Just when you think you’ve read every possible variation of romantic comedy, a talented writer like Alicia Thompson comes along and proves that the genre is not exhausted yet. Her latest, a follow-up to fan-favorite LOVE IN THE TIME OF SERIAL KILLERS, is a workplace romance set in a very unlikely workplace.

As the title suggests, Lauren Fox and Asa Williamson work in an amusement park in Orlando --- but it's not that amusement park. They work at Cold World, a somewhat tacky attraction housed in a former warehouse. It always feels like Christmas there, even though it’s a sweltering Florida summer outside.

"The quirky setting and premise of WITH LOVE, FROM COLD WORLD offer romance readers plenty of humor and whimsy. But there are also serious undertones, which, like the characters themselves, reveal hidden depths."

Lauren has been working in the back office as Cold World’s bookkeeper for a couple of years, and she has made a few decent work friends, but Asa really gets on her nerves. She managed to rub him the wrong way when, on one of her very first days on the job, she suggested the company could save money by eliminating its Secret Santa for colleagues --- unaware that Asa coordinated the gift exchange every year and took it very seriously. Asa, who has worked at Cold World for about a decade, takes a lot of things about his seemingly silly job pretty seriously --- even though his blue hair, tattoos and relaxed persona project a fun-loving attitude, and he delights in teasing Lauren for being the enemy of fun.

But it turns out that both Lauren and Asa have been making assumptions about the other --- Lauren’s buttoned-up personality hides great emotional depth and vulnerability, and Asa’s devil-may-care outlook obscures the ways in which he has been hurt in the past. When Cold World’s owner, Dolores, asks Lauren, Asa and Dolores’ model-handsome son, Daniel, to engage in a friendly competition to envision creative new ways to improve Cold World’s bottom line, Lauren and Asa find themselves thrown into closer proximity, forced to work together like never before. And then they draw names for Secret Santa.

The quirky setting and premise of WITH LOVE, FROM COLD WORLD offer romance readers plenty of humor and whimsy. But there are also serious undertones, which, like the characters themselves, reveal hidden depths. Lauren grew up in the foster care system and now hopes to give back to other kids like herself. Asa, who was rejected from his religiously conservative family after he came out as bisexual, spends his evenings volunteering as a crisis counselor for an LGBTQ+ mental health hotline. Thompson’s narrative is all in third person, but chapters alternate between Lauren and Asa’s perspectives, allowing readers to understand them gradually, just as they come to understand one another as well.

Readers might not be lining up to throw snowballs or drink hot chocolate at kitschy Cold World, but they’ll certainly enjoy spending time with its charming and sexy employees.