Spotlight & Giveaway: Behind Frenemy Lines by Zen Cho

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Zen Cho to HJ!

Hi Zen and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Behind Frenemy Lines!

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

When lawyer Kriya Rajasekar follows her boss to a new firm, she’s looking for a fresh start after a messy break-up. Sharing an office with her long-time work nemesis was not what she had in mind. Brusque and reserved, Charles Goh has been the witness – and source – of far too many of her professional mishaps over the years.
But Kriya’s boss starts hitting on her, and she needs Charles’s help: pretend they’re dating to keep her boss off her back. As they keep up the façade in front of those closest to them, Kriya starts to see the heart of gold behind Charles’s stuffy exterior. Soon it becomes less clear whether she and Charles are enemies, friends – or something else.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

“I told you, he’s obsessed with Kriya. Every time he talks about her, he does this super detailed analysis. He’s like a one-man Kriya Rajasekar subreddit.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

Behind Frenemy Lines was inspired by my experience of working in a big law firm in London for around a decade. The upside of this was, I didn’t have to do any research. The downside was that my editors’ (entirely fair) feedback was that there was way too much law in the first draft. I obediently cut two chapters on the intricacies of information law, so hopefully the book’s now striking the right balance between dating and data protection.

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Charles is socially awkward to the point of coming off as rude, and he has limited interests outside of work. He admires Kriya’s confidence and professional abilities, but also her ability to make small talk without wanting to die.
Kriya’s looking for direction in her life when she starts working with Charles. She respects his dedication and sense of purpose, and is drawn by the kindness that lies under his reserved exterior.

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

As is mandatory in any fake dating romance, Charles brings Kriya as his date to his cousin Loretta’s wedding, where they end up learning more about each other and growing closer.
After the central romance, my favourite relationship in the book is that between Charles and Loretta, who’s his roommate and bullies him mercilessly.

Here’s a snippet from one of their squabbles at the wedding:

Loretta: “You’ve got Kriya here for the day, you’ve got the guns out.” Tapped my arm. “We’ve got an open bar, there’s going to be a band, dancing. And you’ve got the flat to yourself tonight. This is your chance to seal the deal.”
Looked over at Kriya. She appeared engrossed in conversation with my aunt.
CG: “Are you telling me all of this—insisting I bring a date—was simply a scheme to set me up with Kriya?”
Loretta: “No!”
CG: “Good.”
Loretta: “It’s both. I did want you to bring proof of your heterosexuality, so I wouldn’t get in trouble with the aunties. But I also knew you’d never shoot your shot with Kriya unless you were forced. I mean, there’s a reason I’m marrying the love of my life, and you’re terminally single.”
There were so many scathing things I wanted to say, I wasn’t sure which to start with. Clearly Loretta did not have better things to think about than my (admittedly pathetic) love life, even though she was, as she said, in the process of marrying a stunning girl she’d wooed online with nothing more than her native wit, Lord of the Rings memes, and obscene images of cartoon badminton players.
CG: “Look, you—”
Loretta: “There’s no need to say thank you. You go get the girl.”
Gave me a push towards Kriya and turned away.
There are times I feel Loretta does not have a proper respect for me as an elder.

Readers should read this book….

They like diverse romances with lots of jokes and lots of heart, along with subplots about sexual harassment in the workplace, complex family relationships and professional ethical dilemmas. Also if they enjoy: romantic leads in their mid-30s, references to Asian food, Asian diaspora things generally (Charles is a British Hong Konger and Kriya is Malaysian Indian), and anime nerd/cosplayer representation.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I’m currently working on a historical fantasy novel – historical fantasy is my home turf – but I’m taking my time with it, as it requires a lot of research. Of my backlist, romance readers might enjoy my first contemporary romance, The Friend Zone Experiment, which is also set among London’s East and Southeast Asian community, and my debut historical fantasy Sorcerer to the Crown, which combines Georgette Heyer-inspired Regency romance with people of colour, dandyish dragons and bossy elderly witches.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: One final trade paperback copy of Behind Frenemy Lines (to North American residents – US and Canada – only)

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Books about writers are my guilty pleasure – I loved Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy, Emily Henry’s Book Lovers and Yulin Kuang’s How to End A Love Story – but I also really love a romance featuring jobs I have no experience of, like Helen Hoang’s The Bride Test, whose leads are a cleaner and an accountant. What are your favourite romance novel jobs – wedding planner, indie bakery owner, or other?

