agrees to house-sit her sister, Cali’s, apartment during its renovations and spend a summer in the city. Elle dislikes the city, as it holds bad memories for her. One of these memories involves tech-billionaire Parker Warren, who assumed she was after his money when they first met at a NYC club two years ago. Elle has hated him ever since and resents his success.

When Elle arrives in the city, she is appalled to learn that Parker is her neighbor. She doesn’t hide her distaste for him, which intrigues Parker. Believing that he doesn’t remember who she is, Elle wants to keep it this way. However, when Parker invites her to be his date at an event, claiming she’s the only person he trusts not to gossip about him due to her indifference toward him, Elle agrees. This one-time favor turns into a mutually beneficial summer-long fake-dating agreement. The press about their relationship will hide any negative press that might sabotage Parker’s acquisition of his company to Virion and, in return, their arrangement gives Elle the inspiration she needs to write her script.

As they settle into a routine of coffee runs and visits to the filming locations on Elle’s list, they slowly form a tentative connection. Their relationship progresses when they visit Summit One Vanderbilt and conquer Parker’s fear of heights. Elle meets Parker’s friends and their girlfriends, swiftly befriending the girls—Emily, Taryn, and Gwen. When Parker leaves for a week to handle business in San Francisco, Elle realizes she misses him.

Upon returning, they decide to make their relationship public so the press will have something to gossip about that isn’t his business acquisition. They attend an art auction where he buys a necklace featuring the biggest diamond in existence so that Elle can be pictured wearing it. Though he also buys her ruby earrings that remind her of her mother, the diamond necklace prompts Elle to remember how exorbitantly wealthy he is. She’s convinced her mother would have never approved. Elle puts up emotional walls and lashes out at Parker, claiming all he cares about is money and his company. Though they make up and share a passionate kiss, they remain confused about the blurred lines between their fake-dating arrangement and their growing connection.

While trying NYC pizza places for script-writing research, Elle tells Parker of her dream of buying a specific navy-blue townhouse on Gramercy Park. They bond over their absent fathers and their close relationships with their mothers—though Elle’s is deceased. Over the following weeks, they become physically intimate as their relationship deepens and Elle reaches the midpoint of her script. By August, Elle finishes her second act.

At a charity gala with Parker, Elle is approached by her wealthy father, David Salazar, who doesn’t know of her successful career. He instead assumes she’s financially supported by Parker. The brief interaction forces Elle to open up to Parker further about her family. She claims that her father used money to control her mother, Elle, and Cali. Though Elle remained steadfast in avoiding her father, Cali welcomed it.

News soon breaks about Elle’s true identity. The press discovers she is a successful screenwriter, and her father has been quoted in the press as claiming her success is due to his support. Elle is devastated but adjusts to life in the spotlight and becomes excited about the changes that will occur in her career as a result. She can now meet with executives or take other opportunities that she would have otherwise shied away from.

When Elle learns that her sister is in labor and wants Elle there for the birth, Parker offers his private jet. They fly to Italy and spend a few days helping Cali and her husband, Pierre, adjust to life with the baby, Isabella. Before heading back to NYC, they decide to visit the last place chosen for Elle’s film—the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Upon returning to NYC, Elle finishes her screenplay while her relationship with Parker continues to deepen.

The day Elle is supposed to fly back to Los Angeles to deliver her script, Parker first takes her to Fifth Avenue where he professes his love for her and proposes. Elle initially accepts but soon withdraws when she learns that he bought her dream Gramercy townhouse for her. She becomes angry, as her dream was to achieve this accomplishment on her own.

Elle flees NYC and returns to LA, where she spends the next 18 months watching her script grow into a successful blockbuster. She lands a three-movie deal and begins writing new scripts. Eventually, she works up the courage to go through her mom’s belongings, which have sat in a storage unit since her death. Elle finds a note from her mother tucked into an old script. The note encourages Elle to live as if she’s a protagonist of her best stories and remember she can give herself endless beginnings.

Inspired, Elle returns to NYC, where she buys the townhouse from Parker. She learns that he originally renovated the house for them to share. As she re-renovates it to make it her own—with Parker’s help—they rekindle their romance, and after a few months of dating, she proposes to him.