Work in Progress by Kat Mackenzie is a story about a woman named Alice whose life has been turned around after losing her job and her fiancé. To get out of a 6 month slump, she spontaneously books a literary bus tour that takes her all over the UK. Little did she know, she would be in for an adventure with a group of octogenarians and an irritatingly charming Scottish man. Her journey starts with a travel day from hell and luggage mishaps that lead her to a rude encounter with a man at the Edinburgh airport who tells her to “schedule her tantrum for later” (hence, the highlighted quote in the second pic). Turns out, this man (Robbie) will be her tour guide for the next 3 weeks and Alice is not letting him forget how much she loathes him. As she journeys all over the UK, through castles and bookshops, Alice finds herself at a turning point in her life. Alongside her new elderly friends, she realizes that sometimes life isn’t what you planned or expected, but that it can still be worth it. And also that she may be falling for the “enemy”.

Things I loved:
- the power of female friendship (even when there is a 50 year age gap)
- the reminder that life does not end at 30
- the comedic insults thrown back and forth between Alice and Robbie
- the scenic descriptions of Alice’s travels (makes me want to book a trip to the UK myself)

Things I didn’t care for:
- the last 1/3 of the book felt like it dragged
- the way Alice took her grudge a little too far/too seriously when Robbie was no longer acting like an asshole
- some of the side characters were hard to keep track of because they made few significant appearances

I honestly enjoyed the majority of this book and totally ate it up! I’m giving it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 because it was funny, cute, and reminded me that life has so much to offer…even if it isn’t what we had originally planned.

thanks to netgalley and harper collins for this ARC!

i loved this book - it was so sweet. i absolutely thought that alice was a little bit dumb at times, but let’s be honest, who isn’t when they’re coming out of a major depressive episode. maybe this is going to sound a little weird, but i actually liked that the focus of the book was not on alice losing her job/partner, but rather on her feeling like she’s missed out on life, and she doesn’t know what she’s doing anymore. i think there was some really beautiful advice in this book, and it really did feel like our FMC was growing. i also literally loved robbie, he made me want to scream in the best way.

The title, cover, and blurb of Work in Progress were enough to make me really interested in reading and it exceeded all my expectations!

Alice started off grumpy which felt enjoyably relatable and honest. It was satisfying to see her mood evolve as the book progressed, and it never felt unrealistic or untrue to how she was introduced. I wasn’t sure what I would think of the tour group dynamic, but it ended up being one of my favorite parts of the book. I think Kat Mackenzie did a fabulous job of portraying how special it is to bond with a group of people unexpectedly. It was easy to envision the group’s journey across the UK with the wonderful descriptions of food, scenery, and spring weather.

This book gave me all the warm and fuzzy feelings that I was looking for when I started it. I already can’t wait to read Kat Mackenzie’s next one!

Thanks to NetGalley & Avon and Harper Voyager for the eARC.

Loved this book so much! It really captured the magic of Scotland, finding great friends and being open to new adventures.So many good quotes to reflect on later, especially about healing and taking a chance to be happy. I stayed up all night to finish it, lol. Will definitely reread it and look for others by this author. I received this as an ARC from Avon and Harper Voyager via Netgalley.

Work in Progress is a book that I’m going to be screaming about for a long time. Being an Anglophile, I knew from the premise I was going to enjoy myself, but Kat Mackenzie went so far beyond my expectations.

Riding along with Alice Cooper, we get to go on an all female literary bus tour across Britain after she books an impromptu trip on the heels of losing everything important in her life.
Kat Mackenzie perfectly illustrates a delightfully witty, heartwarming, and immersive story of self discovery, unexpected friendship, and all consuming love.
I fell in love with every single character in this book. I never wanted the tour to end, not only because I was so thoroughly enjoying all the stops, food, books, and culture, but also because I didn’t want to separate from all these friends.
Alice and Robbie are hilarious together and the evolution of their relationship is a set to a wild pendulum between adoration and loathing that comes to a pinnacle after weeks of tension and tentative, open hearted bonding.
I long for all these historical and literary places even more so after this book. Every single one was written with the detail and reverence deserved.

Thank you so much Kat Mackenzie and Avon for the gifted copy of Work in Progress, in both physical and ebook. This book was truly such a pleasure to read, I can’t believe it was a debut and I truly hope we get more from Kat Mackenzie very soon!

