Delightful second chance romance from an author who never misses--wonderful holiday rom, I just adored it.

The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary is a lovely romcom perfect for getting you in the holiday spirit. Thank you to @berkelypub for an e-arc and to @prhaudio for the free audiobook.

Izzy and Lucas have been rivals at the Forest Manor Hotel ever since a misunderstanding last holiday season, but they this year the hotel is close to going out of business. They have to work together to save the place they both love. After Izzy gets a reward for returning a wedding ring from the lost and found, she and Lucas make bets on who can locate the owners of other lost rings.

I generally love Beth O’Leary’s books, and this was no exception. The story is told in the alternating POVs of Izzy and Lucas, and they were both super endearing, deceptively deep characters. The plot wasn’t as twisty as her last book, but it was a delightful, cozy read with a lot of laugh out loud moments and a slow burn getting to an end I was dying to reach.

The backstory is built on a big bit of miscommunication that had me screaming at the two characters to just talk to each other about it, but I get how it could happen and the resolution and why it happened was ultimately really satisfying and something I didn’t predict. I also wondered why the hotel hadn’t tried to return the wedding rings when they were originally found. It seemed like it would have been much easier to do when the guests were fresh in the staff’s mind, but this is a minor point.

Ultimately, I loved this one because of the rich characters—even supporting players got lovely arcs, the witty writing and banter, the themes of found family, and the pining. Oh my goodness the pining was amazing.
The audiobook was delightful. It was really easy to get wrapped up in the story when the performances of both narrators were so great, and there accents grounded me immediately with a sense of place.

I’d definitely recommend this one to romcom fans, especially the British variety.

Izzy was developing feelings for her co-worker Lucas however when her attempts to reach out to him went awry she will be polite while they are working but that is where it ends. With the hotel in financial trouble and in jeopardy of closing down Izzy is determined to do what she can to help even if it means working with Lucas on an unlikely project to reunite lost rings with their owners.

Lucas isn’t sure how the situation escalated to the point where they can barely co-exist however he is willing to put that aside for the sake of the hotel. As they find themselves spending time together on a unique project it will force them to not only face the past but the escalating feelings between them as well.

The premise of this story is unique and is the perfect mix of fun and feelings. I enjoyed seeing them evolve from each others nemesis to working as a team and seeing each other for who they are and not just the one event that created the distance between them.

So this is painful for me to write.
I absolutely love Beth O'Leary.
I just didn't love this book.
I almost DNF'd a few times because I simply wasn't enjoying it.
I kept pushing through telling myself - this is going to get better.
I didn't find the characters to be interesting and I wasn't invested in their romance.

I did enjoy the dual POV.
The Setting. I loved the hotel and that the MC's wanted to save it.
The premise of this book was very promising.

Al of that being said I still very much look forward to the next Beth O'Leary. Her books are usually a hit for me.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Pub for my gifted copy. ❤

The Wake-Up Call is another fantastic romcom from Beth O’Leary. It’s an enemies-to-lovers workplace romance, with ridiculous levels of sexual tension and some great humour. It’s my favourite Beth book since The Flatshare, which is high praise indeed!

Lucas and Izzy work at the Forest Manor Hotel, and they hate each other. Or, they think they do. This hate provides many a humorous scene, not to mention some truly leg-kicking chemistry. I loved Lucas and Izzy, and I really enjoyed learning more about them as their stories progressed. I was rooting for them right from the start, which should indicate just how likeable they are.

The hotel setting is fascinating and entertaining in equal measure, and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting all the quirky characters who work and stay there. It’s like a character in itself, and it’s integral to Izzy and Lucas’s lives. It also allows for a couple of brilliant sub-plots, involving lost wedding rings and smarmy investor guests. What more could a romcom need?!

I recommend The Wake-Up Call if you like enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, only one bed (yesss), a snowy wintery setting, memorable characters, and a swoon worthy romance. Existing fans of Beth O’Leary will find everything they’ve come to expect from her books, and new readers will hopefully find another favourite author to add to their shelves.

4.5/5.

