If You Could See Me Now by Keris Stainton

Izzy Harris should have it all – but her boyfriend has been ignoring her for months, she’s been overlooked for a promotion, and the owner of her local coffee shop pervs on her every time she has a craving for a salted caramel muffin.

Then her life is unexpectedly turned upside down.

Izzy dumps her oblivious boyfriend, and leaps on the chance to win a big pitch at work. Needing to work closely with gorgeous colleague Alex is an added perk…

But then her best friend has her heart broken, the pitch is way more complicated than expected, and Alex is keeping secrets. Does Izzy have what it takes to help her friend, save her career and get the guy?

Izzy was incredibly easy to relate to; she was funny and smart but used to be being downtrodden, mostly by her mother and by her boyfriend. So when she suddenly wakes up invisible, she is both shocked beyond belief and also surprisingly freed: no longer does she have to worry about how she looks, about walking around alone at night, about being perfectly presented for work or for men.

I adored her friendship with Tash. This was a proper girl friendship with none of that secretly tearing each other down, they perfectly balanced each other out, one with noise and the other with quiet support - they were also very funny together, especially when Izzy is first discovered and Tash full out panics! 

We get to know Alex as Izzy sneaks around the office, invisible, trying to get paperwork and information so she can work from home. After a mildly-paralysing moment of fear in the store room, Alex does discover Izzy and agrees to help her. Alex was really sweet - I know I use that word a lot when describing the romantic lead, but in this case, he really was! An intern at Izzy's office, Alex is also used to being overlooked but has big plans to finally settle down in London.

All in all, this was both incredibly funny and also rather smart. As Izzy gets used to being invisible, she has some fun with it, protecting Tash in the dark from drunk men and playing the poltergeist to her ex-boyfriend, which leads me to the brilliant social comment on men's attitudes to women and their "right" to catcall and grope in the streets. Izzy grows wonderfully through this weird experience and gains that all-important confidence to answer back to idiots in the street and in the office. 

Published 4th August 2017 by Bookotoure.