This just fell flat, the relationship between both main characters was frustrating and annoying. Also enemies to lovers my arse, it’s a very mild dislike- authors need to stop marketing their books with this trope if they’re not even going to put any effort into actually doing it.. it only pisses off readers which then leads to bad reviews.

The audiobook narrations are the only reason I pushed through it. They did a fantastic job; it's too bad they weren't given a good story to follow. The story definitely was a lot of telling and less showing.

Dramatic misunderstandings? No more like dramatic reactions.

The one that annoyed me the most was when Micah bends over and flashes her boobs. I WOULD even look, like why bend over in front of me with your shirt open? Like girlllll, you knew what you were doing. Then claims "victim".

Thank you NetGalley and Mills & Boon | Afterglow Books for the ARC! ♥︎

I would compare this to a Shakespeare fanfic written by a twelve year old….but that’s offensive to the twelve year old.

Where do I begin? Should we start with this man MAKING FUN of her name? Or maybe objectifying her not once, but TWICE when she has made it explicitly clear she doesn’t want to? Or or or MAYBE we begin with him THREATENING to get her fired from her job??? In no way should these enemies have become lovers.

I think what bothers me the most about this book is Aiden’s insistence that Micah is out to get him fired and that she is an awful person because she is a financial auditor. Excuse while I scream. She is simply doing her job and he is so convinced that she is satan herself for making a living. Maybe if your department wasn’t hemorrhaging money and you were good at your job, maybe you wouldn’t be so worried. I fear the call is coming from inside the house.

Plot aside, the narrators are fine I guess. They aren’t the best. They aren’t the worst. They certainly couldn’t save this god awful book.

If you want my advice? Skip this book and watch You’ve Got Mail instead. That is the far superior Much Ado About Nothing retelling.

This isn’t a terrible book. It’s not a great story, but it’s not bad, per se. it’s entertaining and shockingly spicy, while also being repetitive with dull MCs. I think the author’s just trying too hard. The dual narrators did well with what they had to work with, I guess. Thanks to Harlequin Audio for the ARC.

Oh my. There was a lot more 🌶️ than I'm used to and expected (which seems like a silly thing to say based on the cover art 😅). I turned down my car's audio volume every time I got to a stoplight! 🫣

Our couple was cute and flirty, although I feel like some of their initial interactions were more workplace harassment than fun - but, as it always does in romance, it all worked out! Being in both of their heads to understand the thoughts/intentions behind their actions helped a lot to get through the story.

I really enjoyed the almost modern You've Got Mail twist (although I'm not sure that was the authors intention), and I think that is what kept me interested for so long. I'm a sucker related to anything YGM-esque. I was hoping for a more dramatic reveal, but I think the written one was unique also.

I know fanfics have become increasingly popular over the years, and this book is perfect for anyone who finds romance fanfics entertaining.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Books for this audio ARC!

Thank you @HarlquinAudio and @netgalley for this ALC, in exchange this is my honest review.

Much Ado About Hating you by Sarah Echavarre Smith and narrated by Cindy Kay and J. F. Harding is an amusing, spicy, enemies to lovers romance that I loved listening to. Kay and Harding wonderfully weave Micha and Aidan’s love story together.

Kay brings Micha’s fiery personality to life and Harding vividly creates the sexy nerdy Aidan both lending to the overall cadence and enjoyment of the novel. Micha finds herself being the financial auditor for the English department where Aidan is a professor. They have an instant connection, their instant hatred of each other, Aidan distrustful of someone he doesn’t believe understands academia and Micha just trying to do her job without the pain that is Aidan. Both finding solace and comfort in Shakespearean fan fiction, Micha reading it, Aidan writing it.

Honestly, I love that Aidan writes unhinged erotica Shakespearean romance fan fictions (but with happy endings). It’s a relatable vibe and I love that Micha is an unknowing fan of his (again another relatable vibe). My millennial ass loves this.

These two have incredible banter and truly start off on the wrong foot and in their misunderstanding they end up being each other’s unknowing comfort. While they both hate each other they struggle with their undeniable attraction to each other which is clear when message each other unknowingly online. I was left dying to see them finally get over themselves, get together, and figure out was next for them. Overall a 5/5 star spicy listen. I loved this audiobook. It was so enjoyable! Buy or pre-order Much Ado About Hating You May 27, 2025.

Oh boy. I just really thought this would be fun. It was just very basic. The enemies to lovers was been there done that. The hockey player turned Shakespeare prof felt very surface level. The sex scenes were hot but did nothing for me.

The writing was nice, though, and it was a quick read. Also his brother seems like he has potential 👀 Plus, the audiobook was well produced and I liked the narrators.

