Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Audiobook: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 🌟 Spice: 🌶️🌶️

by Melanie Sweeney (July 9, 2024) – Thanks to @prhaudio for the free audiobook! As a reader, there’s nothing quite like the thrill of diving into a book with no expectations and stumbling upon something truly extraordinary. That’s exactly what happened to me with this book.

Ash has been Hazel’s frenemy since she dated his best friend in high school, and despite attending the same college, she successfully gave him the cold shoulder all of undergrad. Now a grad school TA, Hazel has found the perfect study spot at a coffee shop not filled with undergrads. The only problem? Ash works there. Now she has to verbally spar with him daily, which is ok with Ash – he’s been in love with her since high school. When Ash’s car breaks down, hitching a ride with Hazel is his only way home for the holidays. A chaotic road trip causes Hazel to question everything she thought she knew about Ash, and by the time they arrive in their hometown, things aren’t so icy. While home, they begin to lean on each other as they both tackle very different problems and while Ash tries his hardest not to show how down bad he is for Hazel, she can’t seem to resist her growing attraction to the man she realizes she might have misunderstood entirely for years.

I love that this started as enemies-to-lovers for Hazel while it was always a second chance book for Ash. There’s so much slow burn to this story as they navigate unspoken feelings, but the story’s core is about families. Ash is carrying the weight of a parent with long-term health issues, while Hazel holds the pain of feeling unwanted when her parents built new lives post-divorce. There are some highly emotional scenes with parents that hit close to home for me. It is just a beautifully written book. Read if you like: Forced proximity, one bed, banter, road trips, he falls first, tender hearts, and family drama.

Ok, the audiobook. It is a duet narration by my two favorites, Brittany Pressley and Zachary Webber. If you read audiobooks, you know it was fantastic just from that.

If you could go on a road trip with a fictional character, who would it be and why?