I’ve compiled all the reviews I’ve done of each Ali Hazelwood book I’ve read to date (updated in March, 2025). At the bottom I’ve given a little overall review of which one I liked the most and where to start.
I may update over time, as I read more of her books.
Jump to the bit you want to read:
- Love Theoretically
- The Love Hypothesis
- Loathe to Love You
- Love on the brain
- Bride
- Not in Love
- Two Can Play
- Check & Mate
- Deep End
- My thoughts on the books overall
Love Theoretically
Plot summary
Elsie lives a double life, adjunct professor by day, serial fake girlfriend by night. The fake dating thing is just a way to make a bit of extra cash and Elsie hopes she finally gives it all up with this new job at M.I.T and her career can finally get underway. Everything was going fine until her fake date’s handsome and suspicious brother, turns out to not only be one of the people on the hiring committee for her position but he also the person who wrote the infamous paper, which tanked the reputation of theoretical physicists everywhere and ruined the career of Elsie’s mentor. Not wanting to ‘out’ her sweet client to his brother, Elsie can’t explain herself to Jack Smith, causing him to dislike her almost as much as she dislikes him (or so she thinks). The other problem is, he’s immune to her social chameleon abilities, so Elsie constantly finds herself on the back foot but Jack stands in the way of a good salary, with health benefits – not quite her dream job but definitely better than where she’s at now, so she’s determined to best him.
Review
I enjoyed this book! I liked Elsie’s personality and I related to her people pleasing, social chameleon-ness a worrying amount to be honest. I also liked how these spicy scenes were constructed, as it wasn’t the usual partner-knows-immediately-the-right-way-to-please, but it showed them figuring things out, with consent chat and contraception chat. I know that doesn’t sound hot but the more of these romance books I’ve read, the more I find it’s better for representing real(ish) life and I just think it doesn’t hurt to include a little of that in a spicy way. I enjoy the whole steminist backdrop to Ali’s books, as it gives them a little more depth.
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The Love Hypothesis
Plot summary
The story proper begins with Olive, a 3rd year phd student, kissing the first random man she sees in the hallway, to help support the lie she told her friend about being on a date; so that her friend would finally feel comfortable dating Olive’s ex that she was clearly in love with. To her dismay, Olive realises she has kissed Adam Carlsen, a formidable professor who leads another lab in her building. To make matters worse, Olive’s friend still doesn’t buy it, so she comes to Adam with a deal, a fake relationship that benefits both of them; helping to convince her friend that she’s moved on and helping to convince the board that Adam isn’t a flight risk for leaving the university by showing him in a settled relationship. As part of their ruse, they have public ‘dates’, where they begrudgingly find themselves getting to know one another, with Adam offering unwavering support to Olive in her academic career,. This comes to a climax at a huge conference where she is set to present. When things don’t go well at the conference, their fake relationship suddenly doesn’t feel so fake…
Review
I really enjoyed this book! It’s cute, it’s slow burn, the character’s are lovable, it’s great! It is just, a simple, fluffy romance but the whole backdrop of the world of academia gives it some great depth. It does rely fairly heavily on the miscommunication trope, which isn’t aways my favourite thing but, I also really love a fake dating trope, so the whole thing balances itself out in the end! So yeah, in short, I think this book lived up to the hype.
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Loathe to Love You
Plot summary
This is a book made up of three different novellas, each following one of three girls in a friendship group.
Under one roof
The first is a forced proximity, enemies to lovers tale, where an environmental engineer is left half of a property in the will of her supervisor, only to discover that the other half is owned by her nephew, a blunt (but hot!), big oil lawyer. Their hatred turns to a truce, which turns to friendship, which eventually becomes more.
Stuck with you
The second follows an environmental engineer, flashing between the present, where she is trapped in a lift with the hot, nordic partner in the competing architecture firm in her building and the past, when they hooked up. She hates him because she believes he betrayed her but as they are stuck together in the lift, she discovers that maybe she was mistaken.
Below Zero
The final story follows a Nasa engineer, who finds herself working with a guy she almost hooked up with a few years ago and now he’s blocking her project at every turn, or so she thinks. The story flashes between the present, where she is stuck in an icy crevasse, after going out in unsafe weather to test her prototype in the arctic and her (so called) nemesis is the only one prepared to rescue her, to the past, detailing their original encounter and their ‘feud’ when working together.
Review
These are cute, short and sweet novellas. They have the classic ‘third act misunderstanding’ of romance novels but it’s not too protracted or drawn out due to how short the stories are. I liked the whole ‘steminist’ angle and I think it added a bit of depth to what would have been very shallow stories.
These are super cute, they are what they are say on the tin, they are nice, fluffy romances.
