This is the most superb romance book I have read this whole year!!

And this is a year where I have read A LOT of good romance books....

But seriously, Katie is an extreme talent. She is going to take the world by storm. Her writing has voice, partially because Rosie is so reflective of the author, but also because she just writes well. I ate up her writing and cannot wait to read more.

The story was stunning. I could not put it down. I found myself slipping into daydreams about these characters while working or walking home. It was a fabulous subway read, since the story takes place in New York. I felt so immersed. I have not read a book in a while where I wanted to know the ending, but didn't want it to end and kept having to put it down because I was reading too fast in sooooo long. It was gripping, fluffy, sexy, charming, enchanting, velvety, and electrifying all in one.

A fantastic read. A fantastic cover. A FANTASTIC author.

If you cannot tell, I am obviously a friend and coworker of the author, therefore I am a little biased. But as some of my friends know, I will not hold back when critiquing, and I genuinely have nothing to critique in this book.

Thank you to the author for sending me this egalley via Netgalley! I will also be posting this on my Goodreads and my blog when I get the chance.

Cute and fun read. I felt some of the writing was a little immature and the pacing was off, but I was able to get through it and enjoy. Minute recommend.

Thank you to Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for providing me with an advance reader copy of this book.

"Not in My Book" by Katie Holt is an enchanting debut novel that beautifully captures the tension and chemistry between two very different writers. Rosie, an idealistic Peruvian American, leaves her Tennessee hometown to chase her dream of becoming a writer in New York. Her plans are thrown into chaos when she ends up in the same class as her ex-crush and archnemesis, Aiden Huntington, a brooding literary fiction writer with little regard for romance.

Their heated exchanges in class lead to an unusual collaboration: they must co-write a novel that blends their conflicting genres. As Rosie and Aiden work together, their initially reluctant partnership blossoms into something more, with their manuscript revealing hidden feelings and unexpected attractions.

Katie Holt's debut is a delightful blend of humor, romance, and heartfelt moments. The dynamic between Rosie and Aiden is electric, and their journey from rivals to partners is both compelling and heartwarming. "Not in My Book" is a must-read for fans of contemporary romance, offering a fresh and engaging story about love, competition, and finding common ground.

Wooow first time reading this author and I loved it. Thought the premise of the book was very clever. Rosie is a romance writer and her archenemies Aiden is a lit fit writer. They butt heads every chance they’re together in class and it comes to a head one day. Their professor forces them to write their final together and have it encompass both of their writing styles. We get snippets of the book throughout the chapters and they’re breadcrumbs that mirror Rosie and Aiden’s evolving relationship from foes to friends to lovers. The smut was *chefs kiss* although a bit predictable I loved it and was so thankful there was a little epilogue thrown in there for us. Highly recommend this one if you like enemies to lovers and grumpy x sunshine.

A fun enemies-to-lovers romance with two headstrong MC’s who are forced to work together on a writing project in their MFA writing course. The tension was believable from the start, but Rosie was a bit more edgy and guarded than Aiden. The writing excerpts added dimension and creativity to the book. A couple parts were steamier than I expected. Overall, a fun read with a satisfying ending.

Our story follows two aspiring writers, Rosie and Aiden. Rosie loves romance and writing, while Aiden despises the genre and makes it very well known. From the start, they can't seem to get along. In every writing workshop, the pair critique the other's work to the point of extreme class disruption. It all comes to a head when they are forced to co-write a book together in order to remain in their required master's class.

This book was such a fun read! I really enjoyed the banter, even when the two main characters were hurling insults back and forth. I also really enjoyed the book within a book piece. It was fun seeing their relationship grow both in real life and within their shared book. Rosies friends were a highlight for me. They were so supportive of her and had their own great moments. I would love to read a spin off of one (or more) of their stories!

My only complaint is that the ending felt a bit rushed. The climax came so late and it felt like everyone was so quick to forgive and move on. Definitely didn't take away from my enjoyment, but was a little bit of a bummer.

Overall, highly recommend to anyone who is a fan of a good rom com!

Thank you to Netgalley and Alcove Press for sending me an advanced copy in return for my honest review!

4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

Aiden and Rosie are two graduate students and arch-nemesis forced to write a novel together. As they slowly get to know each other and use their novel to explore their feelings for each other, the lines between reality and fiction start to blur.

This book was SOOO cute and swoon-worthy! I was hooked right from the beginning - the banter, the tension, and the lovable side characters had me devouring this book in one sitting.

It was fun to see their characters mirrored in the novel they were writing and I loved the build up in Rosie and Aiden’s relationship.

If you enjoy rivals-to-lovers with some humor and lots of romantic tropes, this book is for you!

