Title: Love Where You Work
Author: Anna Pulley
Publisher: Red Heel Press
Length: 288 Pages
Category: Contemporary Romance, Romantic Comedy
Rating: 4 Stars
At a Glance: Clare and Julia had a rocky start and a lot to overcome, but when they finally got things together, the romantic feels were all the way off the charts. This story is written with warmth and sincerity, and I got a few laughs out of it along the way in the bargain.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Warning: No mimes were injured in the making of this queer, workplace rom-com
For Clare Kolikov, her work is her life. A successful HR manager with a heart of gold and a prejudice against beach camping, the uptight Clare has no time for relationships or anything else that might distract her from climbing the career ladder at a San Francisco Bay Area matchmaking startup, W;nkdIn.
When she’s force-volunteered as an LGBTQ beta date tester at W;nkdIn, the buttoned-up Clare teeters on the edge of despair, especially when the “experiences” involve pole dancing meet-n-greets, plant healing workshops, and miming.
But Clare has her real work cut out for her when she meets Julia Dawes, the hot coworker who’s organizing her dates. Julia is a free-spirited, multiracial fashionista with “roller-blade confidence” and a Kristen Stewart haiku fan blog, whose attraction to Clare is as immediate and crippling as the debt she’s drowning in, thanks to the failed essential oils business her ex left her saddled with.
Workplace rules aim to keep Clare and Julia apart––especially after Clare becomes Julia’s boss––but their attraction only grows like an out-of-control Excel spreadsheet.
When an office rival threatens to expose their budding, secret relationship, Clare is left with an impossible choice: Give up her dream job or lose out on the girl of her dreams.
Mixing business with pleasure has never been more bold, steamy, or hilarious…
Review: Anna Pulley’s debut novel, Love Where You Work, has all the ingredients of a winning contemporary romance: humor, warmth, angst, passion, charm and, most importantly, two protagonists I adored—even when they were being personal disasters and couldn’t get out of their own way. But then, that’s what made them so engaging and relatable.
Clare Kolikov’s aesthetic runs the gamut from beige to . . . well, taupe. Clare is not a risk-taker, and that’s reflected in everything from her bland apartment to her nondescript wardrobe to her subdued personality. She’s buttoned-down (some of her fellow employees call her the ice queen), her life is a dull work-home-eat-sleep-work cycle, and she’s fine with that. Or has convinced herself she is. She works in HR for a company called W;nkdIn, a cleverly named “dating app for busy professionals”, and has some set career goals. So set, in fact, that she almost loses the love of her life in pursuit of something she thought she wanted more.
As much as Clare’s life is rather colorless, Julia Dawes is shades of neon. She is the definition of bright, does things like roller skate to work, served in the Peace Corps, and she also happens to be employed at W;nkdIn as a date coordinator. Julia and Clare are the definition of opposites, and they don’t meet on-the-job, per se, as in they work in the same department; however, it’s Clare’s position in HR that means Julia seeks her out to file a sexual harassment claim against a male coworker. Julia is sure that nothing will come of it, because it never has before, but she needs to get it on the record. Imagine her shock and surprise, then, when the guy is actually fired; though Clare had to push for his termination, and not before some “think of his future” push-back from the Director of Finance. Ugh.
Julia and Clare are both wildly attracted to each other, which, given the reason for their meeting, is an obvious problem. Clare isn’t willing to give in to that attraction—at least not immediately, and especially to someone who has suffered harassment in the workplace. It would be the height of unprofessional for Clare to date a coworker, but here’s where the humorous part comes into play: Julia has no such reservations. Being the date coordinator gives her a unique advantage, so when Clare is asked (read: volunteered against her will) to beta-test a round of LGBTQ dating experiences, Julia decides to manipulate the situation just a bit to make sure those experiences are everything Clare hates, with the hope she maybe won’t accidentally find her perfect match. Of course, that’s because Julia is certain she’s Clare’s perfect someone. Let me just say that some of those experiences were a hoot, a lot cringey, and could easily be defined as my own worst nightmare, so I could imagine how Clare felt.
Anna Pulley does so many things well in this story, apart from the relationship she builds between Clare and Julia. People are more than their romantic relationships, and one of the many things I adored about Love Where You Work is the way these women came into their relationship fully formed—yes, a bit bruised, a little emotionally tender, but it was their bruised and vulnerable parts that made them so wholly accessible. Pulley portrays the complexities of the mother/daughter relationship with an accuracy I could relate to, as well as sibling rivalry in the relationship between Julia and her over-achieving sister, and, perhaps most poignantly so, in Clare’s grief over the loss of her father, who always loved and supported her unconditionally.
Clare’s inability to process and begin to rebuild and heal after her father’s death informs her relationship with her mom, who has moved on with a new man, has become a world-traveler, is loving life, and Clare has feelings about it which are complicated by the past and her mom’s tendency to offer pointed, not to mention unsolicited, opinions and advice. The failure of past romantic relationships have left both Clare and Julia wary and, let’s face it, weary. But Clare’s stress and anxiety manifests itself physically. She finally gives in to the idea of therapy and finds Luca—who isn’t even fully certified yet, but there was a discount coupon.
Luca doesn’t get a lot of on-page time, yet he plays a significant role in the story, and I loved what he brought to the proverbial table for Clare. I don’t often think of the therapist/client contract as being symbiotic, but that’s very much their interactions. They both listened to and helped each other through some personal issues. Julia’s best friend, Paula, was also a lively addition to the cast and while she wasn’t necessarily right about Clare in the beginning, Paula was there and ready for the real-talk when Julia needed to hear it most.
Clare and Julia had a rocky start and a lot to overcome. When Julia finally confesses to her manipulation of Clare’s “dates”, it causes no small amount of trouble, but when they got things together, the romantic feels were all the way off the charts. This story is written with warmth and sincerity, and I got a few laughs out of it along the way in the bargain. If you’re on the lookout for an entertaining, witty, and lovely sapphic romance with a diverse cast of characters, Love Where You Work delivers.
You can buy Love Where You Work here:
[zilla_button url=”https://books2read.com/Love-Where-You-Work” style=”black” size=”large” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Amazon & Other eTailers [/zilla_button]
