Workplace Romance | 3.10.23
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Let’s be real, actual workplace romances are kind of a terrible idea, even if they are often inevitable. Romance novel workplace romances are great, though. Especially when there’s a rivalry at play! While the first book on this list (and a few more I’ll be recommending in the future) feature boss/employee or boss/assistant pairings, I will go on the record now in being not overly in love with that as a trope. Because of the obvious (power dynamics). That being said, the few I’ve read so far either make that conflict of interest explicit in negotiating the relationship, or make the uneven power dynamic central to the character arcs, so I feel less of an ick recommending them to you. Totally get it if it isn’t your bag, though!
Can You Keep A Secret? by Sophie Kinsella. Emma is usually a locked safe for secrets, specifically tiny, seemingly inconsequential secrets of her own that amount narratively to her basically never speaking her mind, ever. Then after a disastrous work trip, after several more on-flight drinks than are strictly professional, she thinks she’s going to die during a dramatic bout of turbulence, so she turns the handsome man next to her into the ultimate confidant, telling him absolutely every secret she’s ever kept inside as a final desperate act.
Then she wakes up, fully alive, and the man has already deplaned. Ah, well, it was nice to get all that off her chest. Unrelatedly, her company’s elusive CEO would be making an appearance at the office soon… and of course, it’s HANDSOME PLANE CONFIDANT! And instead of firing her, as she assumes when she’s called to his office, he’s intrigued. But can he keep her secrets, including their elicit(ish) affair as boss/employee/lovers? Perhaps/perhaps not.
This book was also adapted into a movie (currently on Netflix) and I think it was a better adaptation than The Hating Game by far (but also Sophie Kinsella’s prose is arguably easier to translate to screen because the style itself isn’t as distinct as the character voices, which is the opposite of the case for Sally Thorne). Also, it stars the CW’s Superman (hot) and Alexandra Daddario (VERY hot)!
Rating: 4.25/5
How hot? 🔥 (closed door)
The Bodyguard by Katherine Center. Hannah Brooks just lost her mother and her boyfriend (who also happens to be her coworker), so the one thing she’s not losing is a big opportunity at work, where she’s an undercover bodyguard for high profile people. In order to get her boss to sign off on an assignment that would send her far away from her troubles and her grief, she reluctantly accepts an assignment a little closer to home- protecting famous actor Jack Stapleton from an increasingly unhinged stalker while he’s spending time with his mother, who’s in the midst of a major health scare.
In order to not alert his family to the danger he’s in, Jack asks Hannah to pose as his girlfriend, both to the world and in private, if she and his management company insist he needs protection. She even more reluctantly agrees to this stipulation, and we’re off to the races! A book about parasocial relationships, the toxicity of fame and fortune, family secrets, and reckoning with our idea of family, love, and ourselves.
This was an absolutely delightful, funny, heartfelt debut novel, though I feel ROBBED of any on-page intimate scenes because I think Katherine Center would have killed them, and I also think it would have gone a long way to sell this extremely slow burn love story and give me a little more to hold onto (wink) between these two characters.
Rating: 4.25/5
How hot? 🔥 (closed door)
Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon. Ari Abrams loves her job as a TV meteorologist in Seattle, except for one thing… the legendary weatherwoman who was meant to be her mentor is more interested in fighting with her ex-husband, the station’s news director, than mentoring. After a particularly memorable showdown between the two pillars of the station, Ari finds herself commiserating about the workplace hostility with Russell Barringer, the shy but surprisingly sarcastic sports reporter.
What follows is kind of the set up for Set It Up, aka the best rom-com to premiere in the last decade at least, where Ari and Russell attempt to parent trap their bosses back together, only to end up falling for each other in the process. Like all RLS’s books, it’s sweet, smart, specific to the Pacific Northwest (my beloved!!), and all about hyper competent people balancing ambition with their personal lives.
We also get a plus-sized hero (a single father to a precocious teenager, which for some may be a TW if you aren’t big on protagonists with kids), which isn’t very common. Swoon!
Rating: 4.5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥
Next week, I’ll be recommending books with photographers/photography at the center of the plot. Cameras up!
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!
Yes, I have. I married my boss's daughter.