Review: Not Safe for Work

I love when I can find a new-to-me author. Several months ago, one of my trusted book friends made sure to tell me to check out Nisha J. Tuli. The Canadian author is known for her fantasy books but Not Safe for Work is her first contemporary romance. Seemed like a good enough reason for me to check it out! While I enjoyed my time reading this book, it left me wanting more.

Here’s the book’s description:

Engineer Trishara Malik once dreamed of being the first woman of color to smash the glass ceiling at WMC Purcell, but after years of dealing with white male privilege and blatant nepotism, she watches her hard-earned promotion go to her nemesis, Rafe Gallagher—the boss’s son. Teetering on the edge of burnout, Tris is stunned when she’s picked to attend WMC's corporate leadership retreat in Hawaii. It’s a chance to revive her stalled career and compete for a coveted spot in an executive training program—plus, three weeks in paradise! The only downside? Rafe is her co-attendee.

Tris plans to avoid Rafe entirely, but when she arrives in Maui, a booking error has them stuck sharing the honeymoon suite. Sure, it’s not all torture. Rafe is a smoldering ten—okay fine, an eleven—but after years of competition, they can barely stand being in the same time zone. As they vie against each other during aptitude tests and team-building exercises, Tris begins to realize Rafe might not be the villain after all. With her dreams at stake, can she learn to trust the man who might have been standing in her corner all along?

One thing you need to know about me is I don’t love the enemies-to-lovers trope. Jane Austen did it perfectly and most others don’t work for me. The trope in this book, surprise, did not work for me. There was absolutely no good reason for Tris and Rafe to hate each other. None. So it just came across as petty and was not fun to read.

I do love a good forced proximity trope, though, and this one delivered. I mean, hello, there was only one bed! Being forced to share the hotel room (oh, pardon me, the honeymoon suite) allowed for a few really sweet scenes between Tris and Rafe (and, yes, steamy scenes, too!). They were able to connect and actually get to know each other without having to be out in public with their colleagues in the resort.

The characters in this book were…fine. A lot of reviews have said Tris is a strong, badass woman. And she is…sort of. She stands up for herself, which I absolutely applauded. She’s in an industry where, as a woman, she’s constantly having to work harder. And a woman of colour? Oof, she’s gotta hustle. But she also doesn’t really believe in herself and was letting a past experience prevent her from getting unstuck from a job she clearly hates. (The past experience was hellish and I’m not trying to downplay it or suggest that she should have magically moved on - there was stuff to work through, for sure.) She also often acted extremely immaturely and it just didn’t seem to suit who she was supposed to be as a character.

Not Safe for Work is a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity romp of a romance set on an island paradise. Nisha J. Tuli has written a romance that many readers may enjoy - I just wasn’t really one of them. I still might try another of her contemporary stories if she tries her hand at one again.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Forever, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*