I truthfully loved every moment of this book! I went in a little hesitant or not fully sold just because I thought it would be a typical vacation romance, but I found it to be so much more. Work in Progress falls into my favorite brand of romance novel because it was an everything book, touching on topics and lessons that truly apply to every era and component of a full life. Alice's tour throughout the UK, the women she met, and the lessons she learned were enough to have me falling in love and her enemies to friends to lovers with Robbie was the perfect cherry on top. I know this might not be to everyone's taste, but I was also obsessed with how the plot revolved around a UK literary book tour. with so many references to classic novels, this book's writing style was whimsical, romantic, and dramatic just like a classic itself. It was very special to read a contemporary romance using words of the classics because it just helped romanticize the whole thing in a way that I really enjoyed. I read this book while on a staycation and the story genuinely took me with it and I felt like I was on the tour bus too, in fact, I'm slightly considering looking for a book tour myself! Overall his book is a brilliant, soft, romantic, and comfy tribute to literature and love.

Title:  Work in Progress
Author: Kat Mackenzie     
Genre: Romance        
Rating:  3.8

UK Bus Trip Goals:

1. Crawl out of pajamas.

2. Get over cheating bastard and his stupid ironed jeans.

3. Have my first real adventure!

4. Achieve stability, strength, and growth.

5. Definitely do NOT kiss any British men.

Alice loves a good list. But careful planning didn’t stop her from losing her job and her fiance in one fell swoop. With her dreaded 30th birthday looming on the horizon, Alice makes the first impulsive decision of her life - booking a flight to the UK for a three-week, all-female, literary bus tour. What could possibly go wrong?

Turns out - everything.

Alice arrives to discover that this tour isn’t what she expected. At all. Instead of cool, globe-trotting thirtysomethings with meaningful tattoos, she finds a rickety, antique bus full of fluffy-haired octogenarians. And to make matters infinitely worse, the tour guide makes her blood boil! And that devilish grin of his tells her he’s dead set on making her trip a misery.

But as they travel from castle ruins to cozy pubs, Alice may just find that she’s got it all wrong. The ladies are vivacious. The book club chat is on fire. And damn if that mischievous smile doesn't threaten to turn her world upside down - and her beloved list right along with it!

I have to be honest:  Alice was very off-putting for me for the first bit. Her absolute hatred for Robby was almost irrational—and she was vicious. I liked her personality when she wasn’t being rabid, so I kept reading, and she did improve. I loved the group of ladies she was with on the literary tour, and I would have signed up for that trip in a hot second!

Kat Mackenzie is an American who loves to travel. Work in Progress is her debut novel.

(Galley courtesy of Avon and Harper Voyager in exchange for an honest review.)

(Blog link live 1/16)

I absolutely adored the combination of rom-com, sweetness, and life truths in the book!

In Work in Progress, Alice books herself an all-woman literary bus tour of Scotland and England as a way to pull herself out of a life funk. The things that happen to her in her travels are equal parts terrible, hilarious, and utterly relatable. And that's all before she gets on the bus.

The book then takes Alice, and the reader, on a journey to see the sights down from Edinburgh, to Pemberley (Chatsworth), Cambridge, Oxford, London, and everything in between. Ms. Mackenzie paints a poetic picture of the places and people on the journey, making me wish I was there, without overwhelming me with too many names and dates of historical events. There were book recommendations to go with each literary-themed stop on the tour.

Along the way, Kat befriends the women on the trip, while I, as the reader, soak up the wisdom and love and generosity of those women right alongside her. There is romance of course, but what really stood out to me were the interactions with the women. Every one of the characters were so well-fleshed out, real, rich, and vibrant; the stories they shared were poignant, heartbreaking, hopeful, and beautiful.

I laughed until I cried, and then cried some more. But not a sobbing cry, just happy, sweet tears.

The writing was down-to-earth, yet so utterly poetic at times, I wanted to highlight so many passages as golden kernels of truth or as the funniest jokes.

Basically, I just went on an incredible literary bus tour through Scotland and England with a group of amazing women, and came out richer for it. This is a book that I need for my bookshelf and will reread again.

This was so much fun to read! I loved Alice and her sense of humor and intelligence. Robbie was also a complicated character that kept much of his personal story private, which only made me want to get to know him more, and when he revealed small pieces of himself to Alice, it made me love him more and more. Alice and Robbie have chemistry and banter that made me swoon--it's some of the best I've read.

I loved traveling to England and Scotland--both are bucket list travel destinations for me. The setting felt authentic and based on the author's experiences, I know it is.

