Let me start by saying that I was incredibly excited for this book! I read Flatshare by Beth O’Leary earlier this year and I absolutely LOVED it. I had some trouble getting into The Wakr Up Call and actually ended up putting it down, and having to come back to it. Once I got into it, I did enjoy the hallmark movie feel with the enemies to lovers storyline. It was easy to love Izzy Jenkins and her quirkiness and you were left rooting for her.

Overall if you are looking for a cute, light, hallmark style Christmas read, this may be the one for you.

Thank you Berkeley Publishing Group and NetGalley for this eARC.

3.5⭐️ Hotel receptionists Izzy and Lucas are tasked with finding the recipients of lost rings as a way to make enough money to keep the hotel afloat. Their bitter rivalry begins to shift, as these two must learn to work together if they have any hope of saving their beloved hotel.

I quickly became a Beth O’Leary fan after reading the Flat Share a few years ago, and now anxiously await each and every new release. This year, I was very excited that her newest just so happens to be a holiday book.

Overall, I think this book is really cute and perfect for the holidays. The backdrop of the hotel was so fun and I loved getting to know each of these quirky characters. The banter between rivals Izzy and Lucas was great and I enjoyed seeing their dynamic shift as the story continued.

My only issue was with the pacing of the story. It had a strong start and ending, but dragged quite a bit throughout the middle half. I had a hard time staying connected as they worked to unravel the ring mystery, and felt like it detracted from the romance, even while it ultimately brought them closer together.

ʀ ᴇ ᴀ ᴅ ɪ ғ ʏ ᴏ ᴜ ʟ ɪ ᴋ ᴇ :
• enemies to lovers
• workplace romance
• forced proximity
• hotel life
• quirky characters
• holiday romance

Thank you Berkley Romance and PRH Audio for my gifted copies.

The setting of the crumbling hotel during the holiday season adds a magical touch to the story. As Izzy and Lucas compete to return a collection of old wedding rings to their rightful owners, they discover their own love story unfolding. The plot is filled with humor, mishaps, and unexpected surprises that had me emotionally invested in their journey.

Izzy and Lucas's initial rivalry is palpable, but as they work together to save the hotel from financial ruin, their relationship takes a heartwarming turn. The transformation from adversaries to partners is beautifully portrayed, and you can't help but root for them.

The concept of returning lost wedding rings adds a delightful twist to the plot. It's not just about rescuing the hotel; it's also about reuniting couples with cherished memories. The story explores the idea that sometimes, unexpected challenges can lead to the most meaningful connections.

Beth O'Leary's writing is engaging and filled with genuine emotion. The characters are relatable, and their personal growth throughout the book is both touching and inspiring. You'll find yourself cheering for Izzy and Lucas, not only in their quest to save the hotel but also in their journey to find love and happiness.

While I thoroughly enjoyed "The Wake-Up Call," I gave it 4 stars because there were moments when the plot felt a bit predictable.

This authors previous books have been hits and misses for me but I just loved this one! I adored the characters and loved the plot. So many great side characters too!

Very much a Hallmark romance, which isn't my cup of tea, but this one will have its readers for sure and is good for readers advisory.

First scene- OUCH! Like imagining that happen to you is yikes! So the book grabs you from the start. While I found some of it charming, the back and forth banter starts to wear a bit thin by the middle. Lucas reminded me of Roy Kent. Am I alone in that image? The ending is sweet and satisfying so I’m glad to have stuck with it.

Make no mistake, every cliched trope lives in this one. But it’s a cute holiday read and entertaining enough.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Romance for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't sure about this book when I started it but as I continued reading I got more and more interested in Lucas and Izzy. They were so sweet and fun. Watching Lucas loosen up and Izzy realizing she didn't hate him was great.

The characters are great. The story interesting as they try to save the hotel and avoid love. Their story was so long resolving that one had to keep reading to find out if they got their happily ever after. I liked the pacing , the plot and as mentioned the characters (both major and minor).

Thanks to the author and publisher for the ARC.

If a book is marketed as enemies to lovers, you bet I'll be reading it!

There was a few things I really loved about this book. More specifically the MMC Lucas, who was a grump with a big heart and a secret softie. The banter between Lucas and Izyy was also funny and I liked the email format of the book too! They're both exhausted, hurt, and struggling characters who are very misunderstood. I also loved the hotel setting and all the customers and sweet moments we get.

There were also parts I didn't love or just couldn't connect with. The book heavily relies on miscommunication and not talking to each other but instead just assuming things. It was fine in the beginning but got old fast. I also didn't love the "ring" storyline.

Overall, this was precious and sweet and I definitely recommend it to anywho looking for a semi festive read!

