The Wake Up Call by Beth O’Leary (Review by Emily Evan)

Rating: 5/5

The Wake-Up Call is a heartwarming love story that has everything you might want in a holiday romance. I had previously read The No-Show by Beth O’Leary and really enjoyed the way she was able to weave multiple storylines together to create a unique story, and this book is no different. One aspect in which this book does differ from others is the setting, which I loved due to its almost storybook-like quality, easily pictured through details provided in the book. The Wake-Up Call is cozy, romantic, and very bingeable. 

This story centers around two hotel receptionists, who have become rivals due to an unreciprocated romantic gesture, opposite personalities, and the stress of a struggling business, that need to find a way to work together to save the hotel they love. Set in the holiday season, the hotel staff must get creative to find ways to increase revenue and address the structural problems facing the old building. The hotel has accumulated a vast number of objects in their lost and found over the years, including a few wedding rings that become central to the plan to save the hotel. Along the way, Izzy and Lucas, our main protagonists, find that they have more in common than they thought. 

As mentioned above, I loved the setting of this book, a hotel that ends up feeling like another living character by the end. I would love to spend the holidays at a place like this, around the quirky characters and beautiful-sounding scenery outside the hotel. Speaking of quirky characters, while Izzy and Lucas are likable and funny, I found the supporting characters to be one of the more endearing aspects of this book. The hotel staff, main characters’ friends and family members, and strangers that become entwined in the story each had such unique qualities and added so much to the overall story. The main trope of the book is enemies-to-lovers, which I thought was done well, but the setting and the people in the background were what made me love this book so much.