This is one of my most anticipated releases of the year and I’m sad to say that I’m a little disappointed. I think the story had so much wonderful potential, but it wasn’t fully flushed out. I’m not too sure on the main couple and I don’t really feel like they had that much chemistry. I also really disliked the main love interest, and thought that he never really had a redeeming quality throughout the book. The big reveal was also handled a little poorly and wasn’t super believable. I did, however, really enjoy Jonathan‘s family and just their presence. At times they were a little too much, but I think they brought enough comedy into the book to make it work. I’m sure some people will love this book but it’s just not the book for me.

I adore Alexis Hall. If Alexis Hall writes a new book, I'm reading it.

Want to know why?

Because Alexis Hall never misses.

And this one is a perfect 10.

Imagine if you were a home goods store manager, just doing your best to keep your store afloat, just a good guy with an adequate job in an inadequate store with good but sometimes inept help. (If you've seen the Kinky Boots musical, that visual might be helpful.) That's main character Sam.

Imagine a very minor accident, a boss who is as hot as he is grumpy, and a bit of faked injury. And Sam's equally grumpy cat.

Oh, and it's almost Christmas. (Trust me, the scene unloading the tree is worth it.)

I think what I love most about an Alexis Hall book is the dialogue. From witty banter to heartfelt gushing to quippy sniping and ordinary conversion, the author makes the characters come to life in the pages, while their flaws stay flaws but make them better together.

"You're the kind of person who would be a serial killer. That suggests to me that you might have a bit of an image problem."
"Serial killers can be very charismatic."
"Shut up and finish your chicken."
"Excuse me, I'm your boss."
"Shut up and finish your chicken, sir."

Also, I sobbed. I can't help it. Alexis Hall has that effect, as usual.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with an ARC!

3 stars!

I really liked how this was written and the author’s note about the Liverpool accent!!

The story itself I really enjoyed, especially about finding yourself after loss and the amnesia story trope is something I will always eat up even if it’s real or fake haha

The ending felt a little rushed but I did enjoy this!!!

Clearly you know by page 1 exactly how this book is going to end, but it is still fun to go along for the ride. Sam hates his grumpy boss Jonathan and when he's called into London for a talking-to that he fears will lead to either him and/or his team getting fired, a series of mishaps leads to Sam's living with Jonathan while recovering from a concussion. Add in some crazy but lovable family members (actually, a lot of them - a family tree might have helped me to keep track of them all) and some crazy co-workers and you have a quick read.

NOTE: Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Fabulous banter. Truncated backstory.


This is the first amnesia/fake amnesia romance I’ve read and I am not sure if the trope is for me. Other than something about this trope grating at me, I feel that Sam’s story wasn’t given the proper incubation it deserved because Sam is a great, empathetic, character who I wanted to know more about.

I LOVED the dialogue between Sam and Jonathan and found myself laughing out loud several times. The Forest family is a chaotic delight. If you have a big, nosy, noisy family like I do, you’ll see your family reflected back at you. If you don’t have a family like this, you’ll still understand how deeply frustrating and annoying they are.

I thought the romance was a little hasty to develop. Yes, there were signs observed by the narrator but it still felt like we went from 0 to 100 in 5 sentences. Jonathan does deliver some quality, swoon worthy lines though.

I liked 10 Things That Never Happened.
I love the Christmas-y vibes and enemies to lovers always makes my heart happy. I believe the character developments could have been a bit better but other than that the story was really amazing.

4.25. I'm always surprised by how much I end up liking Alexis Hall's books, and not because I necessarily think I'm going to have a bad time. He just tends to come up with the most silly setups for a plot that I think surely, surely this isn't actually going to be <i>good.</i> But it's actually...pretty good?

For spoiler reasons I won't get into specific details, as this was an e-ARC I received, but basically we follow Sam Becker, a 20-something man who manages a bed/bath store that isn't doing too well. The boss is a dick, conflict ensues, and Sam ends up faking amnesia after an accident in order to buy himself more time to sort things out. What follows is the most goofy sequence of events ever, in which somehow Alexis Hall made me care a lot about the fate of these two very argumentative gay men.

I think the reason that this story works is that it doesn't rely as heavily as you might think it would on the whole amnesia thing. There's a great amount of substance and exposition that really helps flesh out these main characters, even if the side characters suffer a bit from the lack of attention. Some might argue that there's a whole lot of filler crap, but I would justify it by saying that it helped me to actually care about what was going to happen and <i>how</i> it was going to happen.

