CBR17 Book 52: "Problematic Summer Romance" by Ali Hazelwood

Page count: 416 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo 2025: A book set on vacation

Official plot summary (because it's better than anything I could come up with):

Maya Killgore is twenty-three and still in the process of figuring out her life.

Conor Harkness is thirty-eight, and Maya cannot stop thinking about him.

It’s such a cliché, it almost makes her heart implode: older man and younger woman; successful biotech guy and struggling grad student; brother’s best friend and the girl he never even knew existed. As Conor loves to remind her, the power dynamic is too imbalanced. Any relationship between them would be problematic in too many ways to count, and Maya should just get over him. After all, he has made it clear that he wants her gone from his life.

But not everything is as it seems—and clichés sometimes become plot twists.

When Maya’s brother decides to get married in Taormina, she and Conor end up stuck together in a romantic Sicilian villa for over a week. There, on the beautiful Ionian coast, between ancient ruins, delicious foods, and natural caves, Maya realizes that Conor might be hiding something from her. And as the destination wedding begins to erupt out of control, she decides that a summer fling might be just what she needs—even if it’s a problematic one.

Maya and Conor were both secondary, supporting characters in Not in Love, one of my favourite Hazelwood books to date. So when I realised that not only was Hazelwood in 2025 generously blessing her readers with Deep End, and later this year, the sequel to her paranormal romance, Bride, but a third romance, and an unexpected follow-up to a book I love, I was beside myself with joy. Itty bitty spoiler - there is, in fact, a cameo of Scarlett and Lucas from Deep End in this book, because Ali Hazelwood loves her readers and knows we eat that sh*t up. 

This book came out at the end of May, and as far as I can tell, Hazelwood did very little promo for it, compared to some of her other releases. Nevertheless, it ended up becoming a bestseller because her readers are now legion, and who can resist an age gap romance with a title like this one? Nature even helped out a little bit, with a volcanic eruption on Mount Etna about a week after the book's release (if you have read the book, you know why this is relevant). 

An age gap romance can be a tricky proposition, but as soon as I worked out that the actual age gap was only 15 years, and Maya was fully adult the first time she really considered Conor in any romantic way whatsoever, I frankly couldn't see what all the fuss was about. One of my favourite romance novels of all time, What I Did for a Duke by Julie Anne Long, has a bigger age gap between the protagonists. It's not like the age difference between Maya and Conor is anything like that between so many ageing male celebrities and their child brides who are young enough to be their granddaughters. And it's not like the potentially squicky issue isn't addressed right there in the title of the novel.

This book alternates between the present day, with Rue and Eli's rapidly approaching nuptials in Cicily (although there is a string of complications long enough for anyone to wonder if their wedding is cursed), where things are awkward and tense between Maya and Conor. Interspersed among these chapters are ones set a few years in the past, when the seeds of their romance were sown, so to speak, while Maya was a student in Edinburgh and Conor showed up unexpectedly to help her.

Was this one of Hazelwood's best novels? No, but neither was it one of her worst (I don't actually think she has any bad ones, just great and slightly less great ones). Getting to see Rue and Eli again was a happy bonus, and while you don't need to have read their romance to fully get this book, it is probably an even more satisfying read if you have. It also made me really want to visit the south of Italy and/or Sicily. The setting and the food described seemed amazing. 

Judging a book by its cover: So many of Hazelwood's covers feature the main characters in some sort of embrace. Much as I think many of them are very cute, I love this one so much more. It perfectly captures both the holiday vibe in the book, as well as gives you an impression of both protagonists, even though you can only see their legs. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 37: "Not in Love" by Ali Hazelwood

Page count: 384 pages

Rating: 5 stars

Rue Siebert has never wanted a relationship, she's finds men to hook up with on dating apps and has a strict rule about one night only. When her latest date is interrupted by her drunken brother and the night doesn't end the way she expected, she breaks her rule and gives the guy her phone number. Nevertheless, she doesn't expect to see him again.

Unexpectedly, she sees him again as soon as the next morning, when he is part of the venture capitalist firm, which may be taking over Kline, the food science start-up where Rue and her best friend work. Rue's boss and mentor, who she really looks up to, claim that the company will be fine, but Rue is worried. She grew up with a lot of instability and uncertainty and has finally achieved financial stability and has a career she enjoys. This possible takeover is threatening all of that.

