goodreads | Lockdown on London Lane

Title: Lockdown on London Lane (alternative title: "Love, Locked Down")
Author: Beth Reekles
Genre: Chick-lit
Rating: 3.5/5
# pages: 352
Date read: January, 2022

For the inhabitants of London Lane, a simple slip of paper underneath each of their doors is about to change their lives in a hundred different ways.

URGENT!!! Due to the current situation, building management has decided to impose a seven-day quarantine on all apartment buildings on London Lane.

I was immediately hooked by the premise of this book - the first I've read that actually takes place in the time of Corona. One might wonder why I'd even want to read about that, but it is our new normal, so....

Anyway, I did have a few reservations about the initial concept (an apartment building has gone into lockdown with nobody allowed in or out for a week) - it didn't seem all that believable to me that residents weren't allowed back home into their apartments. But once I got past that aspect of it, I really enjoyed the book! You follow five different storylines of five different apartments with five very different groups of people, and much like in "Love Actually", while each storyline is unique, they still overlap or interact from time to time.

You have Ethan who's stuck alone as his girlfriend was out visiting her parents and wasn't allowed to come home; Zach and Serena who start to wonder how much they really know about each other; Olivia who's hosting a wedding planning weekend for 4 friends; Isla and Danny who've only been dating for a month and suddenly have to spend an entire week together; and finally Nate and Imogen who were supposed to be having a one-night stand, until Corona intervened.

I'd be hard pressed to pick a favourite storyline, as they all seemed to ebb and flow as the week went along, and I really appreciated how REAL all the characters were. These were believable conflicts with (mostly) believable outcomes -- good, as well as bad.

So one star removed for my initial reservations, but the rest of the book made up for it.

I received this copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication: Feb 1st, 2022