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Love on the brain
Plot summary
Bee’s career in neuroscience has stagnated, until she gets the opportunity of a lift time, working for NASA to develop a helmet designed to optimise an astronaut’s ability to concentrate. Only, she arrives to discover the guy from her grad school lab, who absolutely hated her back then, will be running the lab in partnership with her. Bee has hope when Levi seems different to how he was in school, more personable, well liked by his colleagues and he is mostly civil with her. Until her lab equipment does not arrive and he reprimands her for not dressing professionally. Furious, Bee finally chews him out and threatens to go to the department head, despite Levi’s insistence that it won’t be a good idea. Somehow, Levi beats her to the supervisors office and Bee is about to barge in and say her piece when she realises Levi is defending her and demanding her lab equipment. From there, they strike an un-easy truce, until the day Bee get stuck in a graveyard after dark and only has Levi to call for rescue. She is forced to stay over night at his place and it’s then Bee realises she may have misunderstood a lot about Levi.
All the while Bee is posting on her steminist twitter account and messaging with a fellow women in stem supporter. They anonymously talk about their professional frustrations… such as the lab co-lead whose being a massive camel dick, and the women that the other account is love with who recently joined his team but he believes she’s married and hates him so he can’t act on his feelings.
Review
You know what? I might even prefer this book the most out of three Ali Hazelwood books I’ve read. Bee is just… cool, in a nerdy kind of way. Her character has some real depth, between the facts about famous women scientists sprinkled throughout her narration, her quirky internal monologue and the way she always blurts out what she’s thinking, she felt very real. I loved the little extra details like her demonic little gen z lab assistant and Levi’s extra interests outside of work. The whole messaging each other over twitter about one another thing is a little contrived but I don’t think it took away from the narrative. Also, there was no incredibly predictable third act misunderstanding this time, which was refreshing.
So for a fluffy romance, I actually got a whole bit of plot that I actually enjoyed!
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Bride
A vague summary
In this world there are vampires, humans and werewolves. Humans and vampires have a wary truce in this city thanks to the exchanging of ‘collateral’, one human child swapped for one vampire child, for the entirety of their childhood. Humans and werewolves do not get on, werewolves and vampires reeeeally do not get on.
Our main character, Misery, is the daughter of the leader of the vampiric council and was formerly the vampire collateral. Once she returned to vampire society they treated her like an outsider, so she’s been hiding among the humans with her foster sister for years. That is until her foster sister goes missing and her father summons her to tell her they have hatched a plan to form an alliance with the werewolves, through a marriage, acting as collateral. The humans have a new president, who is refusing to the continue handing over human children as collateral and is in talks with the werewolves. In attempt to get out ahead, her father plans to marry her off to secure an alliance with the wolves instead. Misery refuses until she learns the name of the wolf she will marry and it’s the same name that was written on her friends planner on the day she went missing. At the wedding, the groom reacts weirdly to her scent, despite this, the wedding still goes ahead. Misery finds herself in enemy territory yet again, surrounded by people who hate vampires. With her friends cat in toe, she’s confronted by a very persistent little wolf girl and the growing realisation of her feelings for Lowe and his community of wolves. Nothing will stop her from finding her friend though, not even love to a man who she overhears has his true mate somewhere out there anyway… or so she thinks.
What did I think?
I really enjoyed this book, it did rely a little too heavily on the miscommunication trope, as a lot of this authors books do, which was frustrating but didn’t take away from how much I enjoyed it overall.
I thought the word building was pretty decent, the exploration of vampire and werewolf powers was pretty good, none of it was told in a monologued, overt way, it all gets told pretty naturally in the narrative. I loved how sarcastic the main character was and her relationships to other characters outside of the love interest were so fun, she felt like a very well fleshed out person.
It’s aways a risk when authors hop genres but I think in this case it paid off, this was genuinely good read!
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Not in Love
A sort of summary
Rue is a scientist, researching her dream project, when her company’s loan gets bought out by a tech acquisition company who seems hell bent on removing her boss, and friend, as CEO. To add insult to injury, one of the new prospective owners is the man she almost slept with, who she met through an anonymous dating app for sex.
Rue is forced to fight the magnetic connection she feels with Eli because his company is trying to oust her friend but events keep throwing them together until they are no longer able to resist getting together. Both of them have rules about no repeats, so Rue hopes she can get him out of her system but she finds Eli getting under her skin. They are brutally honest with each other about the darkest aspects of their pasts and they find themselves telling the other things they’ve never told anyone else. They see each other in secret and Rue feels terrible for betraying her friend, but as things progress with the buyout, it seems her boss has a lot of secrets and ties that go deeper with Eli and his partners than the acquisition.
My thoughts
Genuinely, this has rocketed to being my favourite Ali Hazelwood – this one just hits different. I like how their relationship changes, I like that it takes the girl longer to fall, I liked their brutal honesty and how they learn and grow out of the toxicity they grew up with. There was also a little more spice than her other books, but it was well written and made sense for the characters and the narrative.
Honestly, I’m not exaggerating when I say this is her best book, I hope this and Bride are a sign that she’s getting a bit more control of what she writes because these feel a lot more authentic than her other books.
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Two Can Play
A plot summary attempt
Two rival game design companies are picked to co-design a new game, which is a disaster because it’s Viola’s dream gig but working with this company means working with the aloof and rude, Jesse Andrews, her nemesis. They’ve been each other’s periphery for years because the industry is small and at first she thought he was attracted to her until he made it very clear he was not, so Viola had to put aside her secret crush and hate him instead, especially after ‘the incident’ under the mistletoe at a party where he seemed horrified about the idea of kissing her.
