Writing workshop rivals, Aiden Huntington and Rosie Maxwell, are always the highlight of their classes as they can’t help but be at each others throats every single time. Rosie is all about romance and it’s happily ever after ending, while Aiden is a literary fiction snob. When their prof has finally had enough of them constantly disturbing her workshop, she gives them an ultimatum: leave her workshop OR write a romance story together, without the HEA ending.

I really enjoyed this take at the forced proximity/ enemies to lovers tropes, especially with the usage of the manuscript as a mutual perspective. The excerpts were a fun and original way to explore the tension and feelings of both MCs. I loved the escalation from rivals to fake dating, all in an effort to get the book moving along. I think the plot twist at the end was slightly unnecessary and took away from what the characters relationship development but this was definitely a great debut novel with a wonderful NYC backdrop and some charming characters! Look forward to reading more novels by Katie Holt!

✵𝖬𝖺𝗇𝗒 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗇𝗄𝗌 𝗍𝗈 𝖠𝗅𝖼𝗈𝗏𝖾 𝖯𝗋𝖾𝗌𝗌 & 𝖭𝖾𝗍𝖦𝖺𝗅𝗅𝖾𝗒 𝖿𝗈𝗋 𝗀𝗂𝖿𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗆𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝖠𝖽𝗏𝖺𝗇𝖼𝖾𝖽 𝖱𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋’𝗌 𝖢𝗈𝗉𝗒 𝗂𝗇 𝖾𝗑𝖼𝗁𝖺𝗇𝗀𝖾 𝖿𝗈𝗋 𝗆𝗒 𝗁𝗈𝗇𝖾𝗌𝗍 𝗋𝖾𝗏𝗂𝖾𝗐.✵

Rosie is attending NYU’s writing program with her main genre in romance. She is definitely a sweet hopeless romantic and figures this will help her along the way. There is another student in her class that loathes romance novels. He is rude and very arrogant, and he is especially rude to Rosie. They are constantly bickering and bantering in class. So when the professor has had enough he forces Aiden and Rosie to write a book together. Thinking that this may teach each other to respect the other. Now must work closely together for the rest of the semester. Will they continue to hate each other or will they get over their differences?

This was a fun corky romance. I did enjoy the way the author had a reading a book inside a book. It’s an enemies to lovers trope and a slow burn throughout the entire book. I did find myself getting a bit bored of their fighting and bickering. Overall I gave this a 3 star rating.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, Katie Holt and the publisher, Alcove Press for the opportunity to read and review an advanced reader's copy of this book.

If you are a fan of true enemies-to-lovers with a slow burn, then look no further! Set in an academic setting, these two rivals love to write but have different feelings on the genre of romance. Rosie is your romance loving girly and Aiden is just not that into the romance spectrum of things. There is constant bickering between the two and who doesn't love that! When the get paired up for a project, that's where the fun REALLY begins!

-rivals-to-lovers
-academic setting
-he falls first
-"speak to her like that again..." vibes


Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read this gem early!

This book was beautiful enemies to lovers. The fact that it dealt with Taylor Swift was an especially wonderful bonus for me. So cute, so romantic, and so soon worthy!

Snappy, spicy, and endearing. A debut author to watch that's for sure.
Now I definitely need a food truck love story.

I loved this book so much. A romance book about writing a romance book!! It was swoony, spicy, funny and emotional.

I am a huge enemies to lovers fan and this slow burn stole my heart. I loved the banter with the characters and absolutely loved how they spoke to each other in the chapters they wrote.

However, and this is a big however. I absolutely despised towards the end how the MMC acted and spoke. As if the middle of the book never happened and he never changed. I know it was supposed to add to the ending but didn’t think it needed to be that way.
Loved the ending. Lots of tears. Def a 4.5-5 star read for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Alcove Press for the advanced copy!

“People say there’s a fine line between love and hate, and you know what? They’re right”

Not In My Boom is author Katie Holt’s DEBUT novel and holy fuck she knocked it out of the park. This book had me captivated and all in my feels. I devoured it on a single plane ride and will be coming back to it over and over again.

