To write a romantic comedy, you need a few key ingredients: Two people who are secretly drawn to each other. Obstacles that keep them apart. Sometimes a third person, a rival who threatens to distract our protagonist from their true love.
Will they or won't they? 'Wake-Up Call' is a romcom so, yeah, they will
FICTION: It may be formulaic but Beth O'Leary's latest is fun, funny and sexy.
For the Minnesota Star Tribune
November 13, 2023 at 2:00PM
British writer Beth O'Leary has this formula down cold, and her novels ("The Flatshare" "The No-Show") are fun, funny and sometimes quite sexy.
Romcoms also need a happy ending, and so we know when we start "The Wake-Up Call" that Izzy (as in Isabelle) and Lucas (as in muscular, brooding, staggeringly handsome) will get together in the end. The only question is, how?
The book opens with Izzy sending a note to Lucas confessing her attraction. And then we move 11 months ahead when the two, despising each other now, are forced to work together at an elegant, down-on-its-heels hotel. Their sniping and bickering show sparks, though of the negative kind.
Narration alternates between the two, giving clues to the enormous obstacle. All we have to do is sit back and watch them sweat. (As Izzy notes, "When men sweat, it's sexy, but when I sweat, I look like I've been crossbred with a tomato.")
O'Leary's denouement goes on a few beats too long (there are a lot of threads to tie up) but that's actually OK — this book is so fun you really don't want it to end.
Laurie Hertzel is a freelance writer. She can be reached at lauriehertzel@gmail.com.
The Wake-Up Call
By: Beth O'Leary.
Publisher: Berkley, 368 pages, $17.
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