Readers who have dreamed of escaping to the storied cities and vistas of their favorite works of literature will find a lot to love in Kat Mackenzie's debut, Work in Progress, about one woman's romp across the United Kingdom.
American Alice Cooper wants to put a hard year--in which she got fired and dumped--behind her, so she spontaneously books a three-week, all-women literary-themed bus tour of Scotland, England, and Wales. She arrives with a list of "UK Bus Trip Goals" spanning the mundanely relatable ("crawl out of pajamas") to the aspirational ("achieve stability, strength, and growth"), as well as a determination to "Eat, Pray, Love the crap out of this!" But the trip goes immediately awry via ruined luggage and an encounter with an antagonistic Scotsman at the airport, whom Alice soon discovers is also the tour guide. The fact that the bus is full of octogenarians with whom she feels she has nothing in common is salt in her wound as her plans come crashing down on the Edinburgh cobblestones around her.
While it's positioned as a romance, Work in Progress shines in its focus on Alice's journey back to herself and onward with a revised outlook on what her life can be. The novel brims with popular literary places like Whitby (setting inspiration for Dracula) and the Yorkshire moors (which cultivated Jane Eyre), cross-generational friendships, and some verbal sparring and dancing with a kilted Scot. With humor and heart, Work in Progress reminds readers to do what they love, "But do not be afraid to reinvent yourself if you discover that you do not love it any longer." --Kristen Coates, editor and freelance reviewer