When Jenna Thompson gets promoted to supervisor within her job in Social Work. Her old position is filled by Danielle, a new trainee. Both woman come from tragic past and come together. A forbidden romance between supervisor and employee florishes as Jenna and Danielle get to know each. 

The secret on the clock by Nicole Disney, is a true romance. This story goes beyond having a normal romance, but introduces real love and life. The characters feel like real people. I enjoyed reading this book and thought it was brave to tell this story in such a compelling way that extends beyond the romance genre. 

I want to thank Net Galley for giving my the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Jenna has just been promoted to a supervisory position at the Child Protection Services. She’s young for the position and there are concerns that she’s too close to the friends she now has to supervise. When she meets Danielle, the trainee social worker who takes her old job, there is an instant connection. However, policies in their workplace make any kind of fraternisation off limits and unprofessional. Jenna has one case she’d like to resolve personally but also needs Danielle to be familiar with it should it take too long. Being together doesn’t make their dilemma any easier.Both Danielle and Jenna are also wading their way through complicated home lives.

This is not an easy read emotionally but it is riveting and well-paced. I found myself completely drawn into the drama and action. Their job is not an easy one and when it’s combined with the trauma and complications of what each character is having to deal with personally it almost becomes overwhelming. Overwhelming enough, in fact, that I think that the development of both Jenna and Danielle got lost a little bit in everything that was thrown at them.

I enjoyed this so much more than Disney’s debut novel, “Hers to Protect”, and there was a lot merit in that too. I’m looking forward to more by this author and easily recommend this novel.

Book received from Netgalley and Bold Strokes Books for an honest review.

This is not one of those sweet, gentle, minute killing, afternoon passing books. This one deals with serious issues, like child abuse, poverty, mental illnesses, lifelong feelings of blame and responsibility... 
   Both Jenna and Danielle have people around them they feel responsible for, and they take care of them. And it's hard and it's taking it's toll, doing that without any help, while trying to focus on work, where they deal with serious social issues. Shattered families, unfortunate destinies of abused, neglected children... it's hard to emotionally stay away, and sometimes, because of that, it's hard to be objective and make a right choice. And with Jenna's recent promotion as supervisor, it's very hard to maintain tight ties with co-workers, to deal with all her cases personally, and above all that - she's starting to feel something more for Danielle, the new social worker, when it's strictly forbidden and highly frown upon on. 
   We see many beautiful scenes between Jenna and Danielle in the book, but we also see Jenna's unhealthy  family relationship, and Danielle's strangely depending relationship with Brianna, her troubled ex-girlfriend and roommate. 
   This book is very mature, it's not dealing with some made-up angst just to have a break-up scene so they can kiss and make up later. There are very real obstacles for them to be together, in spite of their willingness to compromise up to some point. 
   I loved this book! It's one of those "deeper"ones, ones you remember and highly recommend to people that love reading romance with thick background plot and deeper structure.

3.5 Stars. I thought this book was quite a bit better than Disney’s first book Hers to Protect. I still felt there were some bumps here, but overall it felt like a pretty good step up. I thought it was an entertaining read that never bored me, it just didn’t come completely together like I hoped.

The book focuses on two women that work for child protective services. One is a newly promoted supervisor, the other is a new case worker. The more these two work together, the more an attraction is formed. The problem is a supervisor cannot date anyone that works for them. Is this relationship doomed from the beginning or is a HEA possible?

The book itself goes at a nice pace. You just keep flipping the pages because it seems like something is always happening. No time for boredom at all. I thought the child services part was very interesting. My disappointment was they only worked on two cases. I wish the book spent a little more time on work aspects.

There is a lot of angst in this book. I didn’t mind it for most of the book, but one of the final angsty moments (between the two mains) had me rolling my eyes hard. I think Disney just went one step further than she needed too. I started seeing a flashing unrealistic sign.

When it came to the characters, I’m a little mixed. I liked both of the mains for the most part, but both had some personalities I didn’t care for. Both let people walk over them a little too much for my tastes. The problem is a lot of the secondary characters are pretty toxic at times. Besides a few people from the workplace, and a couple kids, the other characters have major issues that brings outside angst onto the two mains.

The romance was pretty average for me. It didn’t feel like insta love, but it felt a little too insta like for my tastes. Also, there is so much going on in the book, I felt the romance was pushed on the backburner a bit. I liked the mains as a couple, but I wish I felt a stronger connection between them. Especially since the main storyline is about how their jobs are on the line if they are together. I want to see some major chemistry if you are risking everything for someone else.

I do want to mention there was a couple exciting parts that I enjoyed. I didn’t really expect that, so it made the read more enjoyable. I don’t see how anyone could be bored reading this book. It does have some bumps, but I did feel entertained. I’m hoping Disney’s next book will be even better so she keeps making good progress.

This was amazing read it dealt with a lot of things like love mental health problems alcoholism doing what is right. It start with Jenna who just got promoted to supervisor at her job as Social Worker and where she meet a new hire Danielle as they start to work together an attraction is form between them and it's frown upon at work to get into a relationship. As the story goes on we found out  they both have things going in their life. I won't tell you what those things are you just have to read it yourself but I'll tell you it's worth the read. Thank you for give me opportunity to read it and give honest review.