BOOK REPORT
Received a complimentary copy of Work in Progress, by Kat Mackenzie, from Avon and Harper Voyager | Avon Nightfire/NetGalley, for which I am appreciative, in exchange for a fair and honest review. Scroll past the BOOK REPORT section for a cut-and-paste of the DESCRIPTION of it from them if you want to read my thoughts on the book in the context of that summary.

If you put the basic Hallmark movie plot, Bridget Jones, and Outlander all in a blender and hit pulse, there’s a pretty good chance you’d wind up with this silly bit of fluff.

Which I thoroughly enjoyed, even whilst rolling my eyes at times. Heck, at one point it even had me considering going on a bus tour of the UK, and—based on past experiences—I know that all that would lead to is me getting horribly carsick and puking in scenic locales.

Definitely a chick-lit romcom sort of thing, which is a nice antidote to some of the misery in the world today. Do think it could have done with some heavy copy editing, though; felt like it went on about a third too long for what it was. Would happily read author Kat Mackenzie’s next book, if she writes one, if it’s in the same sort of positive vein.

DESCRIPTION
A warm, sexy, laugh-out-loud rom-com about a woman who, desperate for a fresh start, books a literary bus tour across the UK that consists of a lively group of elderly ladies plus one infuriatingly handsome Scottish driver.

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.
6.
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 would give this 2.5 stars. I didn’t super love the book as a whole but more so specific parts: I loved all of the detailed travel experiences. I loved the description of the places they went to and the things they did. How she felt while being there and how it changed her. The banter between her and Robbie at the beginning was a bit much for me but they brought it down a notch towards the end. I also thought it was dumb that she got mad at him for not telling her that his mom survived yet 1) she never asked and 2) I distinctly remember her telling herself that she was going to distance herself from him because of his girlfriend. She didn’t want to get involved with him. And THEN she was a coward about it and couldn’t own up to it. Idk. This book was meh for me. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Work in Progress

Kat Mackenzie

2 ⭐️⭐️

Okkkk I ended up DNFing this. I tried I really did. I usually love a grumpy FMC but this one was just mean? Immature? Idk I just didn’t vibe. MMC was okay but idk nothing really convinced me to keep reading. The old ladies were ADORABLE so that’s a plus & I loved the concept of the book. The hate part of the haters to lovers just lasted entirely too long. It could be for someone but not for me.

Thank you NetGalley & Publisher for an eARC in return for an honest review!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Work in Progress is a hate to lovers rom com where the meet cute is actually a meet ugly.

Alice is an American from DC who has her life together. Or at least she did until 6 months ago when she lost her job, apartment, and fiancé all in quick succession. Finding herself in a rut, she books a last minute trip to the UK on a 3 week literary bus tour.

Alice’s trip starts off in a series of disasters and her mood is not improved by the obnoxious Scottish tour guide who insists on always using her full name (Alice Cooper). She also finds that the women’s only bus tour she imagined is not the young 20 and 30 something’s ready for adventure. But rather is all octogenarians and a small dog.

Robbie is still a bit of a question mark. He wears a kilt (swoon), but only once (boo). He sings! He plays the fiddle! He’s well read! But that is about all we get to know about him. The story is told solely from Alice’s POV and there is a lot of telling and not showing. So even though Robbie and Alice grow close in the tour, we are left out of a lot of their conversations beyond their bickering.

I enjoyed the ladies on the tour with Alice for the most part. Some of them really stood out to me, like Berrta - a German woman who enjoys birdwatching and possibly is a member of a naturalist society. But for the most part they were generic British grandmas passing on their wisdom to Alice on life and love.

The first half of this book was fantastic. The banter and back and forth needling between Alice and Robbie was on par. The pacing was on point in the beginning, then starts to drag by the middle. I found myself losing a sense of time. How long have they been on this trip? How long is left? A lot of what they were doing on the trip started to blur together into a mush of sameness.

The bedroom scenes are minimally descriptive, leaving the spice factor at low for those who aren’t looking for full on spice in their read, but still hot enough to keep the tension burning.

The third act break comes rather late in the book and is a bit obvious. Alice is an American tourist in the country for 3 weeks. Of course she is going to leave. Having it come so late left the ending and ultimate reunion feeling rather rushed together and vague.

Overall, I enjoyed the first half of the book and feel it had great promise as a premise. Would probably make an excellent Netflix movie.