Beth O'Leary's books never fail to tug at my heartstrings, and this was no exception. I absolutely loved this! The concept of returning lost wedding rings to their owners made for such a romantic setting, and adding in the fact that it was enemies to lovers was the cherry on top. Their chemistry was amazing from page 1, and getting to see Izzy and Lucas slowly realize their feelings for each other was super satisfying. I can't wait to read whatever Beth puts out next!

4.5 Stars

At first this one was a bit of a slow read for me. I don’t know if it was the facts that I just started school again and couldn’t plow through the book as quickly as before, or if it was because my brain kept thinking “is this the hating game???” Either way, it quickly picked up and once I got to know our two main leads better, I was sold.

The Wake-Up Call (which at first I was like “wow, that title is kind of loosely related to hotels, but omg the end and 😍) was an incredibly well told romance between two people who have more than just different personalities…they both have trauma that has given their already strong personalities an edge that the other cannot stand.

There was a lot of miscommunication in this book and normally I hate that in a trope, but it worked and I’m not sure if that’s because I just let it go or if it was Beth’s intention in making the male lead Brazilian so there was a bit of a language curve that allowed for it. We had a competition between the two to save their beloved hotel and a LOT of tension.

The dual POV (and dual narrators who were PERFECTION on audio) was a delight and I love when we get in the male leads head.

If you haven’t added this to your TBR, do it! I think it’s the perfect book to read as we head into the cozy winter months. And if you have the opportunity to listen, pick up the audio! I truly loved that version.

I’ll confess that I was a little nervous going into The Wake-Up Call. Workplace romance is not typically my favorite trope, but I love Beth O’Leary’s writing and wanted to see how she would approach it. I’m so glad I gave the book a chance too because it turned out to be such a wonderful and heartwarming read for me.

When we first meet Izzy, we can tell right away that she is not a fan of Lucas, her coworker at the Forest Manor Hotel, and that he doesn’t appear to be a fan of hers either. They are a classic grumpy-sunshine duo and they have a fierce rivalry, always trying to one-up the other. Additionally, there appears to be some history between them. Well, it turns out that Izzy used to have a major crush on Lucas and poured her feelings for him out into a letter that was delivered to him at last year’s Christmas party and invited him to meet her under the mistletoe. Something clearly went wrong for her feelings to have taken a drastic turn, and I was dying to find out what, especially since it’s so clear that the two of them have major chemistry between them no matter how much they are trying to pretend they don’t. When they learn the hotel is in trouble and might not make it, Izzy and Lucas are forced to work together to try to save it.

I loved the direction this story took as soon as Izzy and Lucas teamed up. They are tasked with helping to sell off some items, including what’s in their lost property room, to raise funds for hotel repairs. While completing the task, they come across a collection of wedding rings that have been lost there over the years. Both Izzy and Lucas are competitive at heart and make a little wager as to who can find and return the rings to their rightful owners. The romantic in me became very invested in seeing these rings returned to their owners. The ring competition was probably my favorite part of the story as the banter between Izzy and Lucas starts to shift from snarky to playful, and you can just tell their feelings for one another are starting to shift as well. While some of the story is focused on more dramatic and emotional themes, this ring challenge gave all the rom com vibes and was so much fun to read!

I also really loved the whole vibe of the hotel. It’s clearly an important place to both Izzy and Lucas for different reasons and they have both come to think of it as home rather than just a place of employment. Their attachment to the place added a sentimental touch to the story and had me rooting for them to save the hotel as much as I was rooting for them to work through their issues and find their way to a happily ever after together.

I alternated between the e-book and the audiobook for this one and really enjoyed both formats. The audiobook is narrated by Jessie Cave and Lino Facioli and they both do such an incredible job of capturing the chemistry between Izzy and Lucas.

If you’re looking for a laugh out loud funny story that is also quite moving, be sure to check out The Wake-Up Call.

Izzy and Lucas both work the reception desk at the Forest Manor Hotel. This season, after a collapse of the upper floor, the hotel is starting to show its age. The pandemic also brought a lot of hardship for the boutique hotel and this upcoming holiday season may very well be its last.