The spice, the angst, the tropes. I was in a bit of a romance slump the last few months and Rosie and Aiden, through Katie’s vision, revived my spirit.

What a great book! An enermies-to-friends-to-lovers trop that I could not put down! There was such clever banter between Rosie and Aiden and I could not get enough of their developing relationship.

(I received a complimentary ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.Thank you Netgalley, Alcove Press and Katie Holt.)

<b>”I had the time of my life making you mad but loving you has been so much better.”</b>

This book was a sweet, slow burn, enemies-to-lovers romance with tension that could be cut with a knife. Rosie and Aiden are quite the opposites, but they definitely proved that opposites attract. Rosie is an aspiring romance novelist—who has never experienced the love she reads and writes about, but is optimistic it will one day come to her. Aiden is a writer of literary fiction with an avid spite for the romance genre and he’s pessimistic about true love. Aiden has a lot of constructive, yet sometimes uninvited, criticisms towards Rosie’s work in their shared master’s program class, and Rosie eventually begins to argue back in a never-ending debate. This calamity lands them in a predicament with their professor—either collaborate on a piece of writing or be dropped from the class.

Through their collaboration on their novel, they begin to get to know each other beyond surface level and develop an understanding. Their novel’s characters are written in a way that they are portraying what both Rosie and Aiden are thinking and their budding romance and undeniable chemistry. They were living through their characters in their writing until they weren’t.

The only thing I didn’t like third act conflict drove me a bit mad because I didn’t think it was necessary—it just showed how immature Rosie was. I also thought the ending could use a bit more polishing. Overall, it was a good read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the ARC to read and review.

🌈 Enemies to Lovers
🌈 He Falls First
🌈 Writers in love

🌶🌶🌶🌶

This spicy contemporary romance follows the relationship of Aiden and Rosie. She is a romance writer and he is a literary fiction writer. They both take the same writing class and are constantly at each other's throats. When they are forced to write together they begin to understand that they might just be perfect for each other, in writing and in love.

I really loved the way this book incorporated Rosie and Aiden's feelings for each other in the pages of the story they wrote together. The chemistry between these two is off the charts. The third act break up was a little off for me, mainly because I thought the relationship between them was built on too strong a foundation for them to stop communicating, but that might just be me.

I loved the references to Peruvian culture and language - although it highlighted the differences between the couple it also gave depth to Rosie's back story. Her family were a hoot, as were the other students in their class.

Overall this was a well-written and enjoyable romance - one of the better ones that I have read this year. This is definitely an author to watch.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

While enemies to lovers is not my favorite trope, I have to say this was a good one. I enjoyed the banter between the characters and seeing their relationship ups and downs.

Wow wow wow. Can I get this book tattooed on me?! I want it with me forever. The tension and longing from both sides was spectacular!
Aiden is a grump who doesn’t believe in love. Rosie believes there is happy ever afters for everyone. It’s only right that both are paired up to write a romance novel, right?
Ahh I just loved their excerpts in each chapter. The loathe to love was beautifully written. And when that spice hit?! WOOOO
Please if you love rivals/enemies to lovers you need to read this!!

4.75 🌟

“𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬. 𝘐𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 - 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘥, 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘦, 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬.”

I enjoyed this book so so much! The main character, Rosie, was my favorutie, I found myself relating to her lots throughout this and I love that feeling while your reading. She is so sweet and a hopeless romantic but also she is multi-dimensional and I feel like this book is a deep-dive into her innermost thoughts and struggles that I appreciated so much. I also admired her quiet strength throughout this book in a literary world where romance is ridiculed and reduced to unimportance and yet she continues writing what she loves with a passion. Rosie is just beautiful. She's also Latina, a Swiftie and romantisises everything in her life - I mean, could we be any more similar?? I resonated with every detail about Rosie and just fell head over heels in love with her. And her support system?!! OMG they're the cutest! From her family to her friends to even her professor, they were all just so heartwarming but also cheeky/funny and i didnt want to leave them behind when I reached the end of Not in My Book. Aiden is the MMC of this romance and he's great!! Although they are academic rivals and supposedly hate each other, right from the start, outside of the writing assignments Aiden is so considerate and thoughtful. He goes back and forth with Rosie perfectly and he truly just matches her freak. I do wish we got a little more insight into his character but thas just me being greedy for more.