 
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Excerpt from Behind Frenemy Lines:

Kriya
I paused at the entrance to Swithin Watkins, gazing up at the building’s sandstone façade. I was waiting for the traumatic flashback to hit. I hadn’t been here since the day I interviewed for a training contract, in the summer of my second year at university.

That had been more than a decade ago. I was coming to Swithin Watkins now as a senior lawyer, with a track record of court cases won; matters brought to a successful close; difficult clients wrangled into contentment. But the memory of that interview still made me cringe.

I took a deep breath as I stepped through the revolving door, stale apprehension shivering over my skin. Maybe I shouldn’t have followed Arthur here.

When my boss pulled me aside for a chat, a month ago, I didn’t think anything of it. Arthur and I spoke, on average, three to sixteen times a day. I assumed he wanted to talk about the class action we were defending for a car manufacturer, or the business development trip we were planning to Hong Kong.

Or it might just have been a check-in. Arthur was going through a divorce with his wife of twenty-five years and it was making him especially alive to the issue of workplace well-being. We’d had more pastoral chats in the past month than we’d had in the preceding eight years total.

“Kriya, I wanted to ask you something,” he said. He shut the door to his office and sat down.

He looked nervous, but that was part of Arthur’s vibe. He was lean, silver-haired, and high-strung,
with piercing blue eyes and the kind of nose you’d find on a Roman coin. Trainees always had guilty crushes on him, until they started working with him.

“I’ve accepted an offer to join Swithin Watkins,” said Arthur. “And I’d like you to consider moving with me. It would be a step up in terms of pay. More importantly, it would be on the understanding that you’d be promoted to Of Counsel within the year.”

“Oh,” I said. I was so taken aback I felt winded.

I hadn’t been thinking about promotion. I knew I should—I’d made Senior Associate as early as the firm allowed, four years after qualifying, and I was now eight years out from qualification. I needed to start preparing for the next step, or be marked as lacking ambition. But my attention had been elsewhere for the past few months.

I’d gone too long without saying anything.

“What do you think?” said Arthur.

I didn’t know what I thought. For lack of anything better to say, I said, “You know I interviewed for a training contract at Swithin Watkins? I didn’t get an offer.”

“Their loss.” Arthur tried to smile, fidgeting with a pen. “Joining them as their top new senior associate would be the best revenge.”

His nervousness was starting to infect me. I pushed away the temptation to say yes just to calm him down.

“Can I think about it and come back to you?”

“Yes, of course,” said Arthur. “It’s a big decision. Take all the time you need.”

He leant back in his chair. “So what—I mean, do you have any questions? I don’t have details of the compensation package to hand, but I can dig them up. Give me a moment.”

He started scrabbling around in the chaos of papers on his desk.

“Your phone’s on top of that filing cabinet,” I said absently. “Can I ask . . . ?”

Arthur sat up. “Yes, of course. Fire away.”

“Why move?”

It was the obvious question. Arthur was prepared for it.

“You know I have issues with some of the ways we work here. I want to do things differently, but there isn’t scope for that here. We’re losing clients to firms that are willing to be more innovative, more flexible. Swithin Watkins recognizes how the market is changing. I’ll be able to be more entrepreneurial, tailor our offering to what clients are looking for. It’s a great opportunity. And,” said Arthur, “and I have to say, you know, I’ve been at this firm for more than fifteen years, and I’m
ready for a change.”

I knew about Arthur’s frustrations with the firm—I’d heard most of this before, at one time or another. But I thought, of everything he’d said, the very last line was the truth.

“Are you planning on bringing anyone else over?”

Arthur shook his head. “We’ve got some great lawyers here. If they decide to apply to join us, I’ll be thrilled. But my move is already going to ruffle feathers. I’m picking my battles.” He fixed me with an intense blue stare. “You’re worth fighting for, Kriya.”