The tour group participants are well-developed characters with their own quirks and ones Alice came to love and therefore, so did I. These ladies had wise life advice based on their experiences and shared their wisdom with Alice. Some of the advice I want to remember for myself. Thank you to NetGalley for my early digital copy to read and review honestly.

I had so much fun reading this! I loved the English/Scottish setting and it made me very nostalgic for my time in the UK. If only I had met a man as dreamy as Robbie when I was there. The idea of a three week book themed tour was amazing and had me wishing I could sign up in real life.

I loved following along with Alice as she tried to heal after a series of hardships and started to realize that it’s never too late to start a new adventure. The slow burn dislike to love romance was so good and Alice and Robbie’s banter had me laughing the whole time. The group of elderly ladies who ended up being her tour companions were also hilarious and the unexpected connections they formed were so sweet. There was actually a lot of wisdom in this book and it had me feeling emotional by the end. I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a funny, romantic, and uplifting story.

Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Work In Progress by Kat Mackenzie is a cheeky novel that had me laughing out loud!

Alice Cooper has just gotten out of a 6 year relationship with her cheating ex-boyfriend…. as her 30 birthday approaches what better way to forget him & celebrate than to hop on a plane to the UK and take a literary bus tour with like-minded women who are “young at heart” ….Alice is expecting to mingle with women her age but imagine her surprise when she’s the youngest amongst a crowd of elderly women and a handsome bus driver named Robbie who enjoys giving her a hard time!

This book is much fun - I laughed out loud a lot. There are so many funny parts. There’s even a part where they are literally naming British towns with genital-themed names 🤣🤣 The romance is slow burn and there’s even a bit of a love triangle along with some heavy miscommunication. Some parts made me gag while I was laughing.

Kat’s writing is so clever which made the witty banter between Alice & Robby that much more satisfying along with all the outrageous things that came out of the older ladies mouths. I was relieved that nothing bad happened to any of the women and that we do get a happy ending.

I enjoyed the way this book is formatted with Kat’s love of lists, her Bridget Jones checklist, quotes, and the book corresponding with each leg of the tour.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Avon, and Harper Voyager for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. Please grab your copy when this novel hits shelves on January 14, 2025! I look forward to reading more from this author.

Any book that takes place is Scotland is a winner to me! Overall, I enjoyed this book. It took me a while to warm up to the FMC as I felt she was a little too dramatic or would be mad at Robbie for things she asked of him, but her verbal sparring and their banter was still excellent! I really enjoyed that the tour was book themed and came with a reading list and felt that the plot was different from anything I've read before, which was refreshing. I loved that the back stories of all the women were sprinkled into the story, learning about their pasts and journeys through life, which in turn helped Alice find herself again was so special.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

This book was absolutely hysterical! I started laughing in the first chapter and it only got funnier from there.

Alice Cooper lost her job and broke up with her fiance six months ago. She's about to turn 30 and needs to get her life back on track, so she books a 3 week literary bus tour through Britain and embarks on her first European vacation. What she hadn't counted on was that she unknowingly booked a tour comprised of all elderly women and one infuriating (but handsome)Scottish tour guide/ driver. But as they make their way through the tour, Alice begins to realize that sometimes healing and change comes from the most unexpected places.

This book was such a joy. Not only was it incredibly funny, but it was full of heart. The friendships that developed between Alice and the older women were so sweet that I teared up multiple times. The banter and snark between Alice and Robbie the bus driver was delightful, and all the mishaps that befell Alice had me laughing, while simultaneously cringing with embarrassment for her.

While I did enjoy the romance, I have to say that the friendships and Alice's personal growth were what really shined in this book. I also adored all of the book references, and have now added a British literary book tour to my bucket list!

I highly recommend this one!

Thank you Netgalley and Avon for the e-arc of this book in exchange for my honest opinions!

Honestly so freaking cute. I loved that this takes place in the UK and there's a lot of nods to outlander/jamie Fraser.
Since I'm watching that show right now, this couldn't have been a more perfect time to read this book! Though this is supposed to be "enemies to lovers" it's really more of a
"strangers that got off on the wrong foot to lovers"
Robbie is witty and charming but absolutely infuriates Alice... Until he doesn't (but the banter between them is hilarious). Everything in Alice's life is going wrong to the extreme, but the best thing about rock bottom is there is only up from there. I am obsessed with the idea of a literary bus tour, especially with a group of little old ladies. Tbh my dream come true. The lessons and wisdom these women brought to Alice really made my heart grow 3 sizes. As much as this book is a romance, it's about a girl who just turned 30 that realizes it's okay to reinvent yourself, and it's okay if plans don't turn out the way you were expecting, because there just might something better waiting for you.
The character development of both Alice and Robbie was done wonderfully - we see the kindness in Robbie, and watch Alice mature.
I loved the descriptions of each destination in the UK, and enjoyed the specifics of the cities. It wasn't just a generic
"somewhere in England." One call out that I didn't really think added to the story was the reading list/ Bridget jones tally at the beginning of each chapter. I get what Kat McKenzie was trying to do, but I found it a little distracting and unnecessary.
Thank you so much to HarperCollins/Avon and Kat McKenzie for this gifted ARC. I really enjoyed this story so much! This book is available on January 14th, 2025

