Holly's Inbox by Holly Denham

Dear Holly,

Are you sure you know what you're getting into...?

It's Holly Denham's first day as a receptionist at a busy corporate bank, and frankly, it's obvious she can't quite keep up.

Take a peek at her email and you'll see why: what her crazy friends, dysfunctional family, and gossipy coworkers, Holly's inbox is a daily source of drama. Laughter, friendship, and romantic interludes keep her going, until one day, Holly's secret past begins to catch up with her...

Written entirely in emails, this compulsively readable UK smash hit will keep you laughing and turning the pages all the way to its surprising and deeply satisfying ending.


When my contact Danielle first mentioned this book and the history behind it, I admit I was intrigued. A book, written entirely in email format, from a woman's POV written by a man. Yes, that's right, folks. Holly Denham is actually Bill Surie. I know! Shocking! :)

I actually interviewed Bill first since Sourcebooks didn't have copies of this book handy immediately and I got to ask questions without any knowledge of the books. Yeah, that was a bit odd.

Anyhoodles, my thoughts on Holly's Inbox (for one lucky commenter...US & CANADA ONLY...I will be giving away a copy of this book). Holly's Inbox is about Holly Denham, a young woman who has just started a job at a pretty prestigious bank. It's quite entertaining to read the beginning emails between her and Patricia (or Trish), the other receptionist. You can see that Holly really has no experience as a receptionist and reading her emails to her friends about her lack of abilities is actually quite funny.

Her friendship w/ Jason Granger is the predominate force through 99% of the books. He is her best friend and he helps her out when she's in trouble.

There's Aisha her slutty best girlfriend who doesn't seem to understand the concept of keeping her legs together.

There's her sister who asks her to bring odd things on her visit (the dead mice for their snake is the biggy).

The relationship that begins and ends with James, the hunky VP who begins flirting with her almost immediately.

Her relationship with her mother which is very much up & down.

And just her basic, overall Holly-ness.

Due to the fact that I knew Holly wasn't actually a woman (or real), it was still fascinating to read this story. It felt real. I could actually see these things happening and I found it very intriguing. I also found it to be LOL funny as well.

Watching as Holly maneuvers her way through a rivalry with a fellow coworker, her issues w/ someone who ends up being not who she thought, and her budding friendship with Trish was great.

That being said, I do have a couple of quibbles.

One being that there's something brought up about Trish near the end that's never resolved. I found it to be an odd addition and wasn't really necessary...unless another book is written, which might happen.

The romance-it came across rather abruptly and didn't seem quite as realistic as the rest (I'm talking the end of the book...won't go into further details than that). If you read the book, you'll know what I mean.

All in all though, I found I really enjoyed it. If I hadn't known that Holly was actually Bill, I would have thought it was a woman. That's saying something. :)

My Rating: B-