I squirmed. Post-divorce, Arthur was given to saying things like this—nothing you could call out as being inappropriate, but uncomfortable all the same. Maybe his therapist had told him he should express appreciation for the people in his life.

If so, I wished his therapist had clarified that I didn’t count as “people in his life.” The firm consumed enough of my life as it was. I was fully committed to compartmentalising my work
and personal spheres. All I wanted from colleagues was for them to return the favour.

Arthur looked away.

“You have to decide if it’s the right choice for your career, of course,” he said.

So here I was now, back at Swithin Watkins. Funny how life worked.

My friends had doubts about the move. (“So because your boss is having a midlife crisis, you’ve got to uproot yourself?” said Zuri.) But it made sense. I’d worked almost exclusively with Arthur since qualifying into the Product Liability team at Brown, Rosenburg and Cushway. I didn’t have the same relationship with other partners in our department—they didn’t know and trust me the way Arthur did. And when he moved, he’d be taking his clients with him. If I stayed at my old firm, either I’d be fighting him for business or I’d have to find myself a new client base.

Whereas if I followed Arthur to Swithin Watkins, I got a pay rise and a guaranteed promotion, and I’d be well-placed to make partner.

If I wanted to. I wasn’t sure I did. Arthur wasn’t exactly a great advertisement for the life of a City law firm partner. Sometimes, working with him, it was like there were three of us in the office: me, Arthur, and his divorce.

Hopefully the change would do us both good. Arthur wasn’t the only one reeling from a catastrophic breakup. It had been six months since Tom had broken up with me, and I still felt raw.

Waiting in the lobby of Swithin Watkins while a receptionist searched for my newly issued staff pass, I felt a glimmer of hope. This was what I’d been needing: a fresh start.

I’d been feeling stuck ever since Tom had flown off to California without me, for a dream job—and,
it turned out, a dreamy coworker. In fact, if I was being totally honest with myself, I’d been feeling stuck even before Tom left. Maybe that was why he’d decided to blow up our relationship, after more than a decade together. He could see I wasn’t going anywhere he wanted to be.

Thinking about Tom made me too sad. It was easier to think about work. I had to go pick up my new laptop, and then I was headed for the sixth floor, where Swithin Watkins’ nascent Product Liability team was based.

Arthur had been pleased with himself for managing to secure me an office.

“They revamped the building a couple of years ago, it’s mostly open plan now,” he’d said. “Offices are like gold dust. You’ll be in with someone from their Commercial Litigation practice, they’ve got the desk by the window. But at least it’s an office.”

I hadn’t shared an office in a while. The junior associate I used to share with at my old firm had left to go in-house the year before, and the firm hadn’t got around to allocating her desk to someone new before my own departure. It would be nice to have company again, even if I was going to have the desk closest to the door, traditionally assigned to the less important occupant.

My new office was pretty similar to the one I’d had at my old firm. Against one wall, two large L-shaped desks faced each other, with matching monitors and docking stations tucked into the corner of each “L.” Filing cabinets and shelving ran along the opposite wall.

The window was behind my new roommate’s desk, so I had the better view. He was sat looking out on the corridor.

Though he was on a call when I walked in, his back turned to me. It was the back of someone who worked out, the shoulders broad under the crisp white shirt. The hair under the headset he was wearing was thick and dark.

I’d registered this much when he swivelled around in his chair, raising a hand in greeting.

Our eyes met.

The man across me was East Asian, with perfect skin and absurdly long eyelashes. He was wearing glasses with thick black rims, the kind a Hollywood starlet playing a nerd wears when the film’s pretending she’s ugly. The glasses obscured the tiny mole under his right eye, dropped by an overly generous god along the line of one high cheekbone. But I knew it was there.

My smile froze. He lowered his hand, giving me a look of unalloyed horror.

It was a look I was used to by now, after ten years’ worth of run-ins with Charles Goh.

I turned around and walked right back out.

Arthur had a spacious office to himself at the end of the corridor: lots of space, floor-to-
Ceiling windows. The light was nice, though the windows didn’t yield much of a view. Grey
streets, office buildings, and people walking fast, with their coats buttoned up to their chins and Pret bags dangling from their hands. It had been chilly all the past week, even though it was early June.