There is so much in this I wanted to like but I just didn’t like the book as a whole. The characters all felt too cliche, especially the women on the tour. I never felt the actual chemistry between Robbie and Alice.

4 stars

This was a fun one! I really enjoyed the setting and all the places they traveled to on the bus trip. There were so many descriptions of the food and the settings and it felt super immersive. There were so many great characters as well. I loved all the old ladies and their backstories. I also loved how they each had something to offer to help her figure herself out.
Alice was so persistent and she adapted to all the chaos the trip threw at her, even if she was a bit hesitant at times. She had a lot of great character growth and I enjoyed watching her rediscover herself along the way. She was so funny and all her interactions with the old ladies were so sweet.
Robbie was the ultimate green flag man. He took old ladies on scenic tours, he wore a kilt, and he was patient with Alice even though she was constantly antagonizing him. Their dynamic was so funny, as well as their journey of falling in love throughout the tour. They had really good chemistry and I loved seeing them together.
I highly recommend this book if you like:
-Scottish men
-Scenic tours
-Quirky old ladies
-Sweet love stories

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for the ARC!!

United Kingdom - Present Day

Lately, life for Alice Cooper has been anything but grand. Her fiance, whom she'd been dating for six years, dumps her shortly before their wedding, so she's been sending "do not attend" notes to the guests, and returning gifts. Then Alice loses her job, leaving her crushed and confused. So what else can she do but something the normally organized and common sense Alice would never do, she books a three-week literary tour of the UK. Her love of books, especially British based ones, thanks to her English grandmother, brought her to the decision. But after an agonizingly long series of flights to Edinburgh, then handed her crushed, taped together suitcase, Alice has but a few minutes to get into the city and meet the tour bus. And the rude Scotsman who is picking up an elderly woman at the airport sends Alice into angry and frustrated tirades. What else could happen?

Exhausted, Alice finally arrives where the tour is gathering only to discover that the man at the airport is, in fact, the tour guide! And it also looks as though Alice is the only passenger under seventy! It also is pointed out to her that this is a non-refundable tour, so her "discussions" with the seemingly arrogant tour guide will go nowhere. Too tired to continue arguing, Alice boards the bus, and wonders what she got herself into.

Alice's initial frustrations and anger at first keep her from getting to know her fellow passengers. But she soon learns that many have toured with Robbie, the driver/guide before, and that he literally dotes on them. He doesn't come across that way to Alice, but will she discover another side of him?

WORK IN PROGRESS is a fun and entertaining read filled with wickedly humorous and interesting characters. It takes Alice a bit of time to unwind, but once she opens her mind and heart, and releases some of the pain she's feeling, she begins to see and enjoy the beautiful countryside, the history, and the people she's traveling with. There are bumps along the way, and readers will wonder if Alice will ever warm up to Robbie. So, sit back and enjoy the tour.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I adored this book. I know it is early to tell, but I think this book may be one of my favorite romance novels of 2025. I seriously couldn't get enough of this book. I can forsee this book being super popular in 2025. I would especially recommend this book to fans of Outlander and Bridget Jones Diary in particular. I enjoyed this book so much, I would probably considering reading it again -- and I don't do that with every book.

If you enjoy audiobooks, the audiobook version of this book is set to be narrated by Angela Dawe, who I highly enjoy from her narration of the Finlay Donovan mystery series by Elle Cosimano. So it will be interesting to hear her narrate a romance novel, especially one with English accents.


Thank you again to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I highly recommend this book to anyone who adores romance novels!

There were parts that I liked, some hijinks that I enjoyed, but overall I didn’t fully fall for this romance.

I loved the chemistry between the characters once it hit a midway point but up until then I didn’t like how the animosity played. Robbie was supposed to be charming and smirky but instead he came across as unprofessional asshole.

Alice’s character, on the other hand, felt entirely relatable and real. Her journey was what kept me invested in the story. And I did eventually enjoy the snarky, petty, ultimately sweet interplay between her and Robbie. But it took a while.

As for the secondary characters, it was a mishmash of stereotyped “older” women, some that weren’t even really old. A couple stood out but the majority I had trouble differentiating during their appearances. Then the sit-down heart to hearts with each woman was too heavy handed for my liking. It didn’t feel organic at all.

