What Happens in Amsterdam

Author: Rachel Lynn Solomon  Title: What Happens in Amsterdam Publisher: Berkley Date Published: 05/06/2025

Read Dates: 04/10/2025- 04/11/2025
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

 📖 I received a gifted e-book ARC. The following is my honest review✍🏻

What Happens in Amsterdam is a single POV second-chance, marriage of convenience romance. When her life implodes, Dani impulsively applies for a job in Amsterdam and moves on a whim. There, she (literally) runs into her first love, Wouter, who once spent a year with her family as a foreign exchange student. The two realize that they can help each other out with a simple marriage of convenience; Dani will have the help she needs with her green card, and Wouter will be able to claim his inheritance. Surely, they can let the past stay in the past and be perfectly platonic, right? This was my second book from this author, and I loved it just as much. She does an amazing job with mental health representation (anxiety and depression), and the characters feel very real. I loved how Dani and Wouter reconnected, how it wasn’t all seamless, but they learned to be together again. Definitely recommend!

Dani Dorfman has somehow made it to her thirties without knowing what she wants to do with her life. So when an office romance ends poorly and gets her fired, she applies for a job in Amsterdam, idly dreaming of escaping the mess she’s created, but never imagining she'll actually get it.

Except she does. By the end of her first week in Amsterdam, she’s never felt more adrift or alone. Then she crashes her bike into her high school ex-boyfriend—and suddenly life is blooming with new opportunities.

Wouter van Leeuwen was a Dutch exchange student Dani’s family hosted, a forbidden love that ended in a painful breakup. Years later, there’s still sizzling chemistry between them, and okay, maybe a little animosity. More importantly, Wouter needs to be married to inherit a gorgeous family home on a canal—and when Dani's job falls apart, she needs a visa. As the marriage of convenience pushes them together in unexpected ways, Dani must decide whether her new life is yet another mistake—or if it's worth taking a risk on a second chance.