The Honey-Don't List
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- Create Date：2020-03-26 04:10:21
- Update Date：2025-09-06
- Status：finish
- Author：Christina Lauren
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Summary
From the New York Times bestselling author behind the “joyful, warm, touching” (Jasmine Guillory, New York Times bestselling author) The Unhoneymooners comes a delightfully charming love story about what happens when two assistants tasked with keeping a rocky relationship from explosion start to feel sparks of their own.
Carey Douglas has worked for home remodeling and design gurus Melissa and Rusty Tripp for nearly a decade. A country girl at heart, Carey started in their first store at sixteen, and—more than anyone would suspect—has helped them build an empire. With a new show and a book about to launch, the Tripps are on the verge of superstardom. There’s only one problem: America’s favorite couple can’t stand each other.
James McCann, MIT graduate and engineering genius, was originally hired as a structural engineer, but the job isn’t all he thought it’d be. The last straw? Both he and Carey must go on book tour with the Tripps and keep the wheels from falling off the proverbial bus.
Unfortunately, neither of them is in any position to quit. Carey needs health insurance, and James has been promised the role of a lifetime if he can just keep the couple on track for a few more weeks. While road-tripping with the Tripps up the West Coast, Carey and James vow to work together to keep their bosses’ secrets hidden, and their own jobs secure. But if they stop playing along—and start playing for keeps—they may have the chance to build something beautiful together...
From the “hilariously zany and heartfelt” (Booklist) Christina Lauren comes a romantic comedy that proves if it’s broke, you might as well fix it.
Editor Reviews
12/16/2019
Lauren (The Unhoneymooners) delivers a breezy, tongue-in-cheek rom-com featuring the beleaguered assistants to a pair of unhappily married reality-television stars. Carey Duncan has worked for Melissa and Russell Tripp since she was 16 and they were just starting out as the hosts of a home-improvement show. Ten long years later, Carey could likely have any design job she wanted, but loyalty to the Tripps (whom she sees as parental figures), fear of retribution, and the medical insurance that covers treatments for her muscle disease keep her in place. James McCann has only been Russell’s assistant for a short time. An engineer by trade, James is ill-suited to managing the Tripps’ meltdowns, but scandal drove him from his last job, and he’ll take what he can get. Melissa and Russell’s feuding gives rise to a series of ridiculous situations that endanger their brand, leading Carey and James to bond as they work together to keep America’s favorite couple’s fights under wraps. Playfully poking fun at the world of DIY TV, Lauren’s romance is as insightful as it is irreverent. Readers will laugh out loud. Agent: Holly Root, Root Literary. (Mar.)
About the Author
Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of longtime writing partners and best friends Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, the New York Times, USA TODAY, and #1 internationally bestselling authors of the Beautiful and Wild Seasons series, Dating You / Hating You, Autoboyography, Love and Other Words, Roomies, Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, My Favorite Half-Night Stand, and The Unhoneymooners. You can find them online at ChristinaLaurenBooks.com, @ChristinaLauren on Instagram, or @ChristinaLauren on Twitter.
Reviews
I’m officially OBSESSED with the “fixer-upper” type shows – but only the couples ones. With the ‘designer’ wife who is artistic and has a specific design aesthetic, the goofy but talented and hard working husband, and the many different ways they look at these houses. Less interesting but more fun (if for the arguments and whinging over budgets) are the ‘prep the house to stay or sell’ shows – they just make me wonder just how difficult the ‘stars’ are. And Christina Lauren took their powers of two and dove in. Carey has worked for Melissa and Rusty Tripp since the beginning, and done every job. Now she’s an integral part of the ‘team’ and spends most of her time calming the storm that is Melissa, while trying to manage her own issues with a muscular-skeletal disorder, which is worsened by stress and lack of sleep – two key components of her job. Perhaps the real twist for Carey here is that the salary and the health insurance she gets is stellar, and as Melly and Rusty know of her issues – they allow her the time to go to the doctors for treatment – but she can’t leave because of the insurance. James is a structural engineer – hired on the spot by Melly after his firm went into the headlines in spectacularly bad fashion, and he’s set to ‘wrangle’ Rusty, with vague promises of engineering work to come. He bristles at the jibes that Carey throws his way about being an assistant – his education and background are suited for so much more. But he’s sharp and clever, and soon is bristling at the way Melly treats Carey, the frequent kerfuffles he has to drag Rusty out of, and finally, trying to help the two maintain the appearance of a happy marriage when it is anything but – AND they are on a book tour to promote their book on marriage. A bit different from the other books from this duo that I’ve read, the reveals were a bit predictable where Carey was concerned, but having James be the one who is crushing on Carey, and her pushing him away is a twist that I didn’t see coming, even as she will admit that he calms her and sees her for who she is – despite her trying to always stay in the background. With some epic “uh-oh” moments that the two of them are involved in, and a police interrogation, it’s going to take some spectacular fireworks for Carey to find her own two feet, and for James to take a stand. There’s plenty going on here, and Carey’s medical condition and struggles with it, and subsequently her self-esteem, are cleverly portrayed and depicted, and there really couldn’t have been a better ending for this light, quick read that provides a lot of laughs – if for the ridiculous imagery brought up in the moments of utter tension and marital strife. I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.
