This was a good read. I really liked Trishara; she's smart and knows her worth. She's working in a male-dominated field and is trying to prove herself. She has the opportunity to go on a leadership-focused work trip. However, her work nemesis will also be there, and they will have to see a lot of each other. On the trip, she gets to know him and realizes he's not what she initially thought. The narrator brought Trihara to life; she was amazing! I had a great time listening and loved the banter between Thrishara and Rafe.

Thank you NetGalley and Hachette Audio for the ALC

Book 4 1/2 ⭐️ Audio 5 ⭐️

I was lucky enough to get the ALC of this book and it is amazing! Oh I loved this book so much, the enemies to lovers, the banter…it’s perfect. Soneela Nankani does an amazing job, to the point where I could hear the eye rolls when Tris is annoyed. This has been added to my audiobooks to re-listen list, which is much rarer than my re-read list.

Book: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 rounding up
Narrator: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you for this gifted ALC from Hachette Audio 💕

“I’ve never seen someone make such f**k me eyes from clear across the room. But okay, you are enemies.”

Soneela Nankani’s narration was simply amazing. Her performance brought the character to life, making the story more enjoyable than it actually was. Her voice was perfect, and I’m definitely going to listen to more of her narrations!

Now, let’s talk about the story itself. It fell flat for me. We were only given Tris’s POV, and it was clear from the beginning that she had an obsession and attraction to Rafe. This made it difficult for me to buy into the “rivals to lovers” theme.

Additionally, Tris came across as defensive, immature, and unreasonable. We often saw Rafe trying to be civil, and Tris would instantly react negatively. Her unwarranted behavior made her character hard to like.

Lastly, the lack of communication was killing me slowly.

Despite these issues, I did find the story cute and funny. The banter was adorable at times, and although the story was extremely predictable, I still enjoyed it. The writing was nicely done and I would recommend to a friend.

Not Safe For Work ALC review
Audio Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Plot: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️/5

A three week paid vacation to Hawaii for some leadership training? New designer suitcases on the company dime? What could go wrong?

Rooming with your work nemesis.

Watching Trish try to build a name for herself in corporate America really spoke to me because it’s a battle most women fear (sexism, the patriarchy, harassment, etc.). BUT RAFE‽ our baking king? Amazing. The enemies to lovers plot was strong with this one.

I’m a sucker for a workplace romantic comedy, and this book hit all the benchmarks. Nisha Thuli crafted such a hilarious story that also had its serious moments.

Thank you to NetGalley, Hachette Audio, Forever Publishing, and Nisha for an ALC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to @hachetteaudio for providing me an early copy of this audiobook. All opinions are my own.

Workplace adversaries, stuck on a work retreat together (in Hawaii 😩), and *circumstances* have them having to share a Honeymoon Suite. What are they gonna do??

I mean, I think you know what: banter, flirt, fight, make-up, bond, and well, you know. 👀😘

I had such a great time with this one!

The setting was perfect! Loved this little spin on a workplace romance, mixed with some Hawaiian vacation-like vibes.

Tris was such a great MC! Smart and not about to take the 💩 this company has been giving her. 💪 Loved her.

The chemistry between her and Rafe was so good. I loved the slow burn with plenty of flirty banter and so many *moments*.

This would make a perfect summer read, especially if you’re going to be out relaxing in the sun! 🥰

Audiobook notes: Really enjoyed the narrator! She had a great voice for both MCs. Definitely recommend the audiobook!