Well, not if Izzy and Lucas have anything to say about it. The two fight like cats and dogs but they can both agree that Forest Manor is like family and they won't let it go down without a fight. Doing everything they can, they begin to sell off any extra items the hotel has acquired over the years, including tackling the lost-and-found room. But when Izzy stumbles upon a box containing people's lost rings, she's determined that they find their rightful owners. After one such owner gifts the hotel with a reward for the return of the rings, everyone else gets on board with trying to find the other owners with hopes of similar outcomes.

Of course, this is the perfect opportunity for Izzy and Lucas to engage in a little competition, but as the hotel cannot afford to hire extra help at the moment, Izzy and Lucas find themselves working nearly every shift together and also find that maybe they've been operating on the wrong impression with one another.

I think this is my favorite book by Beth O'Leary to date. I found it very fun and quirky. It's like the feeling of a small-town romance, but with the hotel standing in for the small-town part and with the bonus of it taking place during the upcoming holiday season. It checks all the boxes.

Even though I figured there's more to the story than readers realize after we understand the setup of Izzy and Lucas's disdain for one another , I was still absolutely glued to the page watching them try really hard to stubbornly avoid their feelings for one another. I like the idea that truly Izzy and Lucas are two different people who do things differently, but that doesn't make either of them wrong, and sometimes their strengths fill in the other's weakness. So they're a perfect pair for one another. Seeing how they each interact within the hotel and how the job and the co-workers mean something different to each of them - but they are all still essentially found-family - was one of the best parts of the book.

I thought the Beth O'Leary did a great job of making the book about Izzy and Lucas but also equally making it about the hotel. Because no matter how far you get into their relationship there is still this looming cloud of potential closure over the entire story as the clock winds down to the New Year.

I think it's one of the more straightforward books I've read by Beth O'Leary. The idea of the rings is catching, but it's not as big of a hook as some of her previous books. But I'm good with that. I sat down with this book and I wanted to be friends with Izzy, I wanted to also work at the Forest Manor Hotel, and I could feel the snap, crackle, and pop of chemistry between Izzy and Lucas jump off the page, they absolutely simmered. Such a comfort read, I'm sad that it had to end, I could have just kept reading this book infinitely.

If you're looking for a feel-good story leading into the holiday seasons, I don't think you need to look further than The Wake-Up Call.

Beth O’Leary’s books are so good. If you haven’t read any of them, go get one right now. My favorite was The Road Trip. Her newest is called The Wake-Up Call and it was just published!

Here’s what you need to know:

It’s the busiest season of the year, and Forest Manor Hotel is 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?

You have to read this book, especially if you are burnt out on heavier fiction like thrillers and historical novels. This was a much-needed light story that was the perfect read for an afternoon. Even if you aren’t into romance or women’s fiction, READ IT NOW!

I always enjoy a good enemies to love and O’Leary does a great job with it! Izzy and Lucas both work at the gorgeous Forest Manor Hotel but they are also enemies.
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They can’t stand each other but when they are forced to work together to go through the hotels lost and found, while trying to find a solution to saving the hotel they find their own love story. This is a cute one and I could totally see it playing out as a movie!
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Huge thank you to @berkleypub @berittalksbooks @thephdivabooks @dg_reads @prhaudio and @netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Crushes to rivals to lovers is honestly underrated. Lucas and Izzy are both people who are adrift, who've experienced loss, and let it shape who they are and how they approach the world. It's made them into two very different people. Lucas is reserved, controlled, ambitious but ultimately trying to do the right thing. Izzy wants to grab every scrap of life possible and enjoy it because it's precious, and can be gone in a moment. Both of them are exhausted. After an unpleasant event at the previous year's holiday party, the two spend the next year constantly sniping at each other and undermining one another.

Then the hotel where they work is at risk of going out of business, and in the course of trying to sell unclaimed property they come across wedding rings. It becomes Izzy's goal to return them to their owners, and Lucas turns it into a competition.

