Debut author Sally Thorne bursts on the scene with a hilarious and sexy workplace comedy all about that thin, fine line between hate and love.
Nemesis (n.) 1) An opponent or rival whom a person cannot best or overcome.
2) A person’s undoing
3) Joshua Templeman
Lucy Hutton has always been certain that the nice girl can get the corner office. She’s charming and accommodating and prides herself on being loved by everyone at Bexley & Gamin. Everyone except for coldly efficient, impeccably attired, physically intimidating Joshua Templeman. And the feeling is mutual.
Trapped in a shared office together 40 (OK, 50 or 60) hours a week, they’ve become entrenched in an addictive, ridiculous never-ending game of one-upmanship. There’s the Staring Game. The Mirror Game. The HR Game. Lucy can’t let Joshua beat her at anything—especially when a huge new promotion goes up for the taking.
If Lucy wins this game, she’ll be Joshua’s boss. If she loses, she’ll resign. So why is she suddenly having steamy dreams about Joshua, and dressing for work like she’s got a hot date? After a perfectly innocent elevator ride ends with an earth shattering kiss, Lucy starts to wonder whether she’s got Joshua Templeman all wrong.
Maybe Lucy Hutton doesn’t hate Joshua Templeman. And maybe, he doesn’t hate her either. Or maybe this is just another game.
Copy received from Hachette Australia for an honest review
It is always hit and miss when you read an author's debut work (I know, I know, everyone started out as a debut novelist, but there are just so many books out there these days!)
But The Hating Game by Sally Thorne was definitely a hit for me.
You know as a kid and your mum told you that the boy/girl was pulling your hair/picking on you because they liked you? Well Lucy and Josh just took that into adulthood!
I loved the banter and the games this pair play in the office. They made me laugh out loud at some of the antics I have gotten up to in the office I have worked in over the years (there was a very memorable situation with 300 paperclips and rolls of sticky tape.....)
But behind her smiles there is a woman who just wants to be loved, and a man just broken enough to be complicated but not angsty.
Though at times I wanted to bitch slap the pair of them!
"You've broken me down so completely. I can't even handle it when a guy tells me I'm beautiful."
See... heart hurts for them.
I did get to the point where I was telling my book "come on you two, you know you want to!" I just wanted them to figure out what us readers did a long time ago!
There were plenty of laugh out loud moments, plenty of swoony moments, plenty of sweet and tender moments in The Hating Game.
I really enjoyed this book, and I will be keeping an eye out for more of Ms Thorne's work in the future.
Sally
Thorne lives in Canberra, Australia, and spends her days writing funding
submissions and drafting contracts (yawn!) so it’s not
surprising that after hours she climbs into colorful fictional worlds of her
own creation. Sally believes that romance readers are always searching for
intensity in their next favorite book—and it isn't always so easy to
find. The Hating Game is her first novel.