What this book is giving:
✅ Romcom
✅ Single POV
✅ Work Adversaries
✅ Forced Proximity
✅ Hawaii
✅ Forearms

Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½ / 5
🌶️🌶️🌶️ / 5

3.5 ⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley, Hachette Audio and
Nisha J. Tuli for an advanced copy of this audiobook. I will be giving my honest review.
I was introduced to this author through ‘Trials of the Sun Queen’ via Katherine Heigl’s TT video about it. I loved that book so much I was jazzed to try out her new romcom.
This was such a fun time with elements of forced proximity, travel getaway, workplace rivals and only one bed. I never felt like the storyline lagged or dragged or on the other end of the spectrum got too big or unbelievable which I appreciate.
As fun and fast paced as this was my favorite aspect by far was the inclusion of more serious themes including sexism and racial micro aggressions in the workplace. As a multiracial woman myself I was brought to tears a little bit in the beginning forward type beat when she says something about if you find yourself thinking people wouldn’t do or say that…they do and they did.
Also big claps for more women in stem books.

Nisha J Tuli's Artifacts of Ouranos series has been sitting on my tbr for an embarrassing amount of time so when I saw she was coming out with a summer romance, I think I audibly whooped! This one was so fun! Rivals to Lovers set in Hawaii?! Yup, I'm in. Rafe and Tris put your typical workplace hatred to shame- to her, Rafe is a nepo-baby who has had his career handed to him,. To him, she's undervalued and infuriating. As it happens, they're both unhappy with thier jobs and it takes a couple weeks in the honeymoon suite in Hawaii for them to realize they are actually hella attracted to one another. They help one another to realize what they really want out of life and also they have some crazy hot sex while they're at it. I had a great time with this one and it's such a fun book to grab and toss in your beach bag for this summer!

ALC Review: Not Safe for Work by Nisha J Tuli
Pub date: May 20th
Narrator: Soneela Nankani

Thank you to @hachetteaudio for the ALC. All thoughts and opinions are my own and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Oh my goodness you guys, I LOVED this book! The tension!!!! The banter!! The spice!! AHHHHH I need it 10000 more times please and thank you

I'm usually a hard core hater of enemies to lovers in contemporary romance but this one got me and it got me good - I think because you could just tell how much Rafe was actually holding a torch for Trishara. Like he lovedddddd her and she had no idea.

Trishara is just the perfect FMC - she is bold, smart, confident, and not scared to speak her mind.

I was absolutely enthralled with this from start to finish and highly recommend the audio! Soneela Nankani does an absolutely fabulous job and I need to go find other books that she narrates.

Read this for:
- Banter
- Only one bed
- Woman in STEM
- BIPOC FMC
- Forced Proximity
- Enemies/rivals to lovers
- He falls first
- Slow burn but when the spice hits, it HITS

Thank you to NetGalley and Publishers for giving me the opportunity to listen this book.

Tris and Rafe are “sworn enemies” who have to go to a work retreat together. They discover they are put in the same room and chaos erupts. Overall I thought this was a fun romance read.

I tend to hate an enemies to lovers in a contemporary setting because all I’m thinking is “what did this guy do to you? Did he kill someone???” This book though really does put the fun back in it. The author knows how crazy that is and she really does dive deep into the comedic aspect of their relationship.

I love how that even though it was a romance it still talked about things that do happen in workplace settings to women and POC. It gives you a better insight to the company and what Tris has went through for the past 5 years. She was a complex and fun character who had struggled.

The audiobook did really well making this feel like a stream of consciousness. I felt like I was in her brain and actively see how she thinks and reacts.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to listen to this book before release.

First of all, I want to say that I enjoyed the narrator a lot - I think they did a good job. Unfortunately, I didn't like the the two main characters, they often felt a bit immature and I thought it was obvious they were in to each other. I also thought that the FMC was unnecessarily rude at times.
I didn't really connect with either character, but I like the story enough to continue and finish.

Although this was not my favorite romance book, I would try another one by this author because I enjoyed the writing style.

Audiobook Review: Not Safe for Work by Nisha J. Tuli
🎧 Narrated by the incredibly talented Soneela Nankani 💫

I was granted early access to the Not Safe for Work audiobook via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review—and WOW, what a ride! 🎢 First of all, HUGE thank you to NetGalley, the brilliant Nisha J. Tuli, and Hachette Audio | Forever publishing 🙏💖 I initially requested this one because I was OBSESSED with the gorgeous cover 🎨🔥 (bookstagram ads were haunting me in the BEST way), so to say I was thrilled to get access is an understatement!