My biggest criticisms are probably that the timeline is way too fast, as well as the conflict climax and resolution. I can maybe excuse the former, as this is technically a Christmas-themed romance and those tend to get fast tracked on account of the quickness of the season, but the latter was a bit disappointing. I think I just wish that the resolution was drawn out a little bit more, given some more time for things to ruminate. I didn't hate it, though, and it's always cool to see two seemingly very different characters come together and realize they have a lot more in common that they thought. Overall, very fun and silly read. I think fans of Alexis Hall's other works (especially fans of the <i>Boyfriend Material</i> series) will really love this one.

Huge thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for allowing me early access to this ARC!

Voici une romance de Noël toute douce !
Sam est un (mauvais) manager et doit confronter son patron, Jonathan Forest, sur les mauvais chiffres du magasin. Alors qu'il est en train d'être licencié, Sam tombe et se prend une vitre de salle de bain sur la tête... Une commotion et quelques malentendus plus tard, Sam prétend être amnésique et part vivre chez Jonathan. Mais comment la cohabitation évoluera-t-elle ?
Dans la même veine que ses précédents romans Boyfriend Material et Husband Material, ce livre est une lecture agréable et franchement drôle ! Toujours avec un trope ennemies to lovers, cette fois dans l'univers du travail !

Ahahaa omg an actual amnesia plotline, what did I actually even read just now? Except, it's not actually amnesia. Move over fake!dating. It is now 2023 and it's time to make way for fake!amnesia!

Sam is pretty much a pushover, which is a bit of a problem given he's a store manager of a bed and bath stuffs kinda store. He's also got some of the least reliable staff members that have ever been described in a book, the kind of people that everyone has worked with at least once in their lives. They're very relatable and, sadly, Sam has gotten a bit too attached to them to be impartial.

This becomes a problem when his boss and the owner of the franchise, advises him that he's not hitting targets and they will have to cut some of the staff. In a meeting where Sam is summoned to London, he's basically fired because he stands his ground.

It was actually incredibly difficult in these early chapters to see who the love interest was going to be. We had been introduced only to the store workers, who were under Sam, and then this true asshole of a boss. There were no other characters. So, either this was the longest lead in to finding the romantic interest, or one of these characters had to be the one.

And then Sam falls through a shower door just as Jonathan, his boss, is firing him. And shortly after, the whole trajectory changes. Because Jonathan, knowing he's a bit of an asshole, is worried that Sam is going to sue him. And Sam, given the opening by the A&E doctor, pretends to have amnesia.

Given he has no family and precious few friends (none that don't work for him), Sam is placed into Jonathan's care. And that, my friends, is where the magic begins to happen.

This is the slowest of burns, but uniquely satisfying for all of that. There's a bit of Christmas fun in there too, though it doesn't appear to be marketed expressly as a Christmas book.

I'm rating this books two stars. The story had so much potential but it just did not work out. Let me explain:

First of all, the characters: Sam is said to e the nice one, and Jonathan the asshole or dick (as is often said in the book, will come back to this later). But in reality these characters were both assholes, who were so immature. And Sam's jokes really were mean very often.

The the writing, I loved how quickly it read, and the Lord of The Rings references were nice, but the amount of swearing in this books was putting me off. It felt unnecessary and did not add to the story. Also Jonathan was continiously described like an asshole or dick. I lost count how often that happened. It just made me wonder if there was really no other way to describe this character and his moods. It could have been said less or in a different way to get the message across to the reader.

And then finally about the story in general. The first thing I want to say about this is that the ending was too hurried. I think it would have been better if the amnesia issue had been cleared up earlier in the book. Because now it just made it all feel so hurried and not finished.
Also I enjoyed the moments Jonathan and Sam were so cute together, but was it realistic to me? No, it all moved to quickly and sudden.

I really wad looking forward to reading this book but it simply wasn't what I think it could have, and should have been.

This book is the queer version of that trope where character A is super into Business and Work and character B is a lot more down-to-earth. Due to some peculiar circumstances these two characters are brought together and while surrounded by family hijinx and the Christmas spirit one thing leads to another and....

Well, I won't spoil the rest!

However, I will tell you that this book was beautiful. We don't know much about Sam throughout the book - partly because he is pretending to have amnesia and partly because he's hiding a lot about himself. The little hints to Sam's story are scattered throughout and when the end comes and everything becomes clear and we understand /why/ Sam is the way that he is.

So much of this novel is about finding yourself after loss. Sam may be faking amnesia but he had actually forgotten who he was - and having him find himself again at the end was so beautiful.

