Not Safe for Work by Nisha J. Tuli
From the author of Tiktok’s beloved The Artifacts of Ouranos Series (you know the Romantasy quartet that Katherine Heigl famously binged and raved about) comes a new contemporary romcom that’s cleverly infused with its own Romantasy elements. Nisha J. Tuli makes Romantasy come through in her latest, Not Safe for Work, in such a delightful and highly relatable way, all thanks to our first person narrator, Tris Malik.
Tris is a kick-ass STEM girlie by day and an avid Romantasy reader by night. In real life at the engineering firm she works at, Tris even gets to live out one aspect of Romantasy lore. She has a workplace love interest slash rival Rafe who exudes major benevolent-dark-lord vibes.
I’m amazed at how Nisha J. Tuli translates my favorite Romantasy elements into a workplace retreat romance. We’ve got daring contests, titles at stake, corrupt (corporate) royalty, underdogs and entitled nepo babies, found (work) family, and more comfortably couched in a high stakes workplace retreat setting. The retreat is designed to choose the company’s next generation of elite executives from the company’s rising stars. The Romantasy-meets-real-life interplay is beyond cute. It works so well in this book, thanks to such seamless, clever, and page-turning writing.
So, what I’m sayin is, you’ll definitely want to read this romcom if you like reading Romantasy, but if you’re a Great British Baking Show fan, go ahead an preorder this for that reason too. There’s lots of dessert in this book! Other reasons to preorder: you enjoy the grey sweatpants trope and you crave a light dose of the fated mates trope (and what that trope could look and feel like in the real world).
Also, this book is a joy to annotate! I annotated (1) a motif of lemon-flavored things; (2) how Nisha J. Tuli characterizes scenes and characters with color (especially gray and pink); (3) of course, any and all Romantasy mentions; (4) the theme of safety; and lastly (5) celestial imagery that plays with the idea that Tris and Rafe are just two rising STEM stars on a collision path that will supernova their lives in the best way.
Thank you Net Galley for the Valentine’s Day surprise of the Read Now e-arc! All opinions are my own.
Annotate With Sara 