This book had me hooked from the jump. Trishara Malik is EVERYTHING. 💁🏽‍♀️✨ She’s a whip-smart, hilarious, self-assured woman of color who radiates confidence, ambition, and heart. She knows her worth 💼💪 and even though she’s been overlooked at WMC Purcell—hello, blatant nepotism 😤—she continues to rise.

The setting? A corporate leadership retreat in Hawaii 🌴🌺. The stakes? A career-defining opportunity. The catch? She has to share a honeymoon suite with her long-time nemesis and boss's son, Rafe Gallagher 😳😏 Talk about forced proximity at its finest!

What I loved was the journey—Tris’s personal growth 🌱, the sizzling tension with Rafe 🔥, and the slow unraveling of past assumptions. Yes, he’s a "smoldering eleven" 😍 but more importantly, there’s real depth to his character. The banter, the chemistry, the vulnerability—it all worked SO well. This rivals-to-lovers setup had just the right amount of spice 🌶️ and sincerity 💕.

I’m a sucker for tropes like forced proximity + adversaries to lovers, and this book delivered on both with wit and heart 🫶. Tris’s story felt empowering and genuine, with just enough messiness to feel real.

Soneela Nankani’s narration? Phenomenal. 🎤 She brought every character to life with such richness and emotional clarity—I was fully immersed.

Mark your calendars for May 20th 📅—this is a release you won’t want to miss. I’m already recommending it to all my fellow book lovers, especially those who crave romcoms with heart, heat, and a heroine worth rooting for 💗📚

Well done, Nisha! 👏 Frame this one—it deserves it.

This was a good read (listen) for me, but I wasn't obsessed with it. I think Tuli has a great writing style and I've enjoyed her other fantasy titles, and I was entertained for most of this book! But what brought the star rating down for me was our two leads. They are supposed to be grown adults, but I found them both really immature. I also feel like it was suuuuper obvious they were into each other the whole time. And the last thing that brought the rating down for me was our FMC, I found her personality to be kind of grating and she was often times just blatantly rude and it was really hard for me to connect with her.

Tension, romance, spice, etc was all very good though and what kept me in the book.

Maui, Hawaii. Three weeks. All expenses paid. Um... yes, yes, a thousand times yes? Trishara Malik's not gonna lie - she could use this break. But wait... there's a catch. Okay, okay, a couple of catches. 

The first catch, is the fact that it's not exaaaaactly a vacation... but a company-wide retreat of sorts for a select few of their engineers. Team-building exercises galore! 
The second catch, is that the company itself pretty much has zero promotion opportunities for a woman in engineering, let alone a woman of color. Sending Trishara sounds suspiciously like the company just wants to look good by "supporting diversity". Meh. 
But the absolute worst catch, is that her nemesis, her rival, Rafe "son of the boss" Gallagher is the other Chicago branch employee being sent on this retreat. Trishara's going to have to look at his aggravatingly stupid handsome face for three whole weeks! Le sigh. Well, at least they have separate rooms- 

...make that the fourth catch. 
whispers They have to share the honeymoon suite- fit of Ron Swanson giggles 

Nisha J Tuli, a woman of color, prefaces her first contemporary romance by (listing trigger warnings and) explaining it is inspired by her own experiences working in the male-dominated field of engineering. As such, this book is close to the author's heart. Tuli sets an expectation and it's really satisfying to see her and her book live up to that. 

The book's strength is primarily found in its female main character (and narrator). Trishara Malik is well-developed. She is funny and gutsy, but not without her insecurities. She is insecure romantically, struggling with trust issues after her ex cheated on her and made her the victim of revenge porn. She also feels increasingly undervalued at her job. Finally, these two circumstances clash when she first meets Rafe, the male lead, 5 years prior, all the way through the present. I like how Tuli adds additional layers to the romance storyline this way; because there is more conflict from various angles, the romantic tension builds up actually slowly, and beautifully. Their interactions are hella sexy, but go beyond that most of the time. They might not have communicated well when they first met - although they developed another kind of mischievous, playful "love-to-hate-language" as they continued orbiting each other at work - but they really work on that in the present. 

