Genre: Romance, Comedy, Coming of Age
LGBTQ+ Category: Gay
Reviewer: Ulysses
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About The Book
What if one impulsive lie gave you the second chance you never knew you needed?
From USA Today bestseller Alexis Hall, 10 Things That Never Happened is a laugh-out-loud, slow-burn queer rom-com brimming with British wit, workplace tension, and unexpected heart.
Sam Becker’s job isn’t glamorous, but the quirky team he manages feels like home. Even his boss, the cold and calculating Jonathan Forest, has become a part of his strange little routine. Then comes a clumsy accident, a panicked lie about amnesia, and one very guilty billionaire whose icy exterior starts to thaw.
Jonathan shows up with soup, softness, and something dangerously close to care. As Sam fakes forgetfulness to keep the peace, their chemistry becomes impossible to ignore. But a relationship built on a lie can only last so long and Sam’s running out of time to tell the truth.
A delightfully fun spinoff to the bestselling London Calling series, this witty, emotionally layered romance delivers on the tension of enemies-to-lovers, the comfort of found family, and the quiet thrill of discovering someone might actually see you.
The Review
If anyone can take a classic rom-com setup and make it complicated and thought-provoking, it’s Alexis Hall. I got sucked into this story quickly and was utterly fascinated by the unorthodox approach to romantic narrative as the author did what I (and every reader) wanted—without making it easy.
Sam Becker is the manager of a bed-and-bath superstore in Sheffield. He rather likes his job, and is a good boss—but mostly because he’s indulgent of the not-entirely-committed staff under him. Then the owner of this multi-store chain, Jonathan Forest, chews Sam out for not meeting his targets (i.e. profit goals), and then orders him to come to Croydon (i.e. part of London) for a face-to-face meeting. Forest, not much older than Sam, is just as obnoxious in person as he is over the phone (all this from Sam’s viewpoint). Then, during a forced visit to the Croydon flagship store, Forest accidentally causes Sam to trip over a shower enclosure display (the title of this product itself becomes a running joke) and fall, hitting his head.
And there you have it: two people who dislike each other intensely are forced to spend an extended time together; in this case Jonathan is forced to take the concussed Sam into his ridiculously large under-used mansion to convalesce, because Sam seems to have nobody to look after him. Oh, and Sam pretends to have amnesia, in order to give himself time to come up with a plan to save his job and his staff’s jobs while Jonathan is taking care of him.
Admittedly, that last premise is pretty far-fetched, both in its medical reality, and in having to believe that Jonathan is dumb enough to fall for it. If there is a weak link in this plot, that’s it. On the other hand, Alexis Hall immediately shifts the sit-com antics of the plot into high gear, involving multiple four-hour drives from Croydon to Sheffield, Sam’s mess of a rescue cat named Gollum, and Jonathan’s unexpectedly invasive family.
The dumb amnesia premise (even Sam thinks it’s dumb) does not, however, deter the author from shining a bright light on the character of Jonathan Forester, an uptight, stubborn, egomaniacal prig. The two things that come from this, as the author teases them out of the narrative flow, are that we begin to realize that Sam himself is sort of a jerk, even as he begins to understand the truth behind his boss’s obnoxious behaviors.
This is the least flowery romantic comedy I’ve ever read, and I have to say it works remarkably well. I laughed quite a lot, especially when Jonathan’s family gets into things; and when, quite far into the story, we finally learn about Sam’s own truth, I found myself moved nearly to tears. The various formulae required for romantic comedy (straight or gay) are adhered to, but in such a prickly, non-romantic way that I was surprised to be so deeply invested when, at last, I was asked to believe in the power of love.
I guess in the end this is the story of two broken people who, together, seem to be rather a lot less broken than either one is on his own. Maybe the real lesson is that, when you really are forced to understand somebody, the chances are greater that you’ll forgive them their flaws. I can very much see why this might not be everybody’s favorite Alexis Hall novel, but in the end I loved it rather a lot.
5 stars.
The Reviewer
Ulysses Grant Dietz grew up in Syracuse, New York, where his Leave It to Beaver life was enlivened by his fascination with vampires, from Bela Lugosi to Barnabas Collins. He studied French at Yale, and was trained to be a museum curator at the University of Delaware. A curator since 1980, Ulysses has never stopped writing fiction for the sheer pleasure of it. He created the character of Desmond Beckwith in 1988 as his personal response to Anne Rice’s landmark novels. Alyson Books released his first novel, Desmond, in 1998. Vampire in Suburbia, the sequel to Desmond, is his second novel.
Ulysses lives in suburban New Jersey with his husband of over 41 years and their two almost-grown children.
By the way, the name Ulysses was not his parents’ idea of a joke: he is a great-great grandson of Ulysses S. Grant, and his mother was the President’s last living great-grandchild. Every year on April 27 he gives a speech at Grant’s Tomb in New York City.