It brings them closer in ways they never imagined. Lucas can no longer deny his feelings, and Izzy is set on ignoring hers. It's extremely high tension with mostly closed door spice once it gets going. I absolutely melted reading from Lucas's perspective - he is SO emotional but has gotten so good at hiding it or denying himself the freedom of feeling it.

Overall, super cute, a little bit Christmassy, and a few solid laughs.

Last Christmas, Izzy confessed her crush on her coworker Lucas in a note, his response was to kiss her best friend right in front of her. After a year of having to work together, and barely getting along, Izzy and Lucas must team up to try to save their hotel, otherwise it might not be open past the New Year. When Izzy finds a collection of lost rings from over the years, she gets an idea that might save the hotel - she and Lucas team up and compete to reunite the lost rings with their original owners, and hope to save their jobs in the process.

I love Beth O’Leary’s characters and the stories she writes, and this one felt so special. Maybe it was the holiday adjacent setting, maybe it was the mystery of the rings, or even the magic of a quaint British hotel that needs to be saved, whatever it was, there was a magical and special feeling to this story that made it extra sweet and cozy. I didn’t love either character at first, but they grew on me, especially in the second half of the book. I also adored the side characters and felt they really made the story. Overall, this one was sweet and left me feeling all the warm fuzzy feelings.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for the advance copy.

3.5 Stars

Izzy and Lucas both work at the Forest Manor Hotel. Izzy definitely has feelings towards Lucas and decides to put it all on the line and send him a card inviting him for a kiss. She finds herself humiliated when Lucas kisses her roommate instead.

It’s the holiday season at the Forest Manor, and everyone is trying to keep the hotel afloat. Izzy and Lucas are now forced to work the front desk at the same time, which causes friction between them. Izzy is sweet and kind to all of the staff except Lucas, and it infuriates him that she can’t be that way with him. He doesn’t even know why she is angry with him.

At first, the story moves very slowly and doesn’t pick up until halfway through. The saving grace, in my eyes, is that we get both Lucas’s and Izzy’s POV. The readers are not just left to “hate” Lucas as in a typical enemies-to-lovers romance. In true romance fashion, this could have been avoided if she had told him what he did to offend her. Obviously, we need the tension to move the story along.

Lucas and Izzy have a lot in common. I love the banter between them. There are definitely a lot of pent-up emotions. The secondary characters at the hotel bring flavor to the holiday romance. They all had huge personalities. I really like that the holidays didn’t take over the story. I’m just not that ready to get into the holiday season yet.

The ending is a bit too rushed and tidy for me since the beginning dragged. I didn’t really care for the mystery of the rings. Yes, it was a nice way to draw Izzy closer to Lucas, but it bogged down the story. I would have also liked a little more spice in my romance.

Overall, this is just a light romance for fans of chick-lit.

~ Samantha

I enjoy a good enemies to lovers story set in the UK, especially during the holiday season. This one was extra special because both main characters are employees at a countryside hotel and it took me back to one of my first jobs in hospitality and reminded me why working at a hotel is fun and no doubt chaotic at times.

Izzy has had a crush on her Brazilian coworker Lucas for a while and at their hotel’s holiday party she decided to put herself out there and declare her feelings for him in a card. Lucas read the card, laughed out loud, and Izzy decided to hate him from there to eternity. But not before screaming at him in front of everyone.

Now a year later the hatred is still alive and well but the hotel is failing and both of them are worried about losing the jobs they love along with the found family they have with the other hotel employees. In order to save the hotel the owners decide to start selling items. Izzy comes across rings that were left behind and project RingThing takes off. Izzy makes it a competition with Lucas to find the original owners of the rings and return them. In the midst of this Izzy realizes that Lucas isn’t the jerk she saw at the holiday party last year and Lucas takes notice of Izzy and her kind heart.

As much as I dislike the miscommunication trope I will say that by the end of the story I really enjoyed it. Izzy and Lucas were so frustrating but once their truths were revealed I loved them individually and as a couple. Now I wish this was a holiday movie because I’d def watch it!

Many thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review. As this was my first book by Beth I'm looking forward to reading her other books.

