Dominic
I got her fired. Okay, so I’d had a bad day and took it out on a bystander in a pizza shop. But there’s nothing innocent about Ally Morales. She proves that her first day of her new job… in my office… after being hired by my mother.

So maybe her colorful, annoying, inexplicably alluring personality brightens up the magazine’s offices that have felt like a prison for the past year. Maybe I like that she argues with me in front of the editorial staff. And maybe my after-hours fantasies are haunted by those brown eyes and that sharp tongue.

But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to be the next Russo man to take advantage of his position. I might be a second-generation asshole, but I am not my father.
She’s working herself to death at half a dozen dead-end jobs for some secret reason she doesn’t feel like sharing with me. And I’m going to fix it all. Don’t accuse me of caring. She’s nothing more than a puzzle to be solved. If I can get her to quit, I can finally peel away all those layers. Then I can go back to salvaging the family name and forget all about the dancing, beer-slinging brunette.

Ally
Ha. Hold my beer, Grumpy Grump Face.

Genre: Contemporary Romance 

Another TBR Jar pick and of course it was about time that I ventured into Lucy Score’s fictional world. I’d first heard of Lucy Score through BookTok, where her Knockemout series had become very popular. By a Thread wasn’t a book I had heard of until I looked further into the author, but instantly the premise and tropes featured had me interested. 

I must say, I was super apprehensive about reading any work from Lucy Score as her books are known to be particularly loooong, like 500 pages plus long. I’d also seen mixed reviews about the knockemout series, which I had listed for letter T of my A-Z Reading Challenge. It’s always risky starting a book by an author who has a series that’s highly anticipated. I was apprehensive I guess because I didn’t want to be disappointed after reading By a Thread as that would be my first introduction to her work.

By a Thread follows Ally Morales at her waitressing job at a local and family run pizzeria. The waitressing job is just one of the many jobs she juggles to be able to help support her father. Whilst working at the pizzeria, she meets Dominic Russo, a cocky businessman who has her fired for her snarky comebacks to his even snarkier comments. In retaliation to a hurtful comment about her age and career choice, she makes his pizza with a personalised message spelling ‘FU’. This sparks fury in Dominic who demands to speak to the manager, before encouraging them to do something about Ally’s behaviour – subsequently resulting in Ally to be fired on the spot.

As she’s leaving the pizzeria, Ally is approached by the lady who accompanied Dom in the restaurant, who is later revealed to be his mother, Delessandra. Delessandra offers Ally a job at the fashion magazine she owns called Label, as she believes Ally has the personality she’s been looking for. Overhearing the whole conversation, a man waiting at the bus stop called Buddy asks if there are more jobs being given that he could possibly receive, to which Delessandra happily offers him a job too. 

Whilst navigating the first day of her new job, she meets Ruth and Gola who are interested in how she got the job and her backstory, to which they all later become the best of friends. She is directed to Delessandra’s office where she learns what her new job will entail, which is where she meets Dom who is furious at her recent hire to the company he also works at. His fury makes him determined to fire her, only Ally informs him that he’s unable to do so, as only his mother is able to. This sets in motion Dom’s determination to make her quit.

The pair begin to navigate their working relationship, where they share snide comments towards each other, creating tension between them and making everyone around them shocked that Ally is the only person to stand up to Dom and put him in his place. 

Dom has recently been hired at his mother’s company, where he previously worked elsewhere. Dom’s role is to help with the revival of the company, following a scandal made by his father in which he would sexually harass, assault, manipulate and blackmail the women of the company, as their boss. Dom is struggling to clean up his fathers mess and create a safe working environment, that was once ruined, and is aware that everyone in the company is scared of him, making him believe that they are expecting him to follow in his fathers footsteps – only Dom is more determined than ever not to.

With Ally working in the same building, he can’t get her out of his head – leading him to make changes that benefit her, such as hosting work breakfast after noticing she barely eats. 

The tension between the pair slowly turns into sexual tension, where there is a fine line between hate and love. This sexual tension prompts Dominic to reveal nothing will happen between them until Ally quits her job at the company. Only Ally needs this job more than ever, as she’s struggling to make ends meet due to paying for her fathers care as a result of his dementia and due to renovating her fathers home, which she intends to sell to further pay for her fathers care. Between the other jobs she does, working at Label is an essential job for her being able to help her father.

After Ally’s first pay check from the magazine is delayed, she is left with no option to earn quick money at her friend’s strip club, as her father is on the verge of being forced out of his residential care home, due to late payments. Ally begins a routine at the strip club, not realising she’s being watched by a certain sweater wearing boss. When she begins packing up to leave, she’s visited by a manager who informs her she’s been requested for a private dance at a price she can’t turn down. Ally begins contemplating the request, ultimately deciding she can’t deny the money when she desperately needs it. When she arrives in the room, she discovers the customer is none other than Dominic, who is furious at her strip club antics and curious as to why she needs the money, before requesting a private dance from her, which she follows through in.

