I almost literally devoured this book, an impressive debut. I had trouble putting it down (which I did only twice, for sleep). Told entirely from the heroine’s perspective in first person, it’s funny because her voice is great—it’s sort of smart silly. “I’m naked and putting on clothes, separated from Joshua by only a wall. I love you, wall. What a good wall.” Although obviously I knew they’d get together at the end, I was still desperate to see it happen.

Lucy Hutton is a small, bubbly, and quirky people-pleaser. Joshua Templeman is a tall, unfriendly, and slightly broody grump. They work side-by-side in a publisher’s office after a merger, each coming from one of the merged companies, and they despise each other, which gets expressed through their many passive-aggressive games. I’m not a big fan of the enemies-to-lovers trope because I often find it hard to forgive all the things that were done and said when they were still in the enemies stage. But I think Thorne was pretty careful to make the things neither over-the-top nor unforgivable. Joshua does say some mean things, but I think he doesn’t realize how personally she takes it. Basically, he’s lashing out because he’s mad at her for being so attractive to him.

Lucy and Josh are both really well-drawn as characters. Lucy is spelled out a little better because it’s all her point of view. She’s very lonely and not sure she’s doing the right thing with her life even though she cares tremendously about her job. She works hard and nobody can doubt her dedication. When the opportunity for a new role that would be a promotion comes up and she and Josh will be competing for it, her boss thinks she should get it—and so do we. As she prepares the application and continues her games with Josh, we get to see her grow and learn what she really wants out of life. It isn’t obvious in the beginning what Josh’s deal is, but we learn as the book progresses about his history and kind of understand why he’s a grump. The chemistry between them is palpable and there’s loads of sexual tension all over the place. “He smoothes down the T-shirt. My eyes slither along behind his hand. I want to scrunch up that T-shirt into a bowl and eat it with a dessert spoon.” It’s such a relief when they finally do get together.

On to a few other aspects of the book. Their banter is great—clever and flirty at times. The games themselves are funny. The setting of the office will be familiar to a lot of readers and everyone who’s worked in one will appreciate the antics of the workplace. And the company morale event is great.

I do feel obligated to mention that as much as I loved the book, it wasn’t perfect. For one, the size differential between Lucy and Josh is a little cliche, isn’t it? The book is sort of interestingly set… nowhere. It’s impossible to know where it takes place—I kind of guessed it was in Australia because that’s where the author is based, but it didn’t feel particularly Australian. This didn’t bother me a lot but some readers who care about setting will probably be irritated. I was also a little disappointed by how Josh solved their main problem all on his own without consulting Lucy at all. Finally, I wanted in Josh’s head sometimes, so it was kind of a bummer to have only Lucy’s POV.

But these little nit-picks didn’t keep me from enjoying it immensely. I’ll definitely be on the lookout for Thorne’s next book.