The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary, narrated by Jessie Cave & Lino Facioli. The story was better than the narration.
Reviewed for AudioGals.
Narrated by Jessie Cave & Lino Facioli
I’ve been a fan of Beth O’Leary since The Flatshare (has anyone seen the TV series? It’s pretty good – not as good as the audiobook of course, but still, pretty good!) and have been looking forward to The Wake-Up Call since it popped up in my Audible search some months ago.
Izzy Jenkins and Lucas Da Silva both work at Forest Manor Hotel & Spa in the New Forest. In December 2021, Izzy sends Lucas a Christmas card confessing her infatuation with him. Lucas sends her a generic Christmas card in return. To make matters worse, when Izzy goes to the mistletoe where she hopes to meet Lucas, she see him kissing her flatmate.
Thereafter, Izzy is Team Not-Lucas. She will do anything she can to make his life difficult at work; something that’s pretty easy because she’s a little chaotic and is a firm believer that more is more and everything is better with sparkle and he’s all about order, data and minimalism. (One of Izzy’s many tortures of Lucas is to make him say “Booking Book”.)
It’s clear from the beginning that Lucas is a little lost as to why Izzy went from being nice to him in 2021 to being a witch in 2022. I had a suspicion that maybe his Christmas card from Izzy went astray but Izzy checked with “Poor Mandy” who delivered the Christmas cards and she definitely delivered all of Izzy’s cards, along with everyone else’s to the staff and guests at Forest Manor. (Poor Mandy is so-named because she is the third person on the reception desk and stuck between Izzy and Lucas’s animus. It doesn’t help she has a self-esteem problem and won’t stick up for herself.) Poor Mandy has been the Christmas Elf at Forest Manor for ages and Lucas definitely got a card from Izzy. So… what happened?
The main portion of the story takes place in December 2022 when the ceiling of Forest Manor has caved in and between that, the pandemic and some poor business decisions by the (beloved) owners, the Bartholomews, it’s looking very likely the hotel will shut in the new year. At the very least, some staff will need to be let go. Izzy and Lucas have even more reason for their rivalry now of course.
Over the next couple of weeks Izzy work both with each other and against each other and their latent attraction roars back to life. But Izzy can’t trust Lucas because he humiliated and betrayed her last Christmas. But… maybe a fling would work?
For Lucas’s part, he wants a lot more with Izzy but she doesn’t seem to want him back so he’s reluctant to fling with her because his heart is involved.
I think we all know where this is going.
But that’s pretty common with romance isn’t it? We know it’s going to end at the HEA – it’s all about the journey.
Beth O’Leary has a wonderful humour to her writing which works really well for me. This story is a little more than a big misunderstanding, although a frank conversation early on would have changed everything. As much as I enjoyed the story, I also admit misunderstandings aren’t my favourite.
I found the narration less engaging. Jessie Cave performed all of Izzy’s sections. She was a perfect Izzy and nailed the humour but she did not have any character voices really so there was basically no differentiation between Izzy and everyone else. Still, I enjoyed Ms Cave’s performance better than Lino Facioli’s.
Mr Facioli narrates all of Lucas’s POV and while he does have some character differentiation (a plus) I found his pacing and syntax a little off. I looked Lino Facioli up on the Google and he is in fact a Brazilian-English narrator so he should have been perfect for the role. Lucas is a Brazilian living in England after all. When Mr Facioli was delivering an English accent (as most of the rest of the cast required) he was fine but when he was speaking as Lucas – either by way of narrative or dialogue, he would put odd pauses in between words or phrases, where they didn’t naturally fit. There didn’t seem to be any particular reason for it – unless he ran out of breath maybe? (There was also some audible breathing which… no.)
The Wake-Up Call is full of wonderful quirky characters (other staff and guests of the hotel mainly) and Lucas and Izzy are genuinely delightful and completely belong together. The narration was not quite what the text deserved. However, the story kept me so engaged I was able to overlook most of my concerns and just go along for the ride.
Grade: B