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC <3

Review will be posted on 10/12/23

Izzy and Lucas both work as concierges at the Forest Manor Hotel in southern England. They don't work well together, thanks to an issue they had last Christmas. Izzy wrote Lucas a letter confessing her feelings for him, and he promptly kissed her roommate. Cue the awkwardness and the resentment from Izzy. Since then, she has avoided him until the hotel assigned them both the same task of going through the lost property room and selling the items to raise money. The hotel is going bankrupt and selling the items is their only hope to not only save the hotel but also their jobs. They find a lot of junk, but then they come across five wedding rings. Izzy reunites one of the rings with its owner and receives a hefty reward. Let the competition begin! As they spend more time together, readers can't help but hope they get past the miscommunication from last Christmas and take a chance on love. Beth O'Leary's The Wake-Up Call is a delightful rom-com that would be perfect to snuggle up with this holiday season.


I really enjoyed the relationship between Izzy and Lucas in The Wake-Up Call. I liked their witty banter and their backstory, especially as readers find out what actually happened between them last Christmas. O'Leary has a way of making her romances feel like such a fun rom-com, the kind with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Just like the older rom-com I grew up with, her books are charming, have cute settings, and will sure to make you laugh. Needless to say, I was rooting for Izzy, Lucas, and even the charming hotel.


That leads me to the setting of Forest Manor Hotel. I absolutely adored it! I stayed at a hotel in southern England once and I still daydream about it. O'Leary brought it to life beautifully and there were many holiday moments in The Wake-Up Call, which would make this a great read for the fall and upcoming holiday season.



Are you a fan of Beth O'Leary's novels? Is The Wake-Up Call on your fall TBR list? Let me know in the comments below.

I very much enjoyed this latest Beth O'Leary title! A dual-POV workplace enemies-to-lovers? Yes, that's the good stuff. I loved Izzy, I loved Lucas, and I loved the whole cast of characters working with them at the hotel. I could even tolerate the fact that our lovely leads are enemies because of a miscommunication. This book wasn't heavy the way The Road Trip and The No-Show were, and I loved it all the more because of that. If you've enjoyed any of O'Leary's other books (specifically The Flatshare), or if at any point in your romance journey you read and enjoyed The Hating Game, I think this will scratch that itch quite nicely.

Izzy and Lucas work at a hotel and have a complicated relationship. Last year, Izzy confessed her romantic feelings in a card and he ignored it. They don't often work during the same shift but when the hotel needs renovations and suffers financially, they are forced to work shifts together. In an effort to recoup money, Izzy and Lucas go through the lost and found items, hoping to sell them. When Izzy finds 5 wedding rings, her goal is to reunite them to their owners. As Izzy and Lucas compete to reunite the rings, they get to know each other better.

A cute rom com, Izzy and Lucas work together and seem to hate each other. Due to a misunderstanding, they spend a year arguing and being nasty to each other until they realize they have feelings for each other. The miscommunication is drawn out a little bit too long, but the setting of the hotel and the secondary characters added to the story. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Oh my gosh I love Beth O’Leary and this book was too cute! It had me hooked and I didn’t wanna put it down!

Another fun and sweet romance from Beth O'Leary. It will have you laughing and swooning in equal measure.

This was good! It was like an updated The Hating Game by Sally Thorne, but better. I thought that the hotel was such a great setting and I loved the cast of characters there. It was so sweet and a great read.

I really enjoyed this book - the enemies to lovers plotline really worked for me.

Izzy is a perky, enthusiastic holiday elf that you can’t help but love. The enemies to lovers banter made the book really fun. I could tell Lucas was pining and agonizing over Izzy and loved that part of the story.

Although Izzy and Lucas are the stars of the story, the other characters who were staying at the hotel provide some colorful backdrop to the setting of Forest Manor Hotel.

4.5 rounded up

I had a fun time reading this book… but most of it was just ok.

The romance was cute, they had a lot of chemistry together. However, there was way too much miscommunication for me. So many problems in this book would have been solved (including her hatred for him) if there was less miscommunication. I know it was to add conflict towards the end of the book, but I think it was overdone.

The setting was very unique, I’m not sure if I’ve read any books that are set at a hotel during Christmas. I also enjoyed the plot, but I don’t really understand why they would return the rings. One person gave them a large amount of money, so that’s enough reason to try to find the owners of all the other rings?? I think that selling the rings would have gotten them way more money, especially the ones with jewels on them.

This was definitely a cute holiday romance, but I had some issues with the plot and romance aspects of the novel.

Oh, Beth O’Leary, I love your books. I have been a fan ever since I read The Flat Share. I was over the moon when I got approved to read this! The Wake-Up Call had all the things I liked. Grumpy and Sunshine. Witty banter. Hate to love. I loved the chemistry between Lucas and Izzy. Of course, it wasn’t all about the romance. I enjoyed reading about why they cared so much about the hotel, their family and coworkers, and their backstories.
Now, to be fair in my review, I didn’t like the pacing. I felt it had been slow to start. The plot didn’t pick up until about halfway. However, the ending was sweet and made me feel cosy. Overall, I enjoyed it and would recommend it to others.