As the pair continue working with one another, the tension slowly continues to develop with Dominic encouraging his assistant to take a prolonged trip to Europe, leaving him without an assistant – until he hires Ally to be his new temporary assistant. The only condition being that she’s not allowed to participate in additional work or fraternise with employers. This new arrangement works against Dominic’s favour, where he begins spending more time with Ally, where he develops feelings, making it harder for them to ignore the sexual tension. 

After a visit to her father that ends in an accident, following an outburst linked to his illness, Ally develops a black eye where she realises she won’t be able to go into work without being asked questions – therefore, she decides to take the day off. Later in the day, Ally decides to venture into the office after hours, where she knows she’ll be alone, only she’s startled by Dom who is equally shocked by her black eye, before wanting to know what happened.

In the office, Ally shares a heartfelt conversation with Dominic where she reveals everything to do with her father. The intimate moment leads to Ally and Dominic finally sleeping together, before going back to Dom’s place. 

After spending the night together, Dominic and Ally discuss their future and the policies in place preventing dating within the company. Ally states she’s not willing to let this relationship and one night get in the way of a job she desperately needs. Dominic reveals that the night they shared wasn’t a one time thing, before contacting his mother to visit him as he intends to confess about his new relationship. When Delessandra arrives, she’s surprised to find Ally also at Dom’s home. Dominic reveals to his mother that him and Ally are in a relationship, before informing his mother that he will be stepping away from the company to prevent Ally from being fired. This shocks both Delessandra and Ally, who’s angry they didn’t discuss this before the arrival of his mother. 

Following this conversation, Delessandra reveals she will persuade the HR team to allow this relationship to happen and allow them to both remain working at the company, before agreeing that changes need to be made within the company. 

Dominic and Ally meet with the HR team to discuss the next steps, which result in a statement being released about their relationship and Ally’s reassignment to another department – that being digital which Ally is familiar with. 

After visiting where Ally lives and the home she is renovating, he is able to fully observe the struggle Ally is under, where the house is unstable and unsafe to live in whilst renovating it. This encourages Dominic to encourage Ally to move in with him, whilst they work on the house together. Ally is apprehensive at first, but agrees before making Dominic promise he won’t hire anyone, as she doesn’t want to owe anyone anything. Only Dominic takes Ally away on holiday and whilst they’re away, he hired builders to come in and complete the project.

The pair navigate their new relationship with one another, working and living together. Whilst eating out at a restaurant, they are visited by Dom’s father who is requesting money from him. Dom is enraged at the audacity of his father’s request, before denying him anything. This prompts his father to reveal he knows secrets that can impact Delessandra, before putting ideas into Dom’s head that Ally is only with him to use him for his money like Dom’s previous partners had done.
Later on, a work emergency arises involving Dominic’s cheating model ex-girlfriend who had pulled out of appearing on the magazines cover. Dominic decides to visit her, to encourage her to reconsider. When visiting, she reveals that she is being blackmailed by Dominic’s father who has a secret tape of them. This reveals to Dominic that his father was the man he caught her with, leading him to revisit the words his father mentioned about Ally using him.

When back at the office, the team discuss a new strategy plan of who they can use on the cover in replacement of Dom’s ex girlfriend. One of the employees suggest Ally, as it is shown to Dominic that she modelled with Christian James, a young designer who was previously interested in Ally, prior to them getting together. His father’s words about Ally grow louder in his head, where he returns home and accuses Ally of using him and sleeping with Christian. 

As the pair argue, Ally realises that Dominic is self sabotaging their relationship, but after hurtful comments are made by Dominic, he asks her to leave. 

Following their breakup, Ally resigns from Label, sparking Delessandra to question what Dominic did wrong, whilst everyone else at the office turns against him, siding with Ally, after they had just started warming up to him. Ally finds a new job at a different pizzeria and begins navigating her life post Dominic, whilst sending cheques to him to repay him for the renovations on her father’s home, which she recently put up for sale and successfully sold.

Life starts to look up for Ally, where she ends up winning a competition at her father’s residential home, where she will receive free admission for twelve months, taking away the burden of having to pay for her fathers care. However, Ally becomes suspicious of the company behind the competition and the buyer of her father’s home, where she later discovers the companies are affiliated with Dominic, meaning that he set up companies to secretly pay for Ally’s fathers care and home. During this time, Ally also receives a job offer that is perfect due to its alignment and inclusion of digital art, which aligns to what she was doing as a side hustle.