Christina Lauren has done it again! I adored the Unhoneymooners so when this book became available I jumped at the chance to read the ARC. The Honey-Don't List was a funny, moving story about Carey and James, two people who ended up assisting the stars of a popular home make-over show. Melly and Russ are the "happily married" couple headed on a publicity tour to promote their new book on marriage as well as a new show about to be presented on Netflix. Unfortunately the happy marriage is all for the cameras - Melly and Russ can barely stand each other. Melly's assistant is Carey who has been working for the couple since she was sixteen and they had their first store in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Carey has a gift for designing one-of-a-kind furniture. Lately her job entails less designing and more "handling" Melly, arranging her schedule, completing the ever present Honey-Do list that Melly hands out, keeping her cool and putting out domestic fires. James is Russ's assistant - although he hates to be called that. James is a civic engineer who lost his job when his employers were shut down due to a financial scandal. James signed on with Russ and Melly to pad his resume in hopes of gaining an engineering job on the show. Instead he finds himself doing for Russ what Carey does for Melly . Now he's stuck on a tour bus on the west coast tasked with keeping Russ's and Melly's imploding marriage from their adoring public. As James and Carey are forced in to uncomfortable situations, they become more comfortable with each other. Their increasing attraction is becoming more evident and Melly will not have it. I started the book at midnight one night and finally put it down about 4 am. It was a great, fun read with excellent characters and hilarious dialog. Carey and James are so cute together - you have to root for them even when the odds are against them. You find out during the course of the book that Carey has a neurological disorder which the authors handle with respect and dignity. All this in a background of home design, publicity and production. Read this book - its a great escape during these uncertain times but it would be an excellent read whenever. Steamy sex scenes make this unsuitable for younger readers, but adults will love it as I did!!! Be sure to read the author's notes for added insights to the characters. Enjoy!!!
This was an entertaining enemies to lovers and forced proximity romance. I enjoyed Carey, James, and the crazy shenanigans by the Tripps, but unfortunately, I didn't love it. It took a bit for me to feel invested in the story and characters, and by the time I really felt anything, the book was more than halfway over. Part of that is due to the way the book is formatted. The tweets, police transcripts/interviews, and book excerpts really took me out of the story at times as I tried to piece everything together. Those parts of the book ended up confusing me more than anything. The chemistry between James and Carey also left me wanting. I didn't feel much build up between them and that playful banter and ribbing was missing. Things seemed to change so abruptly between them that I was afraid I missed a chapter. I did love them together though and wish more of the book had been spent about their budding relationship, instead of the implosion of Melly and Rusty's marriage. I really liked how attentive and sweet James was. He seemed to really see Carey for who she was and I think that's why the miscommunication drama later on didn't work for me. The book wrapped up quickly, but I liked the steps that Carey took to really stand on her own. I also appreciated the care that Christina Lauren took in discussing and highlighting dystonia. It was refreshing to read about a heroine with this condition and also very informative. Overall, this was an entertaining story, but I didn't love it as much as I hoped. *I voluntarily read an advance review copy of this book*
Reference
google book https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=The Honey-Don't List
hathitrust digital library https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ls?q1=The Honey-Don't List&field1=ocr&a=srchls&ft=ft&lmt=ft
The British Library https://bll01.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,The Honey-Don't List&tab=LibraryCatalog&search_scope=Not_BL_Suppress&vid=44BL_INST:BLL01&lang=en&offset=0