Rue Siebert is a successful engineer at Kline, a promising bio-tech start-up. Her life is stable and secure until Kline is bought out and their very attractive front man comes in to evaluate the company. Eli Killgore and his partners want Kline, but since meeting Rue, Eli also wants her but she’s off limits, or she should be. Rue and Eli are faced with amazing chemistry and decide to have a secret affair with a deadline. The day the buy-out goes through.

Ali Hazelwood’s novels typically run more towards a slow burn love story but Not In Love immediately introduces the heat and the flame just gets hotter as the story moves forward, never dimming. Not quite erotica, but the steamiest novel I’ve read in quite awhile. So, if you are leary of explicit scenes, especially in audio books, you may want to steer towards a paperback that you can skim through. This author has always done a great job at building up the tension in the two main characters, and because she’s taken away the ‘will they or won’t they’ build-up she supplies us with a really great subplot, the reason for Kline’s takeover.

In an interview I read with the author, she described this novel as being full of “angst”. I’d certainly agree. Rue delves into this secret relationship with Eli, has constant regrets, and her friends don’t want her to have this relationship. Eli, too, has friends who don’t agree with his pursuit of Rue. Reading both character’s POV’s help the reader understand these characters and definitely adds to the emotional tension. I was thankful for Eli’s point of view because Rue comes off as kind of a cold character, hiding all of her wants and needs behind this cool persona. A facade she uses to protect herself from hurt. If I hadn’t been able to see how Eli viewed Rue, it may have been difficult to get past her walls and identify with her and like her.

I truly enjoy these STEM romances by Hazelwood. She is now not the only one writing in this sub-sub genre, but I favor her style and look forward to seeing what aspects of real-life women she will write into her characters. Rue was a little more difficult to like, but I still appreciated her differences and loved how Eli viewed and was attracted to her character. Their love story was different, a little more antagonistic, and yes “angsty”, but I still enjoyed reading their story. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review and it was honest!

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