After speaking to Christian himself, it is revealed that Ally was working with Christian to design a surprise sweater vest for Dominic and in exchange, Ally agreed to model some of Christian’s work. Dominic realises his mistake and begins emailing Ally everyday expressing his regret in his behaviour and assumptions that lead to their breakup.

Ally is shocked to find Dominic seated at a table of the restaurant she works at and is requested to take his order. When taking Dominic’s order, he reveals he misses her. Ally specifically asks to make Dominic’s pizza, but when returning to his table she finds him gone. She rushes after him with her pizza and when she reaches him, she opens the box to reveal a message spelt out in pepperoni, saying “I ❤️ u”.

The story ends a year later where Ally and Dominic are on a beach on vacation. Ally reveals that she is pregnant, whilst Dom proposes to her. The story then ends ten years later where the pair are happily married with a daughter called Maya, sharing their lives with Dom’s previous neighbours who also have children and so happen to live next to the home that Ally would frequently admire, which she now lives in. 

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I’m honestly not sure what to feel on this book and I had a bit of a hard time rating it. I definitely enjoyed the beginning and middle of the book, I found myself reading loads. However, I found that I just lost complete interest by the time I got 75% of the way in. It wasn’t a gradual loss of interest, it was just sudden which is why I’m confused on what went wrong.

I liked the aspect of the workplace romance, it always feels like a throwback reading a book set in the workplace because it was something I always used to gravitate towards during the WattPad days. It also featured a lot of tropes I like: grump X sunshine, slow burn and billionaire. 

The premise of the story reminded me a lot of The Bold Type which I absolutely loved – I was gutted when the show ended too soon. The premise of the magazine company reminded me so much of the plot of The Bold Type and even the characters aligned with characters from the show. Dom and Ally gave me Richard and Sutton vibes, but with a slightly different premise and backstory – the way that their relationship consisted of a higher up employee which was sort of frowned upon. Delessandra gave me big Jacqueline vibes with the way she ran the company. Linus gave me Oliver vibes in the way that he was responsible for the styling of shoots and would send Ally off on jobs for the shoots, which was what Oliver did with Sutton. Finally, Ruth and Gola gave me Jane and Kat vibes. I enjoyed that it reminded me of the show and a lot of the time, I visualised the backgrounds to be like the tv show. 

As for the length of the book, I also had mixed feelings on it. I felt like at the start I was reading fine and didn’t notice the book being long, I was motivated to read and see where the characters went. However, that changed once I got to around 470 pages in, which was where I started to constantly look at the page I was on and how many I had left. I’m not sure if this is because I’m not used to reading books of this length, my normal is around 300/400, so maybe once I hit that part of the book, my brain naturally/automatically checked out? I also think that I lost interest because at the point of the book I lost interest, the characters were already together, but there were still a considerable amount left in the book; which just made me question whether it would’ve been dragged out.

There were some parts I thought might’ve happened but other parts I didn’t think would happen, but I wasn’t equally shocked. The only part I anticipated were Delessandra coming out with her best friend and that there would be a third act break up. Sometimes I don’t mind a third act breakup, but other times it’s just annoying.

I will say, the ending really confused me, to the point I had to re read the chapter once or twice to make sure I hadn’t just skim read it or absentmindedly read it. I was confused because at the end of the book, Ally is mentioned to be pregnant, which she later gives birth to a daughter called Maya. It’s also mentioned how Ally had a rough pregnancy and wasn’t jumping for Dom to quote “to put more babies in her”. However, it was referenced that Dom was sitting with their fourteen year old daughter Reece, but Maya was only mentioned to be nine. They did mention that Dom’s previous neighbours moved next door and their adoptive son had other siblings, which their neighbours had also adopted. It just wasn’t mentioned if the daughter Reece was actually the neighbours daughter and they were so close they called her their daughter , or if maybe Dom and Ally had adopted. Anyways it threw me off because it left me with questions, which obviously weren’t answered.

Throughout the book, I really struggled to imagine the characters as being late 30s and early 40s, so that threw me off a lot – especially because of their behaviour at times came across immature.

I can’t put my finger on what was missing or on what I didn’t like, that didn’t make it a 5 ⭐️ read. I didn’t not like it, but I didn’t overly love it – seems to be a common theme atm. It hasn’t massively put me off reading more from Lucy Score, but I’m not alone in the mixed feelings of this book as I checked GoodReads and a lot of people felt the same. I felt like it was going good until the last 30% and it just went downhill. For me, if the start is great, but the ending is poor, then I’ll not be able to rate it highly because it’s ending that’s fresh in my mind and gives me the overall feeling. If a book starts off poor and gradually gets better, becoming great then I’m able to look past the beginning and rate it high because again, the ending is what always resonates with me.

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Georgia