Since their companies’ rivalry is well known, the company looking to commission the game sends them on a winter retreat together, giving them a chance to prove that they can set it aside and work together. At first, it’s a complete disaster but after Viola loses her shit at Jesse for letting their personal ‘conflict’ put them at risk of losing the job, a statement which he is completely baffled by and immediately tries to rectify by having a word with his team, things start to get better. As Viola and Jesse spend more time around each other, it becomes clear that there’s been a massive misunderstanding and maybe Jesse isn’t repulse by her at all…
My thoughts
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Ali Hazelwood can serve me the same formula every time and every time, I enjoy it. I liked the different world of game design, compared to the STEM fields a lot of her other books and also the setting in the cabin added a little bit of that ‘forced proximity’ trope but not in a icky way. I liked the FMC, I think she had a really enjoyable inner monologue, the MMC is very much copy, paste of a lot of the other dudes in her books but hey, this story is for the girls after all, so that’s okay. This book has loads of great nerdy gaming, film and book reference, the rivalry is fun and overall, it was just enjoyable.
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Check & Mate
A summary attempt
Mallory was done with chess, a game that ruined her whole family… until she wipes the floor with the number 1 chess champion, Nolan, at a charity tournament. When a chess club comes forward offering her a scholarship that could help her take care of her mum and sisters, with enough left over to pay the mortgage and then some. So, even though she never intended to play again, she can’t pass up the chance to take care of her family, so she’ll have to see the year through but chess will just be a game, it was not consume her whole life, nor will she obsess over the really hot chess champion she accidentally beat.
She quickly rises through the ranks and receives a lot of attention from the chess world, all while she’s trying to keep it a secret from her family. Also, there’s the slight issue of the mutual attraction between her and Nolan.
My thoughts
I liked this story, I really don’t feel like anything was missing with it having less spice than a normal Ali book because the yearningggg and the tension was still there. All the stuff about the world of chess felt very Queen’s gambit but with a much blunter more awkward main character. The male main character was a typical Ali one, tall, reserved and mysterious but if a formula works, why mess with it? Mallory’s journey is relatable for any parentified eldest sister trying to let go of control and I really liked the ending.
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Deep End
Plot summary attempt
Scarlett is an elite diving athlete at Stanford, just returning from what was a potentially career ending injury. When her dive captain, Pen, mentions that she might have to end her relationship with the swim team’s captain, a several time gold medal olympian, because he’s into *things* in the bedroom that she isn’t. Scarlett tries to give her some advice from her own perspective where she was in a one-sided relationship in that area. When they break up anyway, Pen drunkenly blurts out to Lukas that Scarlett is ‘just like him’.
Suddenly, Scarlett is very aware of his presence around the pool and campus. Cut to a few chance encounters where jokes are exchanged that make it pretty clear that they would be compatible. As she’s trying to get over a mental block with the dive that caused her injury, trying to get into med-school and juggling all that with being an athlete, Scarlett has no time for a relationship. So they come to an… arrangement, which oddly has Pen’s blessing, despite their growing friendship.
Lukas is the opposite of the way Pen had described him in every way, Scarlett is disarmed by how much he notices her, how much he is attune to her feelings and is so good at taking care of her, in more ways than one if you catch my drift, and it is terrifying for Scarlett. Can she allow herself to enjoy a good thing? Does she even deserve to? What if she fails at everything, again?
My thoughts
This book may have over-taken Not in Love as my new favourite of hers. People got so fixated on the kink elements of this book that they lost everything else the plot offers. This book is about trust, which should be at the core of any relationship but is especially important in the activities they participate in. The way Scarlet has to just let go, to be in the moment and get out of her head and enjoy a good thing in the spicy scenes is part of the over-all narrative of the book, it’s not just smut for smut’s sake (in my opinion). Her mental block with diving, her lack of meaningful relationships outside of her step-mom, her never doing anything for fun that isn’t productive and striving for a level of perfection she always going to fail at, all of it gets better when she starts to let go of that control.
I liked this MMC a lot more than some of her previous books too, he’s still super tall, strong and silent-esq but he is not without emotional depth or the ability to communicate. The third-act misunderstanding was not caused by a frustrating thing that a simple conversation could have fixed, it’s caused by two complex people trying to trust each other and the FMC over-coming some deep-seated issues.
Anyone who has read a few of my book reviews on here will know that I’m no prude about spicy books, but I have discovered I prefer a little more plot alongside it. I think anybody who reduced this book down to just the smut scenes have missed the point, the book had a lot of depth, well-rounded characters and an interesting journey.
My thoughts on the books overall
I enjoyed all of them, as you can clearly tell. However, like I said in the review above, Deep End has genuinely jumped the queue to being my favourite. The writing was excellent, the depth of the characters was so much more than in other books. Just all round, this book had so much more depth than her other books, which isn’t a criticism, because those books have been written to fulfil a niche in the romance genre audience but I’ve found over time that I like a little more plot with my romance or smut.
Although Bride, Not in Love and Love on the Brain are also up there in my favourites, at the moment Deep End has definitely taken over as my top one.
Antonia Bernardin 
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