Publication Date: January 14, 2025
A warm, sexy, laugh-out-loud rom-com about a woman who, desperate for a fresh start, books a literary bus tour across the UK that consists of a lively group of elderly ladies plus one infuriatingly handsome Scottish driver.
UK Bus Trip Goals:
- Crawl out of pajamas.
- Get over cheating bastard and his stupid ironed jeans.
- Have my first real adventure!
- Achieve stability, strength, and growth.
- Definitely do NOT kiss any British men.
Alice loves a good list. But careful planning didn’t stop her from losing her job and her fiance in one fell swoop. With her dreaded 30th birthday looming on the horizon, Alice makes the first impulsive decision of her life – booking a flight to the UK for a three-week, all-female, literary bus tour. What could possibly go wrong?
Turns out – everything.
Alice arrives to discover that this tour isn’t what she expected. At all. Instead of cool, globe-trotting thirtysomethings with meaningful tattoos, she finds a rickety, antique bus full of fluffy-haired octogenarians. And to make matters infinitely worse, the tour guide makes her blood boil! And that devilish grin of his tells her he’s dead set on making her trip a misery.
But as they travel from castle ruins to cozy pubs, Alice may just find that she’s got it all wrong. The ladies are vivacious. The book club chat is on fire. And damn if that mischievous smile doesn’t threaten to turn her world upside down – and her beloved list right along with it!
Alice Cooper needs a do-over because her life is in shambles. What better way to clear her head than to travel to the United Kingdom for a three-week literary bus tour?
From the first pages of Work in Progress, author Kat Mackenzie had me laughing so hard I almost fell out of my chair. Each chapter begins with some sort of lesson, followed by a Bridget Jones Tally. Not only does 29-year-old Alice seem to have absolutely awful luck, but her dream vacay features a busload of “young at heart” ladies, a little dog named Percy, and a handsome Scottish driver who rubs her the wrong way.
The author brings literary history to life with the many stops along the tour, along with the local culture. Poor Alice always manages to get herself in a bit of a pickle and needs to be rescued by Robbie Brodie. Their mutual dislike translates into hilarious verbal exchanges. However, there is a fine line between love and hate, especially when in close quarters for three weeks.
With debates about Darcy and Knightly vs. Rochester and Heathcliff, the dialog among the tour attendees helps to shape the personalities of the women on the tour. Their collective wisdom adds more depth to the storyline as Alice tries to chart a path forward.
Work in Progress delivers one of the best enemies-to-lovers storylines I have come across, making me eager to read more by this author.
Kat Mackenzie is an American who just happened to find herself living abroad for ten years and accidentally traveling to over forty countries in an attempt to taste all the food. She holds degrees from the University of Edinburgh and the University of Oxford but has discovered that they serve her best collecting dust on the shelf while she pens comedy-forward stories about women who travel. Work in Progress is her first novel.