Alice’s life imploded six months ago after she lost her fiancé and job - now she’s finally ready to emerge from her apartment and she chooses to go on a three-week literary bus tour around Britain. The trip is not what she expected - all of the other women are octogenarians or older and the tour guide infuriates her. But as the trip progresses Alice realizes that her initial impressions are all wrong, the women are fun and wise and the tour guide, not so annoying.

I loved the premise of this one, bus tour around Britain, hitting all the literary spots and a 30 year old with all older women - so cute. But here’s the issue I had with this one, I loved all of the characters except for Alice. This is an enemies to lovers trope and in order for it to work for me, the characters hatred of each other has to make sense, and in this one it was taken too far simply to fulfill the trope. Even once Robbie (the cute tour guide) showed Alice his kind side, she kept at him for no reason - the scenario just didn’t work for me. This issue is why I am having a hard time rating this one because I really did like the story’s potential and the rest of the characters so much.

3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for the ARC to review

This book came to me at the perfect time!

I knew I was so excited to read this book because of the setting and the Scottish mmc. Like Alice, I too have a habit of romanticizing the idea of an experiencing the history and constant overcast of The UK and hopefully acquiring a modern day Jamie Fraser in the process. Also like Alice, I constantly find myself in a panic about being a 30 something that doesn’t have her whole life figured out.

The romance in this was cute and the banter was top tier. I was extremely frustrated by the miscommunication so that turned me off until it was resolved. I would have surely confronted that man. No way am I holding that information in for days. I think I would have rated this a little higher if the miscommunication either didn’t happen or if they would have squashed it sooner.

What really made this book stand out for me was Alice’s friendship with the women on her trip. I have so many days where I think with my 20s long gone I have already lived the funnest days of my life but these characters were a reminder that life is what you make it and you can keep traveling, having fun with your girlfriends, and experiencing love well past your 20s and 30s.

I highly recommend this book to any woman that has a love for Austen and Tolkien references, Scottish men, and a mid life crisis brewing.

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I love stories set in Scotland, the bus tour sounds like my ideal vacation, and I loved getting to know the other women on the bus. However, I found Alice to be overly mean for at least half of the book. I realize that there was a lot of personal growth for her through the story but at times it felt like there was no good reason for her actions. She also came across as rather judgemental even after that growth had started. This all combined to make her a FMC that I wasn't really rooting for.

Overall, other than a few things, I really did enjoy this novel. I felt like Alice had a lot going against her both before and after she makes a rash decision to go on a book bus tour of the UK.

Things I enjoyed:
*the bus tour ladies. They were awesome!
*the bus
*the banter between Robbie and Alice (even though it was sometimes mean)
*the growth of Alice's character--I reallllly wasn't sure about her at first, but she grew (pun intended!) on me.

Things I did not enjoy:
*when the banter got a little meaner
*miscommunication and assumptions (you all know what "assume" means...)

Four stars!

𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙠 𝙞𝙣 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙜𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨 by 𝙆𝙖𝙩 𝙈𝙖𝙘𝙆𝙚𝙣𝙯𝙞𝙚 is everything I love in a romcom.

This debut is packed with sarcasm, witty banter, and a romance that had me grinning from start to finish. Alice Cooper (yes, that’s her real name) is stubborn, list-obsessed, and an absolute mess in the best way possible. After losing her job and her fiancé, she decides to shake things up with a three-week, all-female literary bus tour across the UK.

Then there’s Robbie, the Scottish tour guide who’s just as stubborn and knows exactly how to push Alice’s buttons. Their chemistry is perfectly placed—not exactly a slow burn, but it builds at just the right pace to keep you hooked. The witty back-and-forth between them is hilarious, full of sarcasm and sharp comebacks that had me laughing out loud. Watching their dynamic shift from clashing personalities to something deeper was so satisfying.

The side characters add so much charm—especially the group of older ladies on the tour who bring their own humor and heart. And the setting! The UK literary landmarks and historical spots make this story feel like a cozy escape for book lovers.

Alice’s journey of self-discovery is inspiring without being too heavy. Her flaws, her stubbornness, and her refusal to give up on herself made her so relatable. And that ending? Perfectly swoony and heartwarming without feeling over the top.