Eli Killgore and his business partners have very specific reasons for wanting to take over Kline and have worked for nearly a decade to get where they are now. What he was not expecting was seeing Rue, the mystery woman he hasn't been able to forget after their brief, interrupted date. With the power dynamics so drastically altered, Eli should put Rue out of his mind. Rue, on the other hand, keeps being warned by her mentor to stay away from all of the venture capital people, but every interaction she has with them is pleasant and all of them seem to have science backgrounds and be genuinely interested in the work that's taking place at Kline. They don't just seem like heartless capitalists, only worried about money and the bottom line.

Even though they should stay away from each other, Eli and Rue can't seem to avoid ending up close together, and even after allowing herself one night with Eli, Rue no longer seems able to stick to her 'one night only' rule, because she is as addicted to Eli's company and attention as he seems to be to hers. Whether they have any sort of long-term future together is another issue - Rue doesn't do relationships, Eli is part of a group who seems determined to destroy her boss' career.

I may have to give up on my hopes of Hazelwood ever writing a short, dumpy hero, but at least in this book, the heroine is also tall. In another break from her earlier books, the hero hasn't been broodingly pining for the heroine for years, which I also appreciate. Here we get a heroine who is used to having to fend for herself and is unused to and to begin with, incapable of being taken care of, and that is a trope that always seems to melt my heart. The hypercompetent people who do so much to stay in control and take care of everything and everyone around them (although in Rue's case, she's a rather stand-offish, introverted, and most likely neuro-divergent grump, so there aren't that many people in her life for her to take care of), and then find that special someone who only wants to be there for them and care for them. 

Eli is good at caring, he has been taking care of his younger sister since their parents died when he was a teenager and she was much younger. His life has taken a lot of unexpected turns, and he has had to work hard to get where he is now. While he and his friends are now venture capitalists, they tend to buy up failing businesses, not to destroy and gut them, but to help the business do scientifically or technologically useful things. There is a personal aspect to their interest in Kline, the company Rue works for, but it's also nice to see a nuanced portrayal of wealthy money people, instead of the usual uncaring suits who only want results, or to destroy people's livelihoods for profit.

It tends to be much easier for me to review a book I didn't much like than one I loved. I have also not made it easier for myself by waiting nearly two months after finishing this one to review it. I don't remember all the reasons I loved this book (and the main reason I haven't re-read it is that I like doing that via audiobook, and I really disliked the narrators of this one), but I'm going to try. There are some great supporting characters in this, like Eli's younger sister, Rue's best friend, Eli's business partners who are also his friends and seem close enough to be a found family for him. There's a very good dog. There's the couple cooking together (I also love this) and because Rue and Eli both seem rather overwhelmed by the attraction between them, they have this thing where they share something really negative about themselves, like the worst things they've ever done or thought, seemingly hoping they will scare the other one away. Of course, a lot of these things just expose how vulnerable they are and how difficult their lives have been up to the point where they met each other, and it was a really nice touch.

By now it's clear that no matter what Ali Hazelwood writes, I will pre-order it and probably love it. I understand why her books are not for everyone, but for me, this worked on every level and I think it may be her strongest novel yet. If you have tried Hazelwood before and disliked her writing style, I can't promise that this will change your mind, but she's clearly evolved a lot as a writer since publishing The Love Hypothesis (her weakest book, in my opinion). I will be impatiently awaiting her next book, whether it be paranormal or regular contemporary romance. 

Judging a book by its cover: Hazelwood is lucky enough to get cover artists who actually seem to depict the characters the way they are actually described in the book (certainly not a given) and they're usually portrayed in a loving embrace of some kind. I think the artist here has managed to show how besotted Eli is with Rue, while she seems a bit more restrained. In case you didn't know that Hazelwood sets most of her books in a STEM environment, the artist has also helpfully thrown in some test tubes with mysterious liquid there on the side of the couple - science! There were apparently several special editions published of this book, with various extra art and bonus features. If you go to Hazelwood's Instagram account, there are pictures of the other images, all of which are very good. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 38: "Love, Theoretically" by Ali Hazelwood

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 5 stars

CBR15 Bingo: Getaway (I don't see a good way to fill the South America square)

For this review, I resurrected Mrs. Julien's romance review template from way back in 2013. I've tweaked it, but the major framework is still there. 