*Spoilers Below*

On the ending: If she doesn’t return the report…SOMEONE ELSE IS GONNA. Wouldn’t they prefer someone who has compassion (her) do the job rather than someone potentially worse? He got with her knowing her job and he was a big wimp about the whole thing. He was completely unreasonable and a whiny baby to his boss too idk like he was kinda of a child.

He doesn’t wanna lose his job so she’s gotta lose hers? Yep! The way it’s written, it feels like she’s now only dissatisfied with her job *because of* him which feels like a cop out. Also you’re telling me her parents gave her money to pay off her debt and now she can just quit her job with absolutely no prospects to speak of? Books don’t need to be relatable but damn if this isn’t a giant eye roll. Oof.

⭐️⭐️.5/5 🌶️🌶️🌶️/5


I received an ALC from the publisher. All opinions are honest and my own.

This was a very surface level book with some things that were very unrealistic. It was a good quick listen and I did laugh quite abut, but really just the two main characters arguing or hooking up. The side story of them both writing and then writing together was my favorite part of the book.

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this as much as I did but damn was it a fun fast paced book. I binged it within a couple hours and I’ve not done that in so long.

this was an interesting premise. I picked this book because I needed a Shakespeare retelling for a reading challenge and this one looked interesting. this is was well..... Ok..... nothing special nothing that made it stand out...... I was hoping for something that made the characters love story interesting and them writing erotica was just not it in this case. I found myself not liking the characters and not even caring about them.

What do you do when your job essentially puts other people on the unemployment line? You suck it up and do what you're paid to do, no matter how much people put you down and question your morals. But what happens when the person who is the most vocal decides that you're a feast? (You'll have to read to find out!) Those are the problems faced by our FMC, Micah. Poor thing.

And our MMC, Aidan, is suffering from wondering how much longer he's going to have a job since Micah is consulting for the University to find out where the fat could be cut in his department. Will he be next on the chopping block? And who else should be blamed but poor Micah?

If you enjoy a good spicy, enemies to lovers book, then this book is definitely one you should pick up. Sarah did a great job with the tension in this book and of making the characters both likeable and loveable.

And Cindy Kay and J. F. Harding gave the book the extra pizzaz it needed to bring it to the next level. Kudos you two, kudos! Stand up and take a bow!

I'd like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

Review of book: Fun story! Enjoyed the actual content and found it engaging, but the characters were pretty poorly written. Micah was maybe the most frustrating FMC I’ve read in a while, every single decision she made was bad and her thoughts were not great. Aidan was more well written, but again FMCs reactions to his mistakes were out of proportion and not in an entertaining way. I love a book where they hate eachother but don’t know they like each other, this one missed the mark on characterization.

Audiobook: Enjoyable! Listened on 1.75x, found the male va more enjoyable than the woman but that could be because I didn’t love the character.

Much Ado About Hating You by Sarah Echavarre Smith was an enemies-to-lovers workplace romance that had me blushing and laughing from start to finish. Micah and Aidan had undeniable, tension-filled, steamy hot chemistry that you couldn’t help but find irresistible.

Cindy Kay and J.F. Harding performs this audiobook in dual narration. Both narrators fully embodied their characters, creating a spicy hot connection between Micah and Aidan. Cindy’s soft voice encompassed Micah’s uptight turned passionate persona peeling back all those guarded layers. J.F.’s smooth, warm tone conveyed Aidan’s smug turned supportive lover to Micah and her dreams.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. If you are a fan of an enemies-to-lovers romance with a hot nerdy English professor, a feisty heroine dedicated to her auditing job, secret fan fic writing careers, all the tension, hate spice, snowed in, intimate conversations, finding your true passion, and a HEA that will make you smile, then you will love Mcah and Aidan’s romance. I’m looking forward to more from Sarah Echavarre Smith.

I liked both narrators actually, my problems were with the story itself. I DNFd at around 40% of the way through. The two main characters behave like middle schoolers. Their pranks to each other were immature and I found there wasn’t enough tension or build up in the hating but not really aspect of the story. It had potential, unfortunately I could not get past how insufferable both main characters were. The fan fiction part was kind of funny. Not my cup of tea.

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin Audio for the Advance Listener Copy.

Micah Mila is auditing a university in Tennessee and sitting in in classes, critiquing professors on how they can retain students in their classroom.

Aiden a professor in the same university where Mila is auditing, finds it a waste of time. He and Mila start off on the wrong foot and starts turning their professional relationship into a hateful one.

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, close proximity, secret romance

Mila and Aiden started off in a bit of rocky start but Im glad they found their common love for writing spicy fanfic. I felt they had really good chemistry and the spicy parts were spicy-ing! 🌶

I was able to relate to the story because I am also Filipino and found the "pancit" reference to be noteworthy because Filipino representation is very important to me.