It was a cute romance, good dialogue and sweet scenes however i felt like the writing was mediocre. The author put in a lot of effort and it was very well edited, but the overall style of writing screamed that the author was inexperienced and needed a little more of a je ne se quoi to it.

This book was wonderful! It was so cute. I loved Rosie and Aiden 🥹 Aiden was SWOON WORTHY!! The pacing of this novel was really well done. It reminded me a lot of Emily Henry’s novels.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This is filled with well-written slow burn and enemies to lovers, except it is so much more. It goes from enemies to reluctant co-writers, to friends, to lovers, and this was a really profoundly impacting trope that had me giggling at the banter, then crying later on.

I really enjoyed the plot, despite the tropes. I came into the book with very low expectations, but this book shattered them. I loved that the backstories of the characters were carefully crafted, and the plot was romance-based, yet there was more to it. The friendships between characters are also very sweet, and although I wasn't a massive fan of a certain romantic subplot, I do like that the book explored more background beyond the two main characters, as well as the comedy that Katie Holt writes with.

I need to mention how much I enjoyed catching each parallel between the main characters' writing and their 'reality' that really emphasised what was going on, and how they opened up more in their writing to give us a different viewpoint with more details. One small detail I enjoyed was how their excerpts at the end of each chapter was named "Untitled" until the very end.

A little bit of constructive feedback: there are some dialogue exchanges written in basic Spanish, which could potentially be pretty off-putting for readers who have zero foundations in this language. It was a really interesting insight in terms of world-building for the story, and I understand the need to evoke a different language to portray it, but I think many would have appreciated some form of translation, whether it was in brackets, in a footnote, or at the end of the book.
Another point that I didn't understand was the telephone call thing, where Rosie picks up Aiden's phone. I was really confused because Aiden refers to the caller as his mother, yet later mentions that his mother has been dead for years. If it was an attempt at Gen Z humour, it did not work well.

To summarise, it was an enjoyable read, one that made me feel a rollercoaster of emotions, and is perfect for a cozy night!

Overall I enjoyed this book.

In the beginning there were moments that felt a little slow. In the beginning it also felt like they were "enemies" just for the sake of being enemies. But as rhe story progressed I did like that their relationship developed. Their banter was everything! I enjoyed the plot development and the spice.
I thought this book was a cute rom com that definitely met it's mark.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGallery for the ARC is exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed the book within a book vibe, it was well written and I enjoyed the story of Aiden and Rosie. I look forward to reading more of Katie’s books!

4.5 stars for a STELLAR small town girl in the big city x grumpy sunshine x christmas vibes delicious romcom. I absolutely LOVED the way the author wove together Aiden + Rosie's story both through the lens of the book they were writing and their relationship in real time. Although entirely expected, the ending big grand gesture was SO GOOD and had me so happy for these two fictional characters.

Thank you so much to Katie Holt + the NetGalley / publishing teams for the ARC!

Super cute! Very Emily Henry vibes, quite a few grammatical errors that I'm sure will be fixed by publication. Two spicy scenes.

If you’re in the mood for a heartfelt, steamy, and fun read then look no further!

This is an academic rivals/enemies to lovers story! I was skeptical in the beginning because there were a lot of similarities to Beach Read but I’m happy to say my worries were all in vein! This story was so much fun to read. The banter was great and the tension between Aiden and Rosie was built perfectly.

I loved that we got to see a sneak peak into Aiden’s POV through the excerpts of the book they were writing together. And just the overall use of their writing to express their feelings to each other was really wonderful.

The only problem I had was the breakup/conflict in this story. I felt like it happened too close to the end and the way it was resolved/forgiven didn’t match the intensity of the conflict itself. But that could just be me!

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book and look forward to reading more from the author.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Alcove Press for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Thanks to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the advanced e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

2 stars
A contemporary romance between two aspiring writers. Rosie loves romance, Aiden is a literary fiction writer and looks down on the romance genre. Their tumultuous relationship is the talk of their class, their rivalry a problem that disrupts the literary workshop. So when their college professor forces them to work together, Rosie and Aiden will have to finally work through their tension and open themselves up to romance.