Love, Theoretically is a romance of the enemies to lovers AND I’m scared and unworthy of love: Hero meets heroine. He is the disapproving older brother of the man who is paying her to be his fake girlfriend. He thinks she’s a librarian, and later, when she shows up at MIT for a job interview, he believes she’s been scamming his younger brother in some way. She hates him because as a teenager he wrote an article that not only discredited her mentor but made the branch of theoretical physics (which she works in) seem less viable than experimental physics (which he works in). He is one of the professors on the panel who decides who gets the job and tells her from the outset that she’s clearly not going to get the job, no matter what. That doesn't exactly endear him further to her. Despite having gone through most of her life trying to tailor herself to be the perfect person to whomever she interacts with, she’s incapable of being anything but her rather sarcastic self with him. Once he realises that she is, in fact, not his brother’s girlfriend or some sort of grifter, he is delighted with her true self and spends most of his time trying to make her realise that her actual self is worthy and deserving of love. Hero and heroine eventually move forward together secure in their love and commitment. 

A contemporary romance focused on scientists, in this case, physicists, and written by Ali Hazelwood, Love, Theoretically is my third book by this author. I’ve liked her previous books, although she does seem to have certain hangups, and her second novel wasn’t as different from her first as I and a lot of other readers would have liked. Hazelwood is, most famously, the author of The Love Hypothesis, which started out as Reylo fan fic and has for years been beloved by BookTokers. I found Love, Theoretically very enjoyable, laugh-out-loud funny, and probably my favourite one of her books so far. I very much recommend it, even if you might have found one (or both) of her previous novels a bit annoying. 

This book is a slow-burn romance and features some of the same tropes as Hazelwood’s previous two novels, but the complications keeping the couple apart are resolved much earlier in the plot, which the story benefits greatly from. Once our couple actually does the deed, so to speak, the sex scenes are very steamy and a lot less cringe-worthy than in many other romances. I only have Hazelwood's STEMinist novellas still on my TBR List and look forward to reading them while waiting for Hazelwood’s next foray into romance.  

The main plot of Love, Theoretically focuses on the mistaken assumptions of both our hero and heroine and then the journey of acceptance that the heroine needs to go through to accept that her pathological people-pleasing to the point where she doesn’t really know who she really is or think what she actually wants is unnecessary. Jonathan “Jack” Smith-Turner is a respected (if not always well-liked) physics professor. Having discovered in his early adolescence that his stepmother is not, in fact, his real mother and that his real mother died when he was just a young child, he hates untruths and dissembling. At seventeen, he wrote an article aimed to uncover the lax editorial practices of a renowned science publication, which caused a significant stir in the physics community, and no one has allowed him to forget about it since. He pretty much only cares for his younger brother and his acerbic grandmother. Until he meets Elsie Hannaway. Jack is a protector, and once the truth comes out about his younger brother’s true relationship with her, Jack wants nothing more than to take care of Elsie, in every conceivable way. 

Elsie is an adjunct professor working three different teaching jobs to make ends meet and is desperately hoping for a tenure-track position. As an additional source of income, Elsie works for Faux, a company that allows people to hire fake dates/partners. Elsie uses her powers of observation and strong social antennae to read anyone she meets and does her best to turn her into the ideal persona for that person for as long as they interact. She’s not even entirely truthful to her best friend and roommate of seven years.  Her ability to be a social chameleon is why she’s so good at being a fake girlfriend. The employees of Faux aren’t really supposed to go on multiple dates, but Greg Smith is just so helpless and non-threatening that she keeps helping him, meaning she’s now been to several big family events with him and keeps running into his older brother Jack, who she is convinced hates her. Jack and Elsie start out as antagonists, at least in Elsie’s eyes, yet as is always the case in Hazelwood’s novels, the hero doesn’t hate the heroine at all – rather the opposite. Thankfully, once they traverse the challenges they face, they make an excellent team.

While Hazelwood seems to have a thing for large, brooding men who are nevertheless secretly tender and protective, paired with much smaller women, who probably have some sort of health issue (Elsie has type I diabetes, which makes her nearly faint in Jack’s presence more than once, Bee in Love on the Brain had that fainting thing). If she wants to explore a bold new direction in her next book, perhaps make the hero short and a bit timid? Maybe make the heroine taller than him? Just throwing it out there, Ms. Hazelwood.

Both Elsie and Jack have some wonderful and supportive friends, and Jack’s elderly and frightfully wealthy grandmother (who threatens to disown her offspring or grandchildren whenever the mood strikes her) is delightful and steals every scene she’s in. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything when I reveal that Elsie’s aging mentor is not as good for her career as she thinks he is, and Jack maybe wasn’t the cold-hearted villain he first appears for trying to discredit the man. This is one of my favourite contemporary romances so far this year, well worth your time. 