I love a good Beth O'Leary book and this one did not let me down. Sometimes a problem that could of been solved if either love interest communicated would bug the hell out of me, but I loved Izzy and Lucas so much I just suspended belief for this one. It's got enemies to lovers, found family, the only one bed trope, and grumpy/sunshine. All of it put together just made for an instant must read!

3.5 stars because I guess the miscommunication bit did bug me just a smidge.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

Read if you like:
😤 Enemies to Lovers
🏨 Workplace Romances
💍 Forced Proximity
💋 Hooking up to More
⛅️ Grumpy x Sunshine
❤️ He Falls First
😆 Banter
🏠 Found Family
🔀 Opposites Attract

I absolutely love Beth O’Leary’s writing and how she writes with a depth that truly makes me feel like I know her characters.

I truly loved the set up with Lizzie having a crush on Lucas and writing him a note confessing her feelings to not turn around to see him kissing her roommate under the mistletoe at their work Christmas party and quickly turning to enemies because of that moment where Izzy took out her feelings of rejection on Lucas over the next work year by being absolutely a brat to him when their paths crossed at work.

Then, when the hotel falls upon hard times and they are forced to work together on shift as well as on a project to try to raise money to save their beloved workplace where they have found family in their coworkers and guests seeing their grumpy and sunshine demeanors clashing was quite the tension filled treat.

I also really loved the growth in their relationship and breaking down of their walls as they were forced to come together for a common goal.

Their love story was definitely a fun one and if you love all the tropes listed above, I highly recommend checking this one out!

Thank you Berkley for my ARC in exhange for my honest review!

3.5 stars

I work in a hotel so I was really excited to read this story set in one. I loved the setting of Forest Manor Hotel, and it sounds like a place I’d like to visit especially for the holidays. There was a sense of magic when O’Leary was describing the setting, and Christmas was the perfect time of year for this book.

Izzy was a delightful character, and I loved Lucas’s grumpy side. The competition between them was so much fun, and I enjoyed their chemistry. But, miscommunication is one of my least favorite tropes, and this book started with a misperception that didn’t get figured out or resolved until nearly the end of the book. Throw in a few other misunderstandings and this book was full of a trope I don’t enjoy.

I listened to the audiobook, and struggled with it. I don’t normally mind accents, and was fine with Jessie Cave as Izzy. Where I struggled was Lino Facioli’s accent. I get that Lucas was Brazilian and wanting to choose someone from Brazil to narrate his character, but I found him hard to understand at times. Normally when an accent is tough for me, I just slow the audiobook speed down, but that didn’t work for me so I recommend skipping the audio for this one if you have another format.

Overall, I loved the setting and enjoyed the competition aspect of the story, but not necessarily the romance between Izzy and Lucas. If they just communicated with each other I probably would have enjoyed this one a bit more.

Thank you Berkley Publishing, PRH Audio, and NetGalley for advanced copies in exchange for my honest review.

The Wake-Up Call might be my new fave of Beth O’Learys books. This was a damn delight. I love that her books have a good mix of fun light moments and emotional ones that have my heart in a chokehold.

Izzy Jenkins and Lucas da Silva both work at the Forest Manor Hotel at the front desk, usually on different shifts but when the hotel starts to have financial issues, they are both forced to work together at the same time. Izzy is a free-spirit type of person, while Lucas is more all about organization and rules. Their different personalities cause for many disagreements, especially after what happened last Christmas. When Izzy and Lucas start cleaning out the lost property room, they discover a container of rings....some expensive looking. Izzy decides she wants to try and track down the owners. When Izzy finds the first owner and they give her a reward, Lucas and Izzy decide they should try to find the rest of the owners because they may get more reward money to help the hotel. Of course these two have to make a contest out of finding the owners and that is when the fun begins. As Izzy and Lucas spend so much time competing with each other, they start to realize that maybe they see the other in a different light and feelings start to emerge. Once these two can finally get over the past, they find themselves in a real happy ever after.

I enjoyed this enemies to lovers story. Izzy was such a fun, sweet person. Lucas was the perfect type of man to offset Izzy carefree attitude. Together these two were so fun.