Such a fun setup—five strangers stuck at Waterloo Station due to a suspected terrorist threat, and each of them has their own reason for being there. Nadia’s waiting for a blind date, Tom is supposed to meet someone from his past, Bea and Ruth (both in their 70s!) just got engaged, and poor Carole finds out her husband is cheating… on their anniversary. Somehow, they all end up bonding over food and stories, dubbing themselves the “Waterloo Five.”

Tom and Nadia decide to fake date to get their friends and family off their backs about being single. At first, they don’t seem like a good match, but the more time they spend together, the more things start to shift. It’s a sweet and charming story—until Tom gets cold feet and ditches Nadia to chase a woman he met once ten years ago. That part really lost me. He threw away something real for a fantasy, and I didn’t love that choice.

Still, the group dynamic was heartwarming, and I enjoyed most of the journey.

Thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for the free advanced copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

A wonderful read!
This novel drew me in from the very first page and kept me hooked until the end. The characters were vibrant and relatable, the writing was engaging, and the story had just the right balance of heart and humor. Highly recommend!
Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

This was a sweet and easy read with a fun premise, but I found myself wanting a bit more from it overall. The idea of five strangers meeting under the clock at Waterloo Station and forming a bond was really charming, but I didn't feel much chemistry between Tom and Nadia. Their relationship felt more situational than sincere, and I just wasn’t super invested in them by the end. The pacing also felt uneven, and certain plot points—like Lola’s return—seemed rushed or underdeveloped.

Overall, it was light and entertaining, and I appreciated the diversity and the themes of unexpected friendship, but I think the romance could've used more depth and spark.

Meet Me Under The Clock - a short and sweet romance including new friendships, fake dating and friends to lovers.

All the characters meet by chance under the clock at Waterloo Station. The MFC Nadia is meeting a blind date who doesn’t show up, The MMC Tom is meeting a long lost love - Lola - who also doesn’t show up. The secondary characters Bea and Ruth are an elderly couple who have just got engaged after knowing each other for years and Carole has just split up with her cheating husband on their anniversary.
After an emergency at the station, forcing everyone to stay in place, the characters all get talking and end up spending the evening together, making fast friends and becoming ‘The Waterloo Five’.

As Nadia and Tom live on the same train line, they spend more time together with Nadia supporting Tom as he struggles with Lola dismissing him. They make a pact to ‘fake date’ to stop the pressure of family and friends trying to set them up on dates.

The book has chapters in both Nadia and Toms POVs and both start feeling attracted to each other as they spend more time together, however Tom is still hung up on Lola.

I loved the slow burn romance of Nadia trying to fight her feelings in order to preserve their friendship and Tom being confused about who or what he wants.

I found myself getting frustrated with Tom who claims he’s in love with Lola despite only spending a few hours together 10 years ago. He’s still obsessed with her despite her ghosting him and messing him around and I just wanted to scream at him to get over her.

I loved the fast friendships that were formed in the book with The Waterloo Five, supporting each other through marriages and divorce despite being people of all ages and backgrounds.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. It was sweet, easy to read and I’ll definitely seek out more books from this author.

I love the fake dating trope so this book did not disappoint!

Tom and Nadia randomly meet each other and 3 other friends under the clock at Waterloo Station. The group become quick friends, calling themselves The Waterloo Five. Tom and Nadia were each there to meet up with a date and end up being stood up.

Tom and Nadia fake a relationship to get coworkers and family off their backs and you know how that goes!

I did not want to put this book down and actually stayed up way too late one night to finish!

Thank you to the publisher for an advanced copy, all thoughts are my own.

I really enjoyed Tom and Nadias story, it was a true slow burn and we really got to see a great friendship blossom as they grew closer and the banter was top notch!

Also if you're a fan of fake dating you'll adore this one

Highly recommend!

This was a cutsey romance story, a bit of a will they won't they.. perfect holiday reading, light and easy to read!

Nadia and Tom meet when they have both been stood up. They soon agree to be each others dates for some events, but what will happen when feelings get involved?

Meet Me Under the Clock is Jo Lovett’s newest cozy romantic comedy set in London. It’s a friends-to-lovers love-triangle story with a very predictable plot. The events of a single night account for the first 20 percent of the book.

33-year-old Nadia is an accountant who is unlucky in love. She is a very capable and caring woman who is overlooked by others. After six terrible dates from an app, she is set up on a blind date with a co-worker’s roommate, meeting Dougie under the clock at Waterloo Station. When she arrives wearing a red dress, no one is there who meets Dougie’s physical description. After waiting awhile, the station is locked down for over an hour due to a security threat. During this time, Nadia makes conversation with three women and a man who was also waiting for his date to arrive.