What makes this work so well is that Rafe goes through a solid character development of his own. Both leads balance each other out in ways that allow them to grow together, both individually and as a couple. Rafe isn't just this unobtainable perfect man. He can be frustrating at times, but he's got his own vulnerabilities and obstacles to figure out. Tris brings out the desire in him to get to work on that. While Rafe anchors Tris in unexpected and swoon-worthy ways, Tuli allows Tris to be Rafe's knight in shining armor, too. That's refreshing. 

Tuli developed a whole retreat program for her characters, which was so fun to read. They have an obstacle course! They have to tell a partner 3 things they like about them! They have to build something in teams! In between there's time for some R&R, but everything moves the plot and characters forward. I was immersed in the story and in their corporate bubble, and very invested in both Tris's and Rafe's career-oriented storylines. As a reader you bear witness to the crap - injustice, hypocrisy - Tris especially has to put up with, and it's just a bummer when you realize this happens in real life. I mean, it's not news, but I do think, unless you're in that world directly, it's not something you often really consider. 

So this discomfort is a feeling we need to have. ("Don't turn a blind eye" is an important message in the story, too.) Not Safe For Work is a fun and overall funny book, honestly. I enjoyed it so much. But I mean to say that it's good to keep discussing matters like this even in our lighter-hearted reads. That keeps the subject, and the desperate need for change, at the forefront. I really understand why this book means so much to the author. But I'm also really glad that she put the message out there while writing a killer slowburn romance. Since I listened to the audiobook, courtesy of NetGalley, I would be remiss if I didn't extend my compliments to the narrator, Soneela Nankani. She has a really pleasing voice and tells the story in an engaging way by really embodying Trishara's character - her quirks and her vulnerabilities. Trishara has a great sense of humor, and Nankani's apt delivery of quips made me laugh out loud on several occasions. She has a way with sarcasm when needed (which is always a bonus in my book), and as the sole narrator of this book did a fantastic job with male voices, too. 

It's a 12 out of 10 for me.

This book is a fun, workplace, vacation romance. It has one bed, enemies to lovers, competition, and vacation fling. It also deals with issues women in STEM face like sexual harassment, discrimination, and being invisible. It had great banter, was thoughtful in its writing, and two fantastic characters.

Trishara Malik just lost a promotion to Rafe Gallagher—her rival and the boss’s son. Now they’re stuck sharing a room at a corporate retreat in Hawaii, competing for the same exec spot. She’s determined to keep it professional… but Rafe might not be the jerk she thought he was.

This was my first Nisha J. Tuli book and I had such a great time with it! It’s a fun, breezy read that still manages to touch on some important issues like workplace sexism, racism, and harassment—but it never feels too heavy or preachy. Everything is handled with care, and the tone stays mostly light.

I loved Trish as a main character—she’s relatable, imperfect, and so easy to root for. And the chemistry with Rafe? Off the charts. The banter, the slow burn, the steam... all so well done.

The only reason this wasn’t a full five stars for me was the whole situation with Rafe and his ex. Like... sir, why are you still taking her daily calls six months post-breakup? He needed to set that boundary a long time ago. It felt like the story tried to frame her as the problem, but honestly, Rafe was just as much at fault for not shutting that down. He redeems himself, sure—but still. Men, do better 😂

All in all, though, I really enjoyed this one and I’ll definitely be checking out more from this author!

