I was really excited to try this book as one of my favorite romance books takes place in an office setting. Unfortunately, while the idea for This is NOT an Office Romance was solid, the implementation had significant and distracting plot holes, and at times I felt as if I was reading a book by two separate authors.

Emily as a character was likable. I thought her backstory was interesting and gave her something appropriate to overcome. I liked how supportive her parents were, and appreciated that she was written as a woman with power and self confidence. Unfortunately her backstory came with significant plot holes, at times her ex was referred to as her fiancé and at other times in the book it's indicated they were never engaged. At one point Emily describes meeting her ex at uni, at another she describes him as being from her hometown and labels them to have been childhood sweethearts. Discrepancies like that play a significant role in preventing me from being fully immersed in a story.

Jack as a character was not as likable. His condescending remark that junior staff looked up to senior staff as children look up to parents felt gross; especially in a story where the idea of workplace appropriateness was a big plot point.

Also, I was very confused as to when the story takes place. If it takes place around 2024, it doesn't make sense that Bronwyn would be considered a millennial based on the age given for her. She would be a member of gen z, and the main characters would be millennials. If the story takes place in the past, there is no clear indication of that. Emily herself is described as 32, yet two years earlier she was in the accident (30) and it's said she was working in New York as an attorney for nearly 10 years. I'm unsure if law school goes more quickly in the UK than in the US but 20 seems very young for a lawyer just starting out. Additionally, Jack is said to have worked at the firm for nearly 20 years, yet he's written as in his mid-thirties. Did he start as an intern?

Another aspect that I found jarring was that around the 2/3rds mark, the book became much more descriptive and poetic. Frequently to an extreme degree. Some of the language was beautiful but it was also continuous and very different form the rest of the book which was jarring.

Finally, wiithout spoilers, the last non-epilogue chapter contains a discrepancy about what happened to a particular character. Two different and mutually exclusive conclusions were given.

Thank you NetGalley and Burning Chair for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own

This is NOT an office romance... or is it? I read this in less than a day! It was such a cozy stay at home book to read.
Emily and Jack are both at transitional points in their life and feel as though they have feelings for eachother almost immediately. They cannot stop thinking about eachother.
When they are assigned to work a case together for the law firm they both work at, they seem to get a little more than just work done.
However, their job and troubled history might not let them be together.
Read to find out if they get their happily ever after!
Things I liked: character development, the plot, and the writing style was very descriptive.
Things I did not like: some of the explanations were repetitive, with a character even responding the same way twice back to back in chapter 5.
Rating: 3/5
Thanks to NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review. #ThisisNOTanOfficeRomance