35-year-old Tom has been divorced for nine months and is lonely. He recently reached out to a woman, Lola, who he met ten years earlier and spent two hours with. While he felt that he loved Lola after their initial meeting, she was pregnant and felt that she should try to make things work with the father of her child. While Tom is waiting for Lola, who he hasn’t seen in ten years, Waterloo Station is locked down and he begins talking with four women who are standing nearby.

Bea and Ruth are long-time friends who hid their romantic love for each other for 50 years. Now they are open about their lesbian relationship, getting engaged, and encouraging others to not waste their lives. Carole and Roger are supposed to be celebrating their wedding anniversary, except that Carole discovered Roger’s communication with his lover. They feud loudly and Roger leaves. Tom, Lola, Bea, Ruth, and Carole declare themselves The Waterloo Five and go to a nearby restaurant.

Nadia and Tom quickly become friends and agree to become each other’s’ plus-one in order to get others off their backs. While Nadia doesn’t care that Dougie blew his chance with her, Tom is very worried about Lola’s no-show and lack of contact. As Nadia and Tom spend more time together, it’s obvious that they are very compatible and should form a romantic connection. However, the specter of Lola hangs around.

While Meet Me Under the Clock is a well-written story, I feel like it would have been a much better story had it been written or marketed differently. The story as written had too much emotional angst regarding Lola for it to be labeled as a romantic comedy. Tom’s insta-love for Lola made zero sense, and the reader knew that she was “no good.” Tom spent more time with Nadia in the evening when they met than he did with Lola in ten years. He absolutely should have recognized what a treasure Nadia is and gotten over his fantasy obsession with Lola much sooner. The camaraderie between The Waterloo Five is what makes Meet Me Under the Clock a special story. It’s a celebration of friendship, and familial, romantic, and platonic love.

I received an Advance Review Copy (ARC) from NetGalley and Boldwood Books for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This was a romance with a real difference, a familiar trope developed in a wholly original way – with superb characters whose individual journeys I very much enjoyed.

Nadia is rather half-heartedly approaching the prospect of yet another first date – but this time it’s with the friend of an acquaintance (with the assurance that he’ll be the perfect match…), rather than the more usual on-line dating disaster. Waiting at their meeting place under the clock on Waterloo Station, it looks like she’s been stood up – but there’s no chance of her giving up and going home when there’s a lockdown, a police incident, and no-one is able to leave. It’s a popular meeting place, and when it happens there are a few people standing under the clock – an older couple celebrating their engagement after many years of separation, a warring couple arguing loudly and in the act of breaking up… plus Tom, who’s also been stood up, having hoped to resume a relationship from many years before. The five who remain – the husband of the fighting couple is soon seen off – head off for a meal together once they’re able to leave and a friendship ensues, the “Waterloo Five” joining together again whenever they find an opportunity.

But Nadia and Tom have a particular affinity because of their less than successful love lives – perhaps even some rather promising chemistry, but Tom is still rather obsessed by no-show Lola, however hopeless their relationship might appear. Becoming friends, they decide to undertake some fake dating – a handy plus one for those social occasions, with none of the pressure. Until that becomes distinctly uncomfortable – it’s all well and good putting on a front for acquaintances and workmates, but less comfortable deceiving family and close friends who are entirely convinced that they’re love’s young dream. The sadness is that it’s quite clear from their first meeting that they’d make the perfect couple – but there might just be too many obstacles for that to ever happen.

There’s nothing that new or different about a fake dating scenario, but I found this one particularly engaging – and there’s a lot of well handled emotional turmoil, especially around the impact their fake relationship has on others. Tom is endlessly frustrating, unable and unwilling to move on – but the kindest and loveliest man. And Nadia really had a place in my heart – and she has a Tom-shaped place in hers, if only he could see it too. Their journey is tremendously engaging, with all the right emotional touches – and it was one I thoroughly enjoyed, even if I sometimes wanted to bang their heads together. But the added extra to this lovely book was the quite wonderful supporting cast – the friends, the family, and the other well-drawn members of the Waterloo Five as their lives moved on.

I just found the whole book a delight – beautifully written, with such well developed characters and relationships, and real emotional depth. But it’s very entertaining too – plenty of humour, lots of delicious awkward moments. And then there’s that gentle tangling with the moral issues, deceiving people as they do – with real uncertainty about there being any possibility of a happy ending. I really loved it – and look forward to reading more from its talented author.

I would've enjoyed this book more if not for... well, Tom. This book would've been so great because I was thrilled with the premise, I liked getting to know Nadia and I liked Bea, Ruth and Carole as side characters, but Tom's emotional immaturity when it came to him and Nadia was just frustrating. And I'm not saying Nadia was perfect, she made her own frustrating choices too. I really liked the friendship that this book portrayed, but I didn't like the romance.