Arthur had already put up a couple of family photos. I’d grown used to the one he used to have on his old noticeboard, featuring him, his now-ex-wife Kelly and the two kids bundled up and beaming, on a skiing holiday.

It took me a moment to realise what was different. The pictures he had up now were of the kids alone. Kelly was gone.

Arthur himself was looking cheerful, as though the move had already given him a new lease of life. It was all right for some.

“Morning,” he said. “Got your kit? How’s the office?”

“Er, yeah, about that,” I said. “Is the room allocation definitely fixed? Or is there any scope for flexibility, do you think?”

Arthur’s smile dimmed. “Is there a problem?”

I hesitated.

I could try explaining that Charles Goh and I were bound together by an evil fate, from our first encounter at this very firm. But Arthur would think I was nuts. He didn’t know what it was like to keep running into a hot lawyer employed by the firm that rejected you and have it be a disaster every single time.

It wouldn’t sound plausible. The City of London is actually pretty large. There was no reason I should have seen anything more of Charles Goh after that ill-fated assessment centre. We didn’t even do the same kind of law, apart from the fact that we were both litigators. Yet Charles had kept turning up, over the years.

“He’s your good friend,” said Zuri.

“He’s my bad luck charm,” I said. “He’s like the omen you see when something terrible is going to happen. Like flocks of birds flying backwards. Rains of frogs.”

“You won the case what,” said Zuri. “The one where he spilled his coffee on you at the big strategy meeting. Eh, and didn’t you win the other court application? That time you were late to court
and had to run there with the files on a trolley and he was sitting up there with the judge, watching you, when you went in and rolled the trolley over the client’s foot.”

“That’s the claimant’s lawyer’s fault. If he didn’t leave his laptop cable trailing on the floor there, I wouldn’t have tripped over it, and the trolley wouldn’t have gone anywhere near the client.” I rubbed my face. “That kind of thing only happens when Charles Goh is around. Like I said, my bad luck charm.”

“Your good friend,” Zuri intoned. Which was how she and all our mutual friends had started calling him Kawan Baik.)

I said to Arthur now:

“The office is right by the kitchenette. It gets pretty noisy, with the coffee machine and people chatting. I don’t suppose there are any other offices going free?”

“They’re tight on office space here,” said Arthur. “Firm policy is to move towards open plan. No fixed desks for anyone, since everyone’s doing hybrid working. The room you’re in was only
available because the other guy comes in five days a week. He managed to negotiate for his own office.”

“Five days a week?” I said faintly.

I’d been thinking that if I couldn’t switch offices, I’d aim to come in on Kawan Baik’s “work from home” days. At least I could minimise exposure to him that way.

Typical of Charles Goh. It was like he purposely wanted to thwart me at every turn.

“It doesn’t look too busy out there,” said Arthur, peering out of his office. “You could use one of the empty pods if you need to focus? Or a meeting room?”

“Yeah,” I said, without enthusiasm. “I could do that.”

Arthur ran his hand over his hair, looking harassed. His air of good cheer had vanished. I felt bad. I knew intellectually I wasn’t responsible for Arthur’s feelings, but my job was about making him—and by proxy, our clients—happy. The instinct was ingrained in me by now. Besides, there was no denying my life was easier when Arthur was in a good mood.

“I can’t promise anything,” he said, “but I’ll speak to Farah.”

Farah was the group managing partner. I’d only met her once—a British Asian woman with a cut-glass accent, silvering hair, and a mind like a steel trap. I didn’t want her to know me as the new joiner who was complaining about having to hear people talk in the office.

“It’s fine,” I said. “I wanted to know what the options were. But it doesn’t sound like it would be straightforward to relocate me.”

“No,” agreed Arthur. “Sorry. I can talk to Farah if you want, but I doubt she’ll be able to do anything . . . No? If you’re sure.” He settled back, looking relieved. “Anything else I can do for you?”

I shook my head, suppressing a sigh. It had always been a long shot. Arthur never really helped solve my problems. That wasn’t what our relationship was about. “I’ll let you get on with your day.”

“Wait,” said Arthur. “Since you’re here—you’ve met our PA, right? Victoria’s very nice, she sits in the pod down by the lifts. Can you talk to her about sorting our travel to Hong Kong for the conference?”

