Omg I absolutely loved this one. The flashbacks took me back to my schooldays in a way that other novels seemed to struggle with. They were always for someone older or slightly younger than me but not me.

I also loved the Melbourne/Australian/school setting and the intensity of a highschool romance. Plus the reconnecting and everything else.

It wasn’t boring or predictable, there were plenty of twists and witty banter. Plus a insta influencer scandal, so good.

Everything you could want in a novel. Plus her favourite author is Melina Marchetta, just like me.

A heartwarming rom com about second chances to confront and reconcile your past – not just with an old love but also dormant dreams. It’s also a love letter to the teachers that passionately care about their students.

I got so invested in that I stayed up ‘til 1am to finish. I felt tears (my heart broke for young Wren and Jamie) to smiles (Walter! MSN chat logs! School community gossip). The authors really sold how they still had magical chemistry despite 20 years apart. Normally I hate flashbacks, but it seamlessly dovetailed into the present day to show how much they’d changed but also the same people at heart and helped each other chase their old dreams.

I loved that Wren was not being sold on having kids while also recognising Esther was the one who did the majority of raising April compared to Jamie. While I liked Jamie, I side eyed him after he ignored Wren when things unravelled again. Then when she was forced to confront him he didn’t even grovel. I also side eyed Liv. While I understood why she was hurt, I think she overreacted and owed Wren an apology. Friends aren't owed details about a painful past that they’d not dealt with for decades. Luckily though, the resolution was very fitting, even if I started tearing up, but needed to happen.

A delightful gem that will be on my re-reading list. I adored this and can’t wait to read what this writing duo come up with next.

Thanks to Allen & Unwin for the ARC.

This was a really lovely story. Told in a Then and Now way which added a lot of past drama details to the story. An entertaining read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced cope of this book in exchange for an honest review

I absolutely loved this book! It’s got a lot of heart and good feels throughout.

I felt like the FMC could have been my best friend, I connected and resonated with her so much. Lauren AKA Wren AKA Birdie is a Vice Principal at a Melbourne Primary School, and when places like Portsea and Balnarring Beach are mentioned in the book, I was like ohmygod this feels so close to home, cos it is! The nostalgic feels too, when msn messenger chats are scattered throughout the book! (loved that).

Lauren is book obsessed, a bit of a nerd, a wannabe writer, caring and compassionate and thinks her first love story is shelved for good—until life decides to write a surprise chapter.

Jamie Sultana (what a name!) as the MMC is pretty yummy. He’s the one that got away. I wish he was real just so I could see his tattoos in person!
Tropes include:

First Loves (and first heartbreak)
Second Chances
Bookish Banter
Hot Dad
Slow Burn

There isn’t that much spice in this book, but that’s ok, it works just fine without it.

Thank you so much @netgallery for providing me with an arc of this amazing book.

Thank you so much to Harlequin Books for this ARC 📖
Lauren and Jamie's story was fun, reminiscent and honest. I adored the two of them finding their way back to one another as they grow older in life and their priorities have changed - yet their feelings for one another are still very much a pulling thread bringing the two of them back into each others life.
I loved the weaving of writing and publishing into Lauren and Jamie's story + seeing Jamie's daughter April fall in love with words throughout the novel too.
I'm looking forward to discovering Michelle Kalus and Ali Berg's backlist!

Ali and Michelle I have missed your writing!

Love Overdue is a cute contemporary romance, set in Victoria (slay 💅). Lauren/Wren is our protagonist, we jump from past to present. Loved how the nostalgia of highschool in the early 2000’s was described, with Msn, myspace top 8, limewire etc! Ahhh the simpler days with no responsibilities! 😌

I could have easily read this in one sitting, it was sugary sweet but not OTT. Lauren’s self discovery in the second half is well written and her ability to finally be selfish and do what she wants is great.

Mr. Sultana, TBH could be a bit of a dick. But he grew on me, I am now a Birdie and Sultana Stan.

