Get A Sneak Peek At Beth O’Leary’s Newest Romance

Beloved romance author Beth O’Leary, known for the bestselling rom-coms The Flatshare and The Switch, is back with a new enemies-to-lovers romance, and Bustle has an exclusive first look at the cover, along with an excerpt featuring the novel’s central couple.

The Wake-Up Call follows Izzy and Lucas, a pair of rival receptionists who work at the same foundering hotel. When Izzy takes it upon herself to return a lost wedding ring to a guest, she’s rewarded with a sizable chunk of change — change that the hotel desperately needs. So after realizing there are a few more lost rings that’ve yet to be reunited with their owners, Izzy and Lucas reluctantly team up to do just that, hoping to earn enough to keep the hotel afloat. They’re also betting they can play nice for long enough to finish their mission — easier said than done.

Below, get a sneak peek at The Wake-Up Call’s cover, and keep scrolling to read an excerpt. (You’ll have to wait until Sept. 26 to read the full novel, but O’Leary fans are welcome to pre-order it now.)

I started late today, so I am staying late, too. That is only reasonable. And the seating areas dotted around the pool badly need tidying. There are magazines here from a time when all the UK had to worry about was whether a man named Jeremy Clarkson had or had not punched someone.

That is why I’m here: tidying. It’s nothing to do with the fact that Louis Keele is currently powering up and down the swimming pool, waiting for Izzy to arrive for their ... plans. Their arrangement. Their date?

“Fetch me a beer, would you, Lucas?” Louis calls from the pool, twisting to float on his back.

Fetch me a beer. Like I’m a dog. I turn around, ready to snarl, but then Izzy appears in the doorway of the women’s changing room and I lose my train of thought entirely.

“Lucas,” she says, surprised. She’s wearing a dressing gown hanging open over her bikini. “What are you doing here?”

I recognise that bikini: it lives in the box she keeps under the desk. I noticed it when I tidied her box, an act I knew would irritate her enormously, and which ended up feeling slightly sordid, partly because of that bikini. You can’t see a bikini without imagining the person in it.

And it is very small. Turquoise green with thin straps. Right now, I can only see a few inches of it between the two sides of her dressing gown, along with a shocking flash of smooth, pale skin, but the sight makes my breath catch in my throat. My imagination did not do her justice.

She looks so different. She’s barefoot, with her hair unstriped and pulled up in a bun. There’s something vulnerable about her like this, and I feel a stab of an emotion that in another context I might call fear. But it’s not that, it can’t be — there’s nothing to be afraid of.

“Hello,” I say, hating how stiff I sound. “I started late. So I’m staying late.”

Her eyes narrow slightly. We’re in a glass building that links the main house to the spa, which was formerly the stables — the space is lit only by a series of low-energy bulbs above the water, so it’s shadowy in here. Behind me I hear the slick splash of Louis moving methodically through the pool.

“You’re staying late ... in the swimming pool area?”

“I am tidying the spa, yes.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes get narrower. “What game are you playing, Lucas da Silva?” she asks.

“No game. I’m working.”

“Hmm.”

I’m sweating. I don’t know what game I am playing, that’s the truthful answer. Now that I’m standing between Izzy and the pool, I can’t ignore how reluctant I am to step aside and let her pass. I don’t want Izzy to spend her evening in a bikini with Louis Keele. I don’t trust that man with the future of this hotel, and I definitely don’t trust him with Izzy.

Which is ridiculous. I swallow and move aside, returning my attention to the dog-eared magazines in wicker baskets by the chairs. When I glance back at her, she’s dropping the dressing gown onto a sunlounger.

Fuck. I look away sharply, heart pounding in my throat, suddenly very aware that I shouldn’t be here. She’s not wearing that bikini for me. I wasn’t supposed to see that smooth sweep of naked waist, her long, bare legs, the tiny tattoo at the point where her bikini top is tied. Seeing her in such a different context is making it harder to remember that this is the infuriating Izzy Jenkins, and without that, she is just a dangerously beautiful woman in swimwear.

“That beer, Lucas, mate?” Louis calls.

I know why he’s asking. It’s not because he particularly wants a beer. It’s because he wants Izzy to see me fetch him one.

“No drinks in the spa,” I snap.

“Damn. Can’t you make an exception?” says Louis.

“No exceptions, Louis, not even for you!” Izzy calls as she slides into the pool. “Race you!”

Louis looks at Izzy with blatant appreciation. I feel another stab of that strange, new fear. As they launch into their race, I watch him gaining on her, his form cutting through the water, and then I turn away, heading into the main spa, because what else can I do? In the same way that the bikini wasn’t for me, I don’t get to feel anxious when Izzy’s on a date.

And I hate her, I remind myself. I hate her and she hates me.

Excerpted from THE WAKE-UP CALL by Beth O’Leary, published by Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2023 Beth O’Leary LTD.