Beth O’Leary’s The Wake-Up Call is a pleasant enough read (a cleverer choice of title than at first appears, btw), despite carrying recent romance trends I don’t enjoy, first-person present-tense narration and closed-bedroom scenes. Truth be told, there’s a trend in romance, like the Center I read this summer, that reminds me of the chicklit years: first person narration, rom-com vibes, pixie-girl heroines, and physical humour. It’s fine and I enjoyed The Wake-Up Call for the most part, but this trend lacks the genre’s intimacy (and not because the bedroom door is closed); rather there’s so much going on, so much of the cute, so convoluted the plot, and the romance is buried in there, embedded, not primary.

O’Leary’s romance trope is enemies-to-lovers; her premise, unique and compelling, if contrived. The publisher’s blurb will fill in the details:

Two hotel receptionists—and arch-rivals—find a collection of old wedding rings and compete to return them to their owners, discovering their own love story along the way.

It’s the busiest season of the year, and Forest Manor Hotel is quite literally falling apart. So when Izzy and Lucas are given the same shift on the hotel’s front desk, they have no choice but to put their differences aside and see it through.

The hotel won’t stay afloat beyond Christmas without some sort of miracle. But when Izzy returns a guest’s lost wedding ring, the reward convinces management that this might be the way to fix everything. With four rings still sitting in the lost & found, the race is on for Izzy and Lucas to save their beloved hotel—and their jobs.

As their bitter rivalry turns into something much more complicated, Izzy and Lucas begin to wonder if there’s more at stake here than the hotel’s future. Can the two of them make it through the season with their hearts intact?

If there’s one thing I give O’Leary it’s her funny grumpy-sunshine pairing. Izzy refers to Lucas as Robot-Man and he’s always side-eying her sunshiny ways: “THE HOTEL IS SWARMING WITH FIREFIGHTERS. IZZY IS BEING unprofessionally flirtatious with one of the particularly handsome ones. I am in a very bad mood.” Lucas is staccato-blunt and scowly. It’s amusing as Izzy and Lucas verbally spar, banter, and take digs at each other. Izzy flits, flirts, charms, and hugs; Lucas scowls and digitizes the hotel’s booking system. She glues his mouse to the front-desk and he neatly arranges everything in her snack drawer.

O’Leary takes stock romance characters, grumpy-sunshine, and uses their “stock” as a mask to hide their vulnerabilities. She uses the romance narrative to slowly let the masks drop revealing their true selves to each other. The catalyst is their physical attraction. We learn that Izzy runs with carpe diem because she lost her parents. What else is there but to live for the moment, given life’s fragility? She collects friends to stave off the loneliness. Being with the sombre, serious Lucas sees her question her need to constantly be on the social scene. Lucas, in turn, lost his father when he was young; saw his family, sister and mother, be beholden to a harsh uncle-brother-in-law, is hyper-conscious that security and stability are the most important qualities to live by. Izzy helps him loosen up, tell his story, and yearn. Yearning suits Lucas. Teasing each other mercilessly makes for a funny first half, but getting to know each other upends their assumptions.

What didn’t work? O’Leary’s romance drags on with many secondary characters: the hotel guests, the loveable owners, Lucas’s family, Izzy’s many friends, but the worst of it is the narrative’s episodic nature. The romance is central sometimes and at times, it isn’t; least appealing is how the romance hinges on a misunderstanding. Oh no, the Big Mis: she is here. Nevertheless, there is tenderness to Lucas and Izzy falling for each. And they’re lovely people: they admit to the other’s qualities and grow to love them. The Big Mis carries them along for too long, but their declaration is magnificent, reminiscent of quite the Christmas movie. Then, this baby goes on and on and on…there’s even an HEA to the HEA. Miss Austen and I agree, Beth O’Leary’s The Wake-Up Call is “almost pretty,” Northanger Abbey.

Beth O’Leary’s The Wake-Up Call is published by Berkley and was released on Sept. 26. I received an e-galley, via Netgalley, from Berkley. This does not impede the free expression of my opinion.

An enemies-to-lovers romance that' s full of sparkle and sparks!

Beth O’Leary’s books are always full of quirky, offbeat characters and situations, and The Wake-Up Call is another treat. While there are some more serious plot elements about family loss, grief, and mourning, the overall tone is cute and full of humor, and the chemistry between Izzy and Lucas simply sparkles.

The Wake-Up Call is a great pick for when you’re looking for something light and cheerful, and would also make a terrific choice when the winter holidays roll around.

Smiles guaranteed! Don’t miss it.