I understand why the end played out the way it did, but it still felt slightly ridiculous. I think by that point I had enjoyed the good parts and was just ready to wrap it all up quickly and directly. So, it was okay, but not making any of my notable lists.

A note: The Bridget Jones chapter header references meant nothing to me and were given no clarification. So, I guess, if you’re not a Helen Fielding fan you’re just meant to be in the dark. It needed a little throwaway comment or something to bring full readership into it.

This was a cute read but it felt a little too cutesy and flowery at times. The main character, Alice, has just gone through a brutal breakup and drunkenly decides to purchase a non-refundable ticket for a three week bus tour of the UK. What could go wrong, right?

Traveling around the UK with a bunch of old ladies certainly made for scenes that were overdone in their "picturesqueness", cliche old lady charm, and just general stereotyping-- it was often too on the nose. For example, of course she learns all this valuable elderly wisdom when she least expects because she thought the trip was going to be for young women. Some of the ladies were very caricature-y (Berrta the intense, bird-watching obsessed German lady, a 96-year old sweet woman with a dog named Percy, a retired and argumentative lesbian couple, Helena the posh "English rose", etc.). That said, there were many funny moments with all the unique ladies and the bonding that the unlikely mix go through is really touching by the end.

I also enjoyed learning little tidbits about UK landmarks and sites (especially the Scottish ones!) but since the book revolves around the bus tour, the constant mini history lessons at each stop became repetitive and dragged on at times.

The one guy on the trip is the bus driver and tour leader, Robbie--a classic handsomely rugged Scotsman. He and Alice immediately get off to a rocky start and exchange flat-out insults and proclamations of hatred on many occasions - it was really funny and their banter was top-notch. They are constantly at each other's throats in the pettiest but most hilarious ways. Their romance is what really won me over in this book. Alice is a free-spirited trainwreck, an always falling upon misfortune and trouble type of gal who simultaneously resists others' help, while Robbie is a steadfast, levelheaded foil to her character. But don't get me wrong, he is also quite sassy!

Ultimately, this book takes readers through Alice's journey to self-healing and self discovery, guided along by the quirky charm of the ladies and the magnetism between her and Robbie. It was overly quaint at times and chock full of little historical tidbits (and not to mention the dreaded and very present miscommunication trope), so it didn't fully deliver for me, but it is an undoubtedly heartwarming story that I think many romance readers will enjoy.

Thank you so much to Avon, Harper Voyager and NetGalley for this ARC! 📚

I really loved this one! Woman finds herself alone, unemployed, and unsatisfied and takes a spur of the moment trip that will change her life. A literary bus ride through the UK? Yes, please! When she discovers all the other tour members are centenarians, the bus is less than modern, and the driver enjoys messing with her, will she find a way to enjoy herself? 😉 Reader, she will! Releases January 14, 2025.

DNF at 40%. Gave me Hallmark-y, fish-out-of-water vibes. For someone who has been planning and dreaming of visiting the UK for two decades, she never really seemed to look into the reality of a visit? Trying to plug in things wrong, complaining about outdated plumbing, etc. What really pushed me over the edge was a classic “overheard part of a conversation and assumed the worst” that happens in chapter 17 and, per my kindle search, doesn’t get addressed until chapter 33. I do not have that much patience for passive aggression.

Thank you to Avon and NetGalley for the ARC!

I can't believe how much I was laughing and then finding endearing moments throughout this story. I loved the travel aspect of a group tour in Europe, and escaping your life to get a fresh start. Mackenzie did that justice! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. Beautiful cover and a very entertaining book.

Work In Progress perfectly blends a romance with self discovery. Alice's journey is one of the best I've read. Alice and Robbie's chemistry is amazing and so is their banter.

The premise of the story is such a fun twist. I love that it takes place during a bus tour and the scenery descriptions add so much.

I wish Alice was a more likeable character from the beginning (she grows on you as the story goes on and her character develops) but it's her story and I wanted more from her in the beginning.

This take on enemies to lovers just isn't for me. I had to DNF 1/3 of the way through because both protagonists were simply too immature and petulant for my taste. I didn't like them enough to be invested in seeing their growth from the 1.5 dimensions they started with. I'm not a fan of eventually falling for someone who's just an antagonistic asshole for the hell of it (this works both ways, btw).

This author has potential and I'm sure there's an audience that this is more well suited for. It's simply not for me.

[NetGalley was kind enough to provide me with an ARC for this title.]