🎧 Audiobook Review
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)

Not Safe for Work by Nisha J. Tuli, narrated by Soneela Nankani, is a perfect blend of forced proximity, slow-burn tension, and meaningful commentary on workplace dynamics. Set against the picturesque backdrop of a Hawaiian corporate retreat, the story follows Trishara Malik—an engineer and woman of color—navigating the challenges of a male-dominated industry, and her workplace rival, Rafe Gallagher. Tuli does an excellent job of addressing heavier topics, such as microaggressions in the workplace, without ever disrupting the story’s pace or tone. Her nuanced exploration of sexism and racism in corporate settings feels especially authentic, drawing from her own experience in STEM. Trishara’s POV offers a deeply resonant perspective for anyone who has worked in predominantly white spaces.

🎧 Notes: Soneela Nankani, our narrator, brings Trishara to life in such a dynamic way, making it feel like you're watching a summer-drenched rom-com unfold in front of you. The audiobook strikes a fantastic balance between humor, romance, and thoughtful social commentary. It’s bingeable, heartfelt, and packs just the right amount of spice.

A must-listen for fans of contemporary romance looking for depth alongside their escapism.

Huge thanks to Hachette Audio and Nisha J. Tuli for the ALC via NetGalley!

Enemies to lovers
Forced proximity
Slow burn
Workplace romance

Unfortunately this was not the book for me. I was really excited for this one but was really disappointed. A 3 star is probably high, were between a 2.5-3.

Both MCs acted VERY young and immature throughout the book. I would have guessed these characters were 19-23 yrs old not in their 30s.

The fact that Rafe would not just block his ex GFS freaking number and he continued to let it cause a ruckus on NUMEROUS occasions throughout the book drove me bonkers. The choices that Trishara kept making seemed immature and unrealistic.

I did enjoy the tension between the two but unfortunately that wasn't enough for me to enjoy this one.

The narrators were fantastic though and honestly what saved this from being a DNF.

Thank you Hachette audio for this ALC

Loved the audiobook from the start. The characters are well written and they are just so easy to fall in love with them. The plot was well developed and how the story just plays out is amazing. I can’t stress this book enough. It’s unique and I loved that it was based in Hawaii. I think that’s different and I just love and good book that showcases an interracial couple. I would definitely recommend this book.

Thank you NetGalley, HachetteAudio and the wonderful author Nisha J. Tuli for this audio ARC of Not Safe for Work!

I loved this so much! The writing was so much fun, easy to read, and super fast paced! The audio itself was great. I can be picky when it comes to narrators but I absolutely loved it!

Engineer Trishara gets unexpectedly chosen to go on a corporate leadership retreat - but unfortunately for her, her work nemesis and the man who got the promotion she wanted, is there with her. And... they have to share a room.

Watching Tris get to really know Rafe, the kind of person he truly is, and the things that he values is such a fun ride. Their love story is very fun and very spicy.

It was such a realistic look into what it's like to be a woman of colour in a career dominated by white cis men. The kind of things that Tris faces are enraging, they'll have your blood boiling. Some events had me yelling at my phone.

Highly recommend!! 5 stars

NOT SAFE FOR WORK - NISHA J TULI
4.5⭐

Trishara Malik a woman working in STEM for years has dealt with white male privilege and blatant nepotism esp when her hard earned promotion goes to her nemesis Rafe Gallagher the boss's son.
But when she gets a chance to attend a corporate leadership retreat in Hawaii it's a chance for her to revive her stalled career and compete for a covered spot but she will have to not only compete with Rafe but also share a honeymoon suite due to a booking error. But spending time Trisha realises that Rafe is not the villan and has to deal with his own demons. Can Trisha learn to trust the man who might have been standing in her corner all along?
.
.
To a work place romance and enemies to lovers troupe if you add in a tropical island setting and a strong women in STEM rep it is for sure a recipe for a great book!
Not safe for Work delivers just that and author Nisha has become a new favourite for me.
The representation of Trishara ...her character development was fantastic..her one liners and the best of all the final Email ( IYKYK) - EPIC!!
and add to it the chemistry 🔥🔥
The audiobook narrated by Soneela Nankani did a fab job in getting both characters come to life!