Judging a book by its cover: Just as I'm pretty sure this is my favourite Hazelwood so far, this is absolutely the cover I like the best. Hazelwood's cover artist, @lilithsaur (on Twitter and Instagram) just seems to capture the essence of her books so well. I've loved this cover since I first saw it, and my heart leapt with joy when I saw it for real in the bookstore.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR14 Book 27: "Love on the Brain" by Ali Hazelwood

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR14 Bingo: Mind (Bee, as well as Ms. Hazelwood herself, is a neuroscientist and there's a whole lot of brain science happening in the book)

Bee Köningswasser, a young pink-haired neuroscientist, is offered pretty much her dream job on a NASA project and accepts joyfully. Her excitement is cut short when she realises that while she's the lead on the neuroscience part, her nemesis from grad school, Levi Ward, is the engineering lead on the same project. Nevertheless, Bee can feel herself wasting away in her current job, with a sexist boss and not exactly supportive colleagues, so off she goes with her surly gloom-cookie research assistant Rocio (think if April Ludgate from Parks and Recreation had a baby with Wednesday Addams). 

Bee is determined to do her best on the project and hopefully ignore Levi Ward as much as possible. Of course, while looking around the labs before the project has even officially started, she's saved from being crushed under a falling pile of boxes by whom else - Mr. Tall, Dark, Handsome, and apparently completely repelled by Bee (SPOILER - he very much does NOT hate Bee). Bee literally swoons (she has a problem maintaining blood pressure and seems to faint every time she gets stressed, scared, or overwhelmed). I think we can all see where this is going - even those of us who may never have picked up a romance novel ever before. If any of my readers actually have picked this as your very first romance novel - congratulations on taking the chance on something with such a vibrant, pepto-bismol pink cover. 

Now, where was I? Oh yes, Bee - the perky neuro-scientist who worships Marie Curie, and Levi, the brooding engineer who seems painfully awkward every time he's anywhere near Bee. They're co-leads on something called BLINK- a fancy helmet astronauts will use in space, where their brains can be stimulated while they wear it for better performance (or something, I am very much NOT a science person). To begin with, Bee finds obstacles at every turn, her lab isn't ready, her and Rocio's computers aren't working properly, e-mails and meeting invites keep going astray, but after finally getting deeply frustrated and yelling at Levi (who Bee is convinced is causing all the delays), but then overhearing him actually confronting the NASA boss on the subject, she finally seems able to get somewhere with the work. Bee starts to settle in, making friends (there's Kaylee, the bubbly NASA project manager - think Elle Woods in Legally Blonde and the charming head astronaut on the project, Guy), but still can't quite figure out what is going on with Levi.

As they start spending more time together, it becomes obvious to Bee that she may have been wrong about Levi and his antipathy toward her. Of course, Levi also seems to be of the opinion that Bee is married (having not heard the rather harrowing break-up story once Bee caught her fiancee with her then-best friend). While Bee is very much single, she also believes Levi to be attached, and the father of a child, for the first half of the book. Once all of those misunderstandings are out of the way, with their professional relationship working smoothly, they can finally face up to their romantic attraction to one another. 

I really liked The Love Hypothesis, Hazelwood's first novel. It's obvious that she really does know the science that is part of the plot in each of the books, and competent and ambitious protagonists are always fun to read about. However, there does seem to be a bit of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" in this book, with quite a few similarities in this and her debut, especially with regards to the heroes, their looks and the way they interact with the heroines (seemingly aloof and very disinterested in them, when in fact the exact opposite is the case). I haven't read any of Hazelwood's STEMinist novellas yet, so I don't know if all of her heroes are of the same mold, but I'm hoping that for her third novel, enjoyable as this was, she changes up the formula somewhat. I am 100% for clever ladies in STEM and the men who love them, but maybe have a different hero archetype next time? Short, dumpy blond guys need love too, Ms. Hazelwood. 

There's a good supporting cast in this and a lot of women supporting women. Bee anonymously runs the Twitter site "What would Marie Curie" do, where a lot of women in STEM can vent about the ways they are mistreated or overlooked in their fields, and Bee also has some great phone calls with her twin, who seems to be addicted to travel, supporting herself by tutoring rich children in the various locations. Rocio and Kaylee are both hilarious, Rocio in her morbid goth-sensibilities, while Kaylee is like a human ray of sunshine and cheer. 