Thank you NetGalley, Harlequin Audio, and Sarah Echavarre Smith for this advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

🎧⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ — Much Ado About Hating You is spicy, smart, and seriously fun. Enemies by day, secret fanfic lovers by night? Yes please. Cindy Kay and J.F. Harding bring the heat with pitch-perfect narration—sass, steam, and all the Shakespearean smut your heart desires. Aidan’s dirty talk? 10/10. Micah’s fire? Unmatched. The pacing lags briefly, but this hot nerd romance totally delivers.

Oh my goodness, it so did not flow naturally.

Just like this absolutely horrendous chunk of repetitive text that I pulled out from the book, it was stilted, exposition heavy, and the language was deeply puerile. I almost feel bad for saying this about a book whose secondary message is that it’s snobbish and rude to be judgmental of spicy romance novels but I spent an unreasonable amount of time reading this novel wondering how in the hell these characters could possibly be considered adults. Their internal thoughts (and their dialogue) all felt so juvenile in nature that I not only had a difficult time seeing these characters being taken seriously both as writers and in their careers.

Accepting Aidan as an English Literature Professor was incredibly difficult given his behavior and the immature way he spoke; accepting Micah as a reasonable adult at all was even more difficult. These two people were absolutely horrific to each other and while I can understand tension between them due to the nature of Micah’s job and Aidan’s situation, none of that excuses the manner in which she blew quite literally everything out of proportion—the name, Aidan pointing out her wardrobe malfunctions, etc—and the awful ways they behaved toward each other in the name of hatred and sabotage. And when the writing is terrible on top of it, I had an incredibly rough time forgiving anything I read (let’s just say I inwardly cringed every time the word “hot” was used).

Character development is basically nonexistent. Having your characters completely drop their hatred of each other thirty seconds after learning they’d been chatting online does not amount to character development. They never truly work through all the immature and cruel behavior and commentary they engaged with toward each other and all of this just made the epilogue of this story far more cringe-inducing. At this point I’m rather convinced that the book as a whole was just an excuse to write a whole cluster of sex scenes because, once they get started, they just keep on going. And while these scenes can add to a story, I truly don’t think they did so in this book.

In the end, I can’t help feeling left quite disappointed. I’d really been looking forward to reading Much Ado About Hating You, but I’m left thinking that the only thing I actually liked about this book was its cover. Despite the promise of the synopsis, I honestly can’t think of a single thing I liked about these characters. And that’s a shame.

J. F. Harding did a pretty good job with his narration but I couldn’t stand Cindy Kay’s voice—though some of this may have been related to how much I hated Micah as a character.

Based on the description, it had a ton of potential, and while it was a quick and easy read, I didn’t completely fall in love with the story or, more specifically, the characters. Their behavior with each other lacked maturity, and instead of working professional adults, it gave school-age or early college vibes. Just didn’t totally jive with what I anticipated from them.

I thought that this was really cute! I loved that the FMC was Filipino like me, because I haven’t read a lot of romance novels with Asian characters. I loved the enemies to lovers and how they were unknowingly talking to each other online. I also loved that the chapters the characters were writing were shown in the story. Am I also too early in hoping that the next book is about Aidans brother and co worker?? 4.5 🌟

Thank you NetGalley for this audiobook!!!

3.75 ⭐️

I’ll be honest—I wasn’t loving this book at first. That surprised me because I usually enjoy a good rivals/enemies-to-lovers dynamic, especially when it’s paired with a workplace romance. But the level of pettiness in the beginning really threw me off. As someone in their 30s, I just couldn’t relate to all the prank wars and childish behavior. It felt a bit much, and I had to pause reading for a few days.

That said, once I got back into it, I started enjoying it more—especially their online banter. The fanfics scenes … now those were HOT, if you ask me. I also loved the way the ending and epilogue were written through the fanfic format—very cute and definitely suited the couple. Oh, and can we please get more about Aiden’s brother? I just know hockey boy is hot and need to know what happened w Kendall (I think that’s her name).

As for the audiobook: I didn’t love the FMC’s narrator. Her delivery made the FMC come across more immature than I think she was meant to be. I’ve listened to other books narrated by her and didn’t have this same feeling.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for the ALC—I really appreciate the opportunity to listen early!

This book had dual narrators and they truly embody their characters. They did an excellent job. Enemies to lovers is a trope I will forever love so I wanted to read this book and it did not disappoint. Interesting side stories that are spicy Shakespearean stories which I thought was wild, but also had me turning pages faster to see what would happen next. The MMC is very realistic to the point I truly hated him at first. It was nice to see him have growth in the book.