I loved the interwoven references to previous works by the authors and peep the references to our Queen Taylor Swift 🙏


Ali and Michelle are autobuy authors for me, and I will definitely be collecting a paperback version too!

Thank you NetGalley, Allen and Unwin and the Authors for my advanced copy 🥰

Love overdue

I loved this so much!
Such a beautiful second chance romance, and it was just what I needed! ❤️

Considering this story revolves around love it felt like there was so much more going on.
It’s filled with grief that made me cry, MSN messages that made me laugh, and love that made me sigh.

It was a struggle having to put this one down and return to real life! Especially when I got up to the last 100 pages and then that epilogue ❤️❤️❤️
Love love love!

Love Overdue will be one of my forever favourites!

Perfect for fans of Emily Henry, and romance with some depth.

Thanks so much Net Galley and Allen & Unwin for the ARC in exchange for an honest review! I’m so grateful for this one!!

*Thank you to NetGalley and Allen & Unwin for the ARC of this book*

After reading “While you were reading” by the same authors, I have since been looking for anything with a similar vibe - a mix of of romance with depth that felt realistic, with relatable Australian references and nostalgia, and this book has definitely delivered!

Being the age of the FMC - I really enjoyed being transported back to my life as an Australian teenager, especially the inclusion of MSN chats.

I did wish that there was a bit more background/context into their former relationship earlier on in the book, so that I could better understand the emotion of the FMC meeting up with the MMC in the present - however I think the decision to be vague made sense later in the book.

Really enjoyed it!

I was gratefully gifted an arc for this book and it was a pleasant read. The story follows Lauren and Jamie as they navigate their second chance of their childhood first love. This was an incredibly easy read, with good pacing and feel good vibes. Written in single POV with snippets into the past was such a great choice as it made me like the characters that little bit more.

While this was a decent book, it’s not my favourite contemporary romance. I found the FMC a little desperate at times, and felt like the story would’ve better suited younger main characters (maybe a first year teacher) with some of the dialogue and decisions feeling a little “young”

All in all, I’d recommend to anyone who wants a YA light and fluffy read or a pallet cleanser. It’s easy, it’s cute and I’m incredibly grateful for the arc.

Fabulous feel-good fiction, and so much more than a sweet, second-chance romance story.

Told through a dual timeline, experiencing the nostalgia of high school, MSN and MySpace, amidst the burgeoning first love between Lauren (Wren) Green and Jamie Sultana. Fast-forward twenty years, they are both fully fledged adults leading busy lives, when they become reconnected at the primary school of Jamie’s daughter, where Lauren is the vice school principal.

Lauren (Wren) is a delightfully quirky, bookish and memorable character. I cried reading about Bear and laughed so many times with the school drama. I enjoyed the many quintessentially Australian elements in this story, as well as the realistically depicted school community gossip, staffroom conversations, difficult parent-teacher meetings and the inclusion of the school library.

The storyline featured a delightful mixture of friendship, guilt, grief, love, social media, family drama, identity crises, and pursuing dreams.

With many thanks to Allen & Unwin and NetGalley for an advanced reading copy of this heartwarming story, in exchange for an honest review.

Love Overdue was nostalgic and filled with lots of relatable millennial vibes such as Limewire, MSN and of course MySpace top 8 (IYKYK). The school staffroom conversations, community gossip and the hilarious parent meetings were highly accurate and also made me laugh multiple times. The FMC & MMC are mature adults who have lived full successful lives before rekindling their high school romance. The time jumps and communication references were well timed and helped you understand the characters and their lives as teens. There were so many emotions and heart warming moments in this book. It was well paced an easy and entertaining read. I absolutely loved this book and can’t wait for it to be released.

I rate this book 4.5 stars- Thank you to NetGalley and Allen & Unwin for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC for my honest review!