I am very much looking forward to seeing what Ms. Hazelwood does next. As I mentioned, I hope it's in a slightly different vein from her first two novels, it's good to stretch your metaphorical wings, lady. I will probably check out the STEMinist novellas while I wait. 

Judging a book by its cover: As I mentioned further up in my review, this cover really is an extremely vivid pink, for the most part. I do like that on The Love Hypothesis, the cover was mainly blue with pink writing, while here it's pink with mostly blueish-green writing (like a dark teal). I'm still not a huge fan of the animated covers, but Ms. Hazelwood is lucky to have a talented cover artist, and the image of Levi carrying Bee (which happens multiple times in the story) is pretty darn adorable. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR14 Book 5: "The Love Hypothesis" by Ali Hazelwood

Page count: 384 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Olive Smith is a Ph.D. candidate working on her thesis at Stanford and really has neither the time nor the inclination for anything romantic. However, she did briefly date a guy who her best friend is now gaga over, and because Olive needs to convince her BFF, Ahn, that she is well and truly over said guy, she lies and claims she dating someone else. However, since her friend remains skeptical, Olive needs somebody she is supposedly dating, and this is how she ends up panicking and kissing a random guy in the science labs while she knows Ahn is watching. That her fake boyfriend turns out to be Professor Adam Carlsen, Stanford's science darling and well-known bane of many of the Ph.D. candidate's existence was NOT what Olive was prepared for.

To Olive's surprise, Adam agrees when she goes to him to suggest that they continue to fake date for a while, just to make absolutely sure that Ahn believes the charade. While he is famously moody, dictatorial and a pain in his students' backsides, he's also tall, dark, and decidedly interesting-looking and must surely have no reason to entertain far-fetched schemes from strange female students. However, Adam explains that the Stanford funding board is worried he's going to take his giant brain and brilliant research and leave for another university, and they're holding a large chunk of his funding money hostage. Appearing to have an on-campus girlfriend who has yet to finish her own Ph.D. would very much serve his purposes, as it might reassure the people holding the purse strings that he intends to stick around at Stanford for a good while yet. 

So Olive and Adam agree to meet publically for coffee at least once a week, and at various faculty events, and as is the case with all fake dating stories, one or both of the parties inevitably catch real feelings. Olive discovers that while he may not be as outgoing and effortlessly charming as some, Adam is nevertheless not the ogre that many at Stanford would paint him as. By the time a big out of town science conference comes around, the fake dating has been convincing enough to Olive's friends that they assume she's going to share a hotel room with Adam, and while there is, in fact, more than one bed in the room, it still involves even more up close and personal time to act on all those feelings. Will their fake dating ruse become the real thing by the time of their mutually agreed deadline?

This book was published in September 2021 and it didn't take long before it took romance internet, not to mention Book Tok, by storm. I started seeing mentions of it everywhere, including on many Best of the Year lists, and for months now, I've also seen the paperback widely advertised anywhere that sells books. I'm very happy for Ali Hazelwood because as well as being a delightful romance that I had trouble putting down, the science and academic backgrounds of the leads feel so much more true to life than in many books, probably because Hazelwood herself is a scientist. I know absolutely nothing about lab procedures, experiments that need to be run, or the many hoops you have to jump through to successfully achieve your Ph.D., but the descriptions included in this book all felt very realistic.

My main gripe with the book is that we only get Olive's POV throughout. I much prefer romance novels where we get an alternating perspective from both of the leads, and after reading the bonus chapter Hazelwood released to her newsletter subscribers, from Adam's POV, I am even more bereft at being denied his gloomy thoughts on things throughout the book. Adam is of course, for all his lacking social graces and foul temper, a wonderful and deeply emotional romance hero, Olive is just the first woman he's met that he feels enough for to want a romantic and sexual relationship with. While it's never addressed directly in the text, the description of both Adam and Olive makes me suspect they may be demi-sexual, and that's the reason they haven't really met anyone before who fascinates them enough to distract them from the science that so dominates their lives.

I'm very happy I finally took the time to read this book and even happier that Hazelwood has several titles due to be published this year. It's always fun to discover a new author, and I will happily take more romances set in the world of STEM.

Judging a book by its cover: While I long for the days when publishing decides that we're done with cartoony covers, I absolutely adore this one. It doesn't hurt that the cover artist has made the book leads look a lot like the Star Wars characters which they are (most likely) inspired by. It's just such a cute cover, and I keep seeing it pretty much everywhere right now - which in itself makes me super happy, because romance SHOULD be widely available, even in Norwegian book shops. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read