I stared. “What conference?”

“The one we’re speaking at,” said Arthur. “I’m going to ring the clients we were going to see, set up some meetings.”

I opened my mouth before closing it again.

We’d liaised closely with our old firm’s Hong Kong office when making our original arrangements to travel out there. It was our Hong Kong colleagues who’d helped set up most of the planned meetings with clients. I had been the one who’d had to email them to explain about us moving to Swithin Watkins and apologise for pulling out.

Arthur had been cc’d on the emails. He hadn’t said a word to indicate the trip was still on.

“I didn’t think we were going anymore,” I said. I’d planned to travel on from Hong Kong to Malaysia to visit my parents, but when I’d given notice at the old job, I’d postponed my flight to Malaysia and resigned myself to eating the associated charges.

“Yeah, I assumed we’d be calling it off. But when I mentioned our move to the chair o f the conference, he said we could keep our speaking slots. They’ll update our bios. I think it’s a good idea. We need to get out there, let clients know where to find us.”

I took a deep breath. “Were you thinking of a similar agenda? Will we be delivering training for clients?”

Arthur nodded. “We’ve got to set out our stall. It’s an opportunity to show what we’ve got to offer. All the preparation’s been done, it’d be a shame not to use it.”

That was true. Except that the slides and speaking notes I’d spent weeks preparing had been left behind at our old firm.

“I don’t have access to the materials anymore,” I said hollowly.“If I’d known we were still going . . .”

Arthur had to be aware of the abyss that had opened in my soul, but he was dealing with this in a typically Arthur way, pretending he hadn’t noticed the shimmering waves of rage rolling off me.

“Those materials belong to BRC anyway,” he said. “But we should be able to reconstruct the contents pretty easily, I would have thought. I’ll have a word with Farah about getting a trainee to help. We’ve got plenty of time. The conference is two weeks away. All right?”

He met my eyes, expectant.

It is not fucking all right, Arthur, what the fuck? Could you not have told me, oh I don’t know, any time within the past four weeks? Did you have to land this on me on my first day at a new firm?

I swallowed that answer down.

It wasn’t that bad, I told myself. Arthur was right: I should be able to recreate the slides from emory. The next two weeks should be quiet. Some of our long-standing clients had indicated they’d follow Arthur over to Swithin Watkins, but with a couple of exceptions, we weren’t bringing over any active matters.

It wasn’t that there wasn’t enough time to prepare. It was the waste of all the preparation I’d done already that hurt.

At least I should get a trip to see my parents out of this. I’d have to see if I could book annual leave and reschedule the flight to Malaysia again.

“Sure,” I said. “We’ll make it work.”

“Great,” said Arthur, his eyes already drifting back to his inbox. “You’re a star.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Sparks fly when an ambitious rules-bound lawyer clashes with a maverick new hire who threatens his chances of partnership—and the walls he’s built around his heart.
Charles Goh has always played by the rules. It’s how he survived his difficult childhood as the swotty foreigner at a posh English boarding school—and now, his high-pressure job at one of the biggest corporate law firms in London. His job is his life and he’s happy that way … until she shows up.
Kriya Rajasekar’s lost her way. Her longtime boyfriend’s broken up with her and she feels trapped in her legal career. She knows she needs a fresh start—but it turns out her new job is at the same firm as her work nemesis. Charles Goh is like the bad luck charm she keeps running into, and their encounters lead to disaster every single time. And now he’s her office mate.
But just as they’re figuring out how to navigate this frenemy relationship, Kriya needs Charles’ help: pretend they’re dating so her boss will stop hitting on her. Soon, it becomes less clear whether they’re enemies, friends—or something else.
Book Links:  Amazon | B&N | kobo |
 
 

Meet the Author:

ZEN CHO is the author of the Sorcerer to the Crown novels, Black Water Sister and various shorter fiction. Her work has won the Hugo, Crawford and British Fantasy Awards, and the LA Times Ray Bradbury Prize, as well as being shortlisted for the World Fantasy, Lambda, Locus and Astounding Awards. Born and raised in Malaysia, Zen now lives in the UK.
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