Ultimately there is something so healing in this book - like Boyfriend Material, this book is a warm cup of tea on a cold winter's night, a treasured ornament on a Christmas tree, and a chaotic fry up for the whole family. (Alexis Hall loves an emotionally significant fry-up and I think I'm now let down by romances without any mention of healing breakfast food)

I highly, highly recommend a read.

I don’t know if this is being advertised as a Christmas book? It should be. Super cute Christmas romcom. With a sunshine manager-Sam, that has to go in for an evaluation with his grumpy unlikeable boss- Jonathan when things don’t go well and Sam ends up getting fired right before a fall and gets a head injury. He maybe then fakes amnesia to get his boss to change his mind about firing him.

This was fun. So funny with a ton of loveable characters and familial drama I wasn’t expecting.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for an eARC.

This book is witty and heartfelt and the banter is top tier. I loved the grumpy/sunshine vibes and the ways each character was revealed to us.

Decently enjoyable read but not my favorite :(

I enjoyed the family dynamic but a lot of times it was too much and took away from the MCs actually building chemistry.

10 things that never happened is a cute grumpy/sunshine written book, it gave major hints of Christmas, it’s well written but could be improved in certain parts

This was a cute little Christmas-y romp! I felt like Sam's character develpoment/background could have been a little stronger, but I loved the almost slow-burn nature of the relationship, as well as the genuine enemies to lovers aspect.

Thanks @netgalley @sourcebookscasa and Alexis Hall for the chance to read an ARC of Ten Things That Never Happened. It’s out on October 17, 2023.

If you loved Boyfriend Material, then you’ll love this book too. Alexis Hall has such an incredible voice and his writing just zings on the page. I always laugh out loud reading his work.

Sam Becker is a manager at a bed and bath store. He gets called into the headquarters by his dickish boss Jonathan Forest who tells him that he has to cut expenses and fires him before Sam accidentally gets a head injury (trust me—it works) and fakes amnesia (okay, I know we are getting far fetched here, but it works) and decides to move in with Jonathan Forest in order to make him see reason and keep his job and protect his employees. What started as a little lie gets more complicated as they start to get to know each other and develop feelings. I found myself rooting for both of them throughout the book and their HEA is hard won.

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Steam: 🔥
Tropes: amnesia, forced proximity, boss/employee, holiday

I absolutely adore Alexis Hall. They wrote beautifully, their books are always full of humor, their characters are always so well fleshed-out and charming. However, the plot of this one is a miss for me. I absolutely LOVED it until the amnesia part and the ends didn’t justify the means for me. I can suspend my disbelief but this was a little too much even for me.

No matter, I will read anything by Alexis Hall so I look forward to the next. Can’t wait to see what they come up with!

Thank you to Sourcebooks for the ARC!

I thoroughly enjoyed this sweet and funny romcom. Set in the Boyfriend Material universe, Sam is the manager of a branch of Splashes & Snuggles, a bed and bath chain store. He places more importance on caring for his found family of store staff than on profits, which lands him in hot water with the company owner. Jonathan calls Sam to the flagship store for a lesson in management, but when Sam gets a concussion, he makes the impulsive decision to fake amnesia to distract Jonathan from firing his team. With no other choices, Jonathan brings Sam home to watch over him as he heals.

Jonathan was a difficult character to like at first, but this was a persistent grumpy/sunshine pairing that paid off in the end. I loved watching the two of them slowly develop a friendship that eventually turned into more, although the relationship was less sparks-flying and more like a cozy radiator warming up the room. Sam brings warmth to Jonathan’s life and helps him appreciate his boisterous family, which was heartwarming.

I usually don’t enjoy it when characters keep secrets from each other, so I thought I wouldn’t like Sam’s amnesia deception, but this worked for me. His mistake was understandable and his desire to protect his team was admirable. His background remained a mystery for much of the book which added to the amnesia-ish atmosphere, and the reveal was masterfully done which gave me all the feelings.

All in all, this was lovely and although the Boyfriend Material connection was loose at best (Jonathan went to school with Luc) it gave me a good idea of what to expect from this book. Steam level was low/medium, just barely open door but not graphic.

Thank you so much Sourcebooks Casablanca for approving my request! One of my most anticipated reads this year!

This one I can describe as charming and achingly slow burn romance that Alexis Hall just hits right.

I am a huge fan of Alexis Hall and I really highly recommend to give this one a go as I enjoyed it as much as Boyfriend Material!