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The Launch Date

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

To get her dream job, she’ll have to date her worst nightmare . . .

Grace Hastings is in a rut. Her career is stagnating, her boss is a leech, and she feels like a fraud working for Fate, a dating app whose ethos she no longer believes in. And don’t even get her started on the state of her love life.

So when the company’s CEO offers her an opportunity for a big promotion and the chance to work on the launch of a dating app that she actually cares about, Grace can’t believe her luck.

That is, until she discovers that she must test drive a series of ‘first dates’ with her competition for the job: notorious socialite playboy and Grace’s biggest work rival, Eric Bancroft.

But Grace refuses to give up her dream job because of a man. And besides, how romantic can a handful of fake dates with your biggest rival really be?

There’s absolutely no way it’s an office romance waiting to happen.

'A witty, sparkly, and hilarious book for fans of The Hating Game' Lizzy Dent, author of The Summer Job

© Annabelle Slator 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Contemporary Romantic Comedy Dating Funny Witty Dream

Critic reviews

A gorgeous, rivals to lovers workplace romcom...the perfect blend of sweet and sexy
Flirty and full of heart, Annabelle Slator’s debut is a dream date in book form
Enemies-to-lovers fans, this one's for you
A witty, sparkly, and hilarious book for fans of The Hating Game. Prepare to put Annabelle Slator on auto-buy
The Launch Date is a witty, banter-filled romance with palpable tension and heaps of charm, a workplace romance perfect for weekend bingeing!
The Launch Date is what rom-com dreams are made of! With a swoony hero and relatable heroine, the chemistry between the two is magical and sexy. I adored this phenomenal debut!
The Launch Date was hilarious and I couldn’t put it down . . . I was swooning for Eric and rooting for him and Grace to reconcile their friendship and end up together
A loveable page-turner
A sweet story
The author is clearly a master of the workplace romance
All stars
Most relevant
I love this so much! Grace and Eric’s tension was so good and I loved the dates they went on

A fun banter filled listen

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Great story, very reminiscent of the Hating Game to begin with but it definitely had its own twists and turns. Really liked all the characters, felt like they were very believable. The story/setting/plot was just realistic enough that it all felt like it could’ve happened in real life. It’s also very well written - I sometimes find that romantic fiction is overlooked as a genre, and churned out on mass, leading to it being poorly written, but this didn’t feel like that at all. As a debut novel, it makes me excited for what else Annabelle Slator will produce.

Narration let it down a little bit for me. Eric and his sister sounded stupid rather than posh, and I couldn’t get on with the way the male characters were voiced, but I liked every other aspect of the story/narration, and it’s not like I could do a better job, so who am I to judge?

All in all, if you’re a romantic fiction fan, and prefer it to be well-paced and well written, then you won’t be disappointed in this book.

Really enjoyed it

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Captivating and immersible first novel
The Launch Date is a knowledgeable insight into the dating world. Annabelle Slator packs a lot of punch in this debut novel. The aloof, swoon-worthy Eric and loveable, chaotic Grace are characters that I felt I had worked with or knew. It's a true modern-day romance that makes you laugh out loud! Grab a cuppa and cosy up to this page-turner that kept me up late into the night.

Loved Loved Loved

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