Together they are both so clueless to each other and nd it takes them forever to realise how much they like each other and how similar they actually are but it’s just so wholesome. AND, Katie just wrote their rivals to lovers perfectly!! I feel like this is one of the only rivals story that I’ve read where they were true rivals from beginning to end so kudos to her for staying true to the trope the whole time, I adored it!! This is a little of a slowburn but in the meantime you have the chef's kiss 'i hate you' banter (my favourite) and tension so strong that it flies off the pages. Miscommunication was a heavy theme here and while it did frustrate me because I just wanted them to be together, it wasn’t bad at all because the comeback was so romantic and so worth it to see.

Seeing them write this book together was fun and unlike anything I’ve read before but I LOVED it AHH They basically just had conversations through their characters and it is dialogue to mke you giggle and kick your feet in the air (especially at the writing the steamy scene together 🤭) The ending was also so gratifying given how tier friendship even started so definitely a 10/10 close to a couple that I adored! 🩷

Thank you to Katie Holt, NetGalley and Alcove Press for providing my with this ARC in exchange for my honest review!!

DNF at 25%. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this book—just wasn’t for me personally. It takes a lot for me to buy into an enemies to lovers arc in contemporary and I didn’t jive with the writing style. Others with probably love this book!

we have rosie, our lover girl romantic, and aiden, our grumpy lit fic writer. these two are in the same writing workshop and one day their professor is so tired of the bickering between the two they're "punished" by being forced to write a romance novel together.

I loved seeing them develop their book together and turn their obvious feelings for each other into a novel. the banter in this book was top notch and seeing the two main characters go from disliking each other to truly caring about each other made me kick my feet in the air.

overall the book was cute and enjoyable. i don't think i would ever read it again but I would recommend it to people looking for a feel good rivals-to-lovers book that won't break their heart in the process of reading.

This was a funny story to be honest I have to say I was hooked from the moment I've started. Rosie and Aiden are college students and they are the complete opposite of each other while Rosie is romantic, Aiden it's the opposite and well I'm sure you already seen where this is going to take you..
Without much spoiler Rosie surprised me really because she was "I want and need more"

Sometimes being an budding author in NYC is harder then one thinks it will be. Especially as romance author expecting the snobbery of other more "serious" writers about the genre. But it could be worst.... you could be set up to write your next book with your biggest critic and worst enemy.... Let the proverbial words win over the emotional swords.

Stars: 4/5
Steam: 2/5

What to expect: forced proximity, enemies to lovers, rivals to lovers, workplace/Masters degree romance, snowed in, Christmas in NYC

TW/CW: parental abandonment/verbal/emotional abuse, death of a parent (in the past)

5 Chapters into this book and I was giving it a 6/5 star review (no that's not a typo). The setup, the inciting incident, the tension it was all there and perfect. After finishing the book it's dropped to a very respectable 4/5 stars. Lots of the book was beautiful, and unexpected despite the expected romance tropes etc but somehow the sparkle for something truly extraordinarily written that I felt in the first half of the book wasn't quite met. It's weird to say that cause it's still a really good book that any romance reader who loves reading about romance authors, NYC gaming it struggles will love. It's definitely enjoyable, definitely a good read and certainly a "do yourself a favor and read this book" type of book.

Thank you to Katie Holt, Alcove Press and Netgalley for an advanced copy to this book. Review is based on my own thoughts.

if you love a slow burn, this book embodies everything about it!! rivals to lovers and gives the hating game vibes in such a perfect way!

I don't know how to begin this - this book is not only beautiful, but life changing. How is this a debut? Katie Holt, I am utterly blown away. Simply put, this is the kind of romance novel that makes you believe in love again, even if you already believe in it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the advanced reader copy! I enjoyed this story and these characters so much! I will admit I struggled through the first half of the book as the build up felt slow, but could not put it down after reaching the 50% mark! The spice was so good as well. I really loved the authors writing and look forward to more from her in the future! This is a wonderful debut novel.