Debut author Sally Thorne has recreated the classic Doris Day/ Rock Hudson, Spencer Tracy/Kathrine Hepburn romantic comedy in a modern setting. It is written in first person from Lucy Hutton’s POV and she has some of the funniest internal dialogue. I can picture her in my head this adorable petite woman walking around the office like she’s walking on sunshine. This book reminded me of one of my all-time favorite movies starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson, Lover Come Back, the competition and attitude between Josh and Lucy reminded me of it, not to mention Josh’s last name is Templeman and Doris Day’s in the movie is Templeton. I am in love with Josh. Through the book, as Lucy discovers along the way, you find that Josh is way more than he seems, which bring to mind the idiom still waters run deep. A person's calm exterior often conceals great depths of character, he may seem like a hard ass and everybody at the office is scared of him but it’s all just skin deep. Lucy, oh my gosh, she is an open book she wears her heart on her sleeves and is so adorable. She has a warm personality and she is so nice you can’t help but like her and she has a hard time saying no to her co-workers; they know this and some take advantage of it.
Lucy knew she wanted to go into publishing from childhood, and even though her parents would have loved for her to take over the family business of running Sky Diamond Strawberries they encouraged her to follow her dream. She started as the administrative assistant with the opportunity that she could and would be promoted to an editorial job, but the company started to go under and the only way to save it was with a merger. Now her boss has become so dependent on Lucy she hasn’t been promoted. Which is even worse because she shares an office space with the other co-CEO administrative assistant who is pretty much the definition of hard ass. Lucy outright admits that they end up getting pretty juvenile, the games they start playing with each other from the staring game to the how are you game. Things get serious when the co-owners announce that a new positon will be opening up. Both Josh and Lucy are going up for the job, but what happens afterward takes Lucy by such surprise she doesn’t know what to think. Lucy starts to see things differently and she starts to feel differently about Josh, and it completely confuses her.
The writing was outstanding, Sally Thorne gave Lucy a great voice. Her narrative is amusing and at the heart wrenching times you feel it; you feel her anxiety and her freak-outs were mildly amusing. I love Hate/Love tropes, they are currently my favorite, and with this one you really see the progression of Lucy’s thought process and her feelings for Josh. It did seem that the pace slowed down a little ways into the book, but picked up again aside from that the book was stellar.
**ARC provided by Publisher**
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