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to love Work in Progress this much. I picked it up without knowing anything about it, and it totally hooked me. Not only did I fall for the book, but Kat MacKenzie is also such a down-to-earth and engaging author. This debut is everything I want in a romcom: laugh-out-loud moments, sizzling chemistry, and characters I’ll be thinking about for a long time. I’m definitely looking forward to whatever she writes next.

Thank you NetGalley and AvonBooks for the eARC. Work in Progress releases on January 14, 2025.

I'd like to thank Avon, Harper Voyager for the Netgalley eARC of this book so I could read this write a review.

If I could go on a bookish tour, this would 100% be the itinerary I'd pick! Seriously, the stops on this trip are all perfect (someone please make this a thing!!!!)

I love reading books where someone goes on a healing journey and this one fit the bill! We have Alice who has booked a last minute 3 week long tour of the UK that promises female camaraderie, history, a companion reading list. Who wouldn't want to go on a trip that provided a reading list? (Again, sign me up for this trip, please!) Okay, back to our story! We also have Robbie who is the handsome Scottish tour guide, and all of the ladies love him (except for Alice, of course).

We get lots of banter in this one (so much so, that I did not like Alice for the first quarter of the book). There were lots of mentions of historical sights as well, so I was having a good time of Google image searching so I could "see" what they were seeing on their tour.

Some fun tropes that may or may not interest you in reading the book:
- To do lists (Alice is a list girl!)
- Banter
- Vivacious group of ladies
- Historical references (people and places)
- Book lover's dream trip

A lot of this worked for me, and some of it didn’t.

What Worked:
- The overall premise, especially the bookish tour
- The Old Ladies
- It was genuinely funny
- I liked all the chapter headers and lists
- The banter
- Robbie (though he somehow got more and more Scottish as the book progressed)

What Didn’t Work (for me):
- Alice (sorry, I know she has a lot going on but some proper communication and level-headedness would have solved 85% of her problems)
- Miscommunication Trope
- Alice wanting to visit the UK forever but is somehow confused that full English Breakfasts have baked beans???

This was fun enough. Would I re-read it? Probably not. Would I recommend it over other rom-coms I’ve read? Again, probably not unless they were specifically looking for a Scottish love interest or some tour/tour-guide based romance. But the writing was well done! I think this will be an excellent book for some people. I just don’t think it was for me. Maybe I would have liked this much better if I understood all the literary references and didn’t mind miscommunication as much as I do.

Great debut. The miscommunication needed work as it was more annoying than not (no on believes he had a gf—which just makes Alice look unintelligent) and the book in general was about 100 pages too long. She should have cut a lot of the little things and gotten us to the end faster. I loved the authors voice so I look forward to future books, but I don’t like how rude Alice was in the first half. The joking meanness was fun at the end, but when she meant it? I almost put the book down. Again, though, the authors voice was a delightful surprise.

You had me at Scotland on this one. Multiple trips to the UK later, it's one of my favorite places and any chance to venture there in a book (or on vacation) I will receive.

When Alice books a bus tour through the UK, she had a few expectations for this trip and starting over from a rough break up. Upon arriving in Edinburgh, she finds that the tour is with a band of elderly ladies, and the accommodations are far from what she anticipated..not to mention the hot Scotsman who runs the tour, who of course she gets off on the wrong foot with immediately upon arrival.

As Alice readjusts her expectations, she finds that this might be exactly what she needed.

This story was lovely. It was so fun to hear about so many places that I would return to in a heartbeat. The comradery between Alice and the ladies was a joy and the will they won't they for her and Robbie was the icing on the cake. But, the writing felt a bit clunky - the author had so many descriptions of places it took away from the plot of the story instead of enhancing it. The very rushed 3rd act reconciliation, while yes had a happily for now, ended fairly abruptly and absolutely needed an epilogue or another few chapters really.

All in all though, this was a wonderful escape to the UK and I'm excited to see what cones next for this author.

Thank you Netgalley, and Avon, and Harper Voyager for the ARC in exchange for my review!

This book was like a warm hug. Our FMC, Alice, is on a trip ahead of her 30th birthday. Unfortunately, her trip is not quite what she expected. Instead, of a sexy tour group and instead there are a bunch of old ladies. She also butts heads with the tour guy. Eventually, sparks fly and they get past their differences and explore what is between them.

I can't stop telling people about this book! I fell in love with every single character. Each woman was thoughtfully and fully fleshed out. I would LOVE for this to be the start of a series because I'm not ready to let go of the women yet. The romance is swoony. If you like banter than you will love this!