Many thanks to Ali Berg, Michelle Kalus, and Allen & Unwin for sending me an advance reader copy of Love Overdue.

This was a sweet and nostalgic read that took me a little while to rate—initially torn between a 3.5 and a 4, I eventually settled on 3.75 stars.

The heart of the story lies in the connection between Lauren (Wren) and Jamie, and I really enjoyed the chemistry between them. The dual timeline element—revisiting their teenage years—added depth and emotion, and I found their shared history particularly engaging. Their interactions felt authentic and emotionally grounded, which made rooting for them easy.

However, the side characters didn’t quite land for me. At times, it felt as though the narrative drifted too far from the main storyline, almost as if I were reading two different books. While I usually enjoy strong secondary characters, in this case, I felt they distracted from Lauren and Jamie’s journey rather than enriching it.

All in all, Love Overdue is a warm, easy read—perfect for a cozy afternoon curled up with a blanket and a hot chocolate. If you're in the mood for something light and nostalgic with a heartfelt romance at its core, this could be one to add to your TBR.

Can always trust Ali Berg to bring us a heart warming romance.

Like most romance novels I read - this isn’t groundbreaking, but I loved it anyway.

It’s a story of two high school lovers reconnecting as adults, but does he remember her? It would seem not. A classic, will they, won’t they.

While the end almost didn’t go how I expected, this filled my romance cup up!

This book was great! I love the characters and the whole story. There’s Lauren, a vice principal of a primary school who had a very public break up with her ex boyfriend who is a teacher at the same school and had moved back in with her parents. Then one day her first love and high school heartbreak Jamie appears in her office as he’s the parent of a student. The book goes between now and then, their time in high school. Add in some Australian-isms and it all makes for a great book! There was love, loss, heartbreak, grief, joy and family dramas across more than 20 years. Such a great book to read!

I was elated when I received the approval to read the ARC of this title!

As soon as I saw this title, I knew that this was a must read, and I was not disappointed!

Love Overdue is such a gorgeous read. Yes, it is a romance, but it is so much more than that. This book is so rich with emotion and full of heart.

This book follows the story of Wren, who met her first love, Jamie, when she was a teenager, but was left heartbroken. Fast forward to twenty years later and Wren now goes by the name of Lauren and is a Vice Principal of a Primary School and it is there, that through challenging circumstances, she happens to encounter Jamie again after all this time.

The only thing is, is that he is a parent to one of her students.... and also he doesn't seem to recognise who she is!

This book had me feeling all emotions. I LOVED the humour within the pages, but also had feelings of deep empathy for some of the more serious parts of the book. Love Overdue is a story of first love, rediscovering yourself and your dreams, and being able to move forward.

Thank you to Michelle Kalus and Ali Berg, Allen and Unwin, and Netgalley for the ARC read of this title in exchange for an honest review.

Love Overdue is a sweet and entertaining second-chance romance told in a dual timeline. The story follows Wren, now a vice principal, who unexpectedly reconnects with her high school love, Jaimi, when his daughter starts at her school—over 20 years after they first met.

The earlier timeline beautifully captures the chemistry and intensity between young Wren and Jaimi. Their connection in their highschool years felt especially authentic. While I love a good second-chance romance, I did find it a little hard to believe that they fell back in love so quickly after such a long time apart. Still, the story was fresh, fun, and kept me turning the pages.

Overall, Love Overdue is a feel-good read with likable characters and a unique setup. It’s perfect if you're in the mood for something light, romantic, and a little nostalgic.

This was such a beautiful story, evoking so many feelings while also being relateable and a very enjoyable read.
The story follows Lauren (Wren) in a dual timeline setting where she is now vice principal (or pretty much running the school). She is
I found it very soul enriching and am constantly thinking about the storyline, the characters and how everything happened- a beautiful turn of events in many different ways but as a reader, I felt involved and immersed in their lives.

Perfect for any lover of romance looking for some escapism from the everyday, but also looking for a story full of heart!