The Honey-Don't List

The Honey-Don't List is a contemporary workplace romance by Christina Lauren. Carey Duncan has spent a decade as assistant to Melissa and Rusty Tripp, the home-renovation stars whose warm marriage is the entire brand behind their television show and their new book. James McCann, a structural engineer with a doctorate, was hired for his expertise and now spends his days running errands.

What Carey and James both know, and neither can say, is that the Tripps despise each other. With a national book tour ahead and their own careers on the line, they are told to keep the couple presentable in public and apart in private. Two people who start out unimpressed with each other end up in a car, in hotels, and inside the same lie.

The novel is as much about labour as it is about romance: what employees absorb for a brand, and what Carey's decade of loyalty has actually bought her. A chronic illness thread is handled with unusual care.