Reviews: Lauren O’Connor-May

Not in Love

Ali Hazelwood

Little Brown

TikTok phenomenon and spicy STEMinist author Ali Hazelwood’s latest offering is about a food scientist, who is torn between her sizzling attraction to one of the head honchos of the company engineering a hostile takeover where she works and her boss, who gave her her break and has been supporting her fledgling career.

As always, the woman scientist faces an uphill battle to have her work recognised and is betrayed unexpectedly by someone close to her.

There’s more spice than normal for the author in this book and if you skip over the sexy chapters, you’ll be skipping a lot of the book.

The author herself describes the book as less “rom-com and more of an erotic romance” and being “tonally” different to her usual novels. Still, whatever you may think about the author’s style, I will say this, her plots are always memorable.

Spice level, very hot.

The North Wind

Alexandra Warwick

Simon and Schuster

This Hades and Persephone retelling, with Beauty and the Beast undertones, started as an indie publication and was eventually bought by publisher Simon and Schuster due to its popularity.

It tells the story of Wren who is taken by the cold overlord god, the North Wind, to his magical kingdom, inhabited only by ghosts and themselves.

There she finds that everything is not as it seems and as Wren explores the palace desperate to find a way home, she makes unlikely friends, interesting enemies and ends up in awkward adventures while she slowly falls for the god she thinks she hates.

This book is an extreme slow burn and was a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Spice level, warm.

Out On A Limb

Hannah Bonam-Young

Bedford Square

This romance novel swims against the stream because it is about a young disabled woman who falls in love with her unbelievably sweet baby daddy during an unexpected pregnancy.

In the author’s note, Bonam-Young writes that “pregnancy in romance novels is a hot topic” but the book was very personal to her because her character’s pregnancy journey mirrors her own.

Bonam-Young gave her character, Win, the same disability that she has and as a result, Win faced the same fears about being a good mother with only one normal hand.

Spice level, hot.