This uplifting romance is a warm and heartfelt story about friendship, fate, and unexpected love. When Nadia and Tom are both stood up at Waterloo Station, a chance meeting sparks a connection that quickly turns into a deep friendship. As they fake-date for convenience, their bond grows, and they begin to wonder if their relationship could be more than they initially thought. A beautiful, tender tale about love appearing when least expected.

I used to live in Sutton, which meant that I could often get trains from Waterloo Station (you just had to change at Clapham Junction.). The clock is such an iconic place to meet that it was even memorialised in a romcom, the classic Man Up. So I love that our main characters meet there at a time of transition. Nadia is sick of being set up on awful first dates, while Tom is obsessed with a woman he met ten years ago. But there is something incredibly sweet about the romance that develops. Now that I think of it, not a lot of romances have the leads realising that they're each others best friends - but these two do, and they quietly and sweetly support each other.

This is really a cozy romance - even the eventual angst was of the light variety and when I finished reading this book, I just felt so soothed. This is a lovely coy escape for romance lovers. I'd recommend to fans of Sarah Adams or Lynn Painter.

I haven't read a book from Lovett in a while now and I'd forgotten how enjoyable her books actually are.

Meet Me Under the Clock is a slow burning romance replete with my favourite 'fake dating' trope.

I loved Nadia and Tom. Why did it take them so long? We could see it, why couldn't they? They were so perfect together! I'd love to catch up with them in a later book...hint, hint!

It's quite a short read, but the charm of the characters, their antics and the fact that it made me smile more than made up for that!

Absolutely loved it!

I was really looking forward to reading Jo's latest book, but this one fell flat for me. There was too much telling, rather than showing. The long sections of dialogue were so polite and quite boring at times. I didn't feel there was much in the way of chemistry between Nadia and Tom, and Tom was just ridiculous for being so hung up on some woman who he barely knew and hadn't seen for 10 years. The premise is good, the five strangers meeting at Waterloo Station, but there was little humour and I never really felt like the other characters were brought to life. Such a shame that the idea wasn't better executed. I did however, really like Nadia. With thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When Nadia and Tom are both unceremoniously stood up by their dates under the clock at Waterloo Station, fate throws them together in the most unusual of circumstances. Tired of dating but always needing a plus one for weddings, parties, and the like, they agree to fake date each other. But as their pretend relationship starts to feel more real, Nadia and Tom begin to wonder if there’s more to their connection than convenience.

I loved how random this group of strangers met and formed a connection. It wasn't just Tom and Nadia. There was Ruth, Bea and Carole. Altogether they became the Waterloo Five. Naturally, Nadia and Tom formed their own connection.

I could feel the awkwardness bleed from the pages as their mutual attraction grew and they kept it hidden from each other. Understandably, unfinished business kept them apart but I loved how they bridged the gap in the end.

Thank you to Netgalley and Publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Meet Me Under the Clock by Jo Lovett is a heartwarming and funny story romance story.
As with all her books I couldn’t put this down and read it in one sitting. An emotional roller coaster of a novel that gives you all the feels.
This story is easy to read and may appeal to fans of lighthearted romance, it fails to leave a lasting impression. It’s a missed opportunity to turn a unique premise into something memorable.
The perfect summer romance, filled with warmth and laughter. If you enjoy feel-good stories, this book is an absolute must-read! I can’t recommend it enough.

This was my favourite read of 2025 so far - heartwarming, humorous and at times heartbreaking with a loveable group of main characters and a good, steady plot.

1.5/5

I disliked this book. It was boring, nothing interesting really happened, and the characters were dull. MMC was hung up on his crush and never saw FMC and only when she decided to move on he was suddenly in love with her? And when she explicitly told him she doesn't want to see him, he made their mutual friend to trick her into meeting him?: Fuck that shit.

And FMC caving in after he manipulated her was so stupid, I hated that behaviour. Just stand your ground and move on, girl!

The dialogue was cringe and unnatural and very very awkward throughout the book. The inner dialogue was too.

The premise of Meet Me Under the Clock seemed really sweet. Nadia and Tom are meeting their respective dates under the clock at Waterloo Station and they both get stood up. Due to a potential terrorist attack (really?) the station goes into lockdown and Nadia, Tom along with three other ladies - Carole, Bea and Ruth all have to stay put under the clock. Carole has just found out that her husband has been cheating on her and elderly couple Bea and Ruth have just gotten engaged. They all strike up a friendship, go out for tapas and call themselves The Waterloo Five. I absolutely loved this little group and their camaraderie.

However, the book fell flat for me mainly due to the lack of chemistry between Nadia and Tom. Nadia was fun and vibrant and I loved how she had many hidden talents. But Tom, can we all agree that Tom was very bland and just seemed to have no personality? He moped for Lola until almost the very end and it was infuriating.

This could have been a really cute read had there been some chemistry and sans Tom's doormat personality.