This book sadly wasn't for me. To be fair, I was branching out, I was trying to pick up a genre I don't usually read and try something new. However, Holt's book felt unoriginal, with pacing issues and bland characters. Rosie, our heroine, was a frustrating main character. She's stubborn to a fault, so much so, that she keeps on sabotaging herself and Aiden's relationship over and over again. She also reads much younger, though she's supposed to be in her mid twenties. Something that really frustrated me about Rosie is that, even though I know this is a romance novel, she's obsessed with Aiden. Rosie is from Tennessee and she has recently moved to New York. She's broke, working as a bartender, she has a group of friends and she misses her family deeply. Yet, her whole life revolves around Aiden. His name is in every page, every conversation she has mentions him. Her friends feel like they are only there to ask about them. She talks about him constantly to her college tutor/professor when she should be revising her own work. Even when her sister tells her huge news about her life, the conversation turns to Rosie and Aiden after a couple of lines. Though this is a love story, I wish these characters had a life outside their relationship, I wish I could have gotten well-rounded characters. Instead, every conversation is about Aiden, and anywhere Rosie decides to go, train station, bookshop, even the restaurant where she works in, he's randomly there.

Holts works out their relationship using excerpts of the fictional book Rosie and Aiden are working on for their college class. Because both Rosie and Aiden are awful communicators, and they are constantly bickering, every chapter they write, they pretty much copy verbatim from their own interactions. However, they use their fictional counterparts, Hunter and Max, to yearn for the other, apologising and explaining their true feelings. But, because we as readers know they are actually in love with each other, the excerpts feel redundant most of the time.

If you are a romance reader that enjoys contemporary stories and are looking for something lighthearted to read, but nothing extraordinary, I say go ahead and pick this one up. If you know the tropes (forced proximity, academic setting rivals-to-lovers, book within a book, only one bed) and enjoy them no matter how many times you read them, then I think you won't get bored like I did. It's not a bad written book by any means, I just found it lacking. I did not like the characters, so I couldn't root for their relationship and because the relationship is everything in this novel, I sadly couldn't enjoy the work.

Okay, so I liked the tension between Rosie & Aiden but they were both immature and Rosie especially was so childish and acted stupid in the end which really annoyed me. This book had all the right tropes, which I usually love but this one just fell flat for me tbh. Aiden was also mean and condensing at times and I failed to see how he was different than Rosie's ex because he constantly belittled her. It was a fun concept to make people read a book within a book and the writing was engaging too but because of the pacing and the behaviour of the characters, I was disappointed. Also, the third act breakup was pretty bad and I didn't know how to feel about Rosie & Aiden together after that, but I liked that Aiden atleast apologised. So, overall the book had potential but the execution was poor so I had a tough time feeling connected with all the characters.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review

Not in My Book by Katie Holt is a cute romance read.

I really liked the premise of enemies to lover in academic setting, soo good...
Unfortunately it didn't work for me.
The beginning was interesting, banter was interesting, tension started rising, dialogue was intelligent and then all of a sudden it felt flat.
Somehow it became slightly boring and once they became a couple it was quite flat. I simply felt no sparks and no chemistry.
There was also a very low level of spiciness.
I am sorry but it didn't work for me.

**Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!**

4.5 stars rounded up to 5!

Oh my god this book was SO good. It's so simple, yet really well done. The author did a great job at creating such an immersive world that I literally binged the entire book in a day despite the fact that I had told myself when I got the ARC that I wouldn't read it until November since the pub day is in December.

Rosie and Aiden are grad students at NYU, taking a creative writing workshop class that is based around writing a novel over the year and sharing chapters each class for critique from classmates. The book starts out with our main two absolutely hating each other and bickering over their genre preferences and writing styles, but because their animosity gets a little bit too out of hand, their professor forces them to work together and combine genres (romance and literary fiction) on their novel. We get snippets of the book they work on while reading the book, and I loved seeing the novel take form.

It's clear the author took a lot of inspiration from The Hating Game, which I don't necessarily mind because so many books have done that nowadays, and it just worked for this book. I loved Aiden and Rosie's interactions (and just Aiden himself <3) and how they still bickered to no end even as a couple. The two of them had some serious character growth individually and as a couple which really shined throughout. Their friend group was endearing and everyone's personalities and individualities really came through. The conflict at the end of the book wasn't needed, in my opinion, but I understand why and I entirely saw it coming. That is the biggest reason why it wasn't an immediate 5 star read for me, but I was willing to round it up because of how much I enjoyed reading this.

I will say, I'm hoping that between now and final printing, the few typos and formatting errors will be fixed. There's also a couple of plot inconsistencies that I noticed just with minor things that didn't really take away from my reading experience and the editor should've pointed out before copy edits were finalized, so it's probably too late for that now.

In the end, though, I'm really looking forward to what Katie Holt puts out next because I'm sure to read it!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
This story didn’t really do it for me. They were writing the ‘book’ that was essentially their story just with different names. Relatively loooong story for like a really simple plot and The ‘romantic’ scenes gave me the iiiiick
It might be a good book for others with the friends or enemy vibes, but it didn’t hit the mark for me