I'm a big fan of Ali Hazelwood. If you read this blog regularly you know that my kink (other than, you know, naked sex slaves) is specificity, especially with respect to characters' jobs. Hazelwood's day job is as a neuroscientist, and her characters are scientists. (Is science still her day job when she has had so many bestsellers?) I love how she writes about their day-to-day lives and their careers in a way that seems utterly true.
Hazelwood's typical heroine is a 20-something brilliant but insecure scientist fighting to get ahead in her career and flailing at it due to sexism in the industry and her innate inability to assert herself. The hero is equally brilliant, secure, a few years older than her, and ahead of her in his career. Generally the hero has been quietly in love with the heroine for years, while she barely knows he exists. He helps her with her career in a manner that may not be entirely ethical but is entirely good. They are both amazing looking and in great shape; sometimes they are marathon runners. HEA.
This formula works well for Hazelwood. Yes, her heroes can be a bit stalkery, and sometimes her heroines are a bit too manic pixie dreamgirl, but in a world where it seems like the vast majority of romance heroines own bakeries or bookstores, brilliant characters making their own way in a demanding career is a joy. (No hate to owners of bakeries or bookstores; every small business is a huge undertaking -- but the romance heroines tend to have no business savvy whatsoever and need bailing out by the hero.)
Hazelwood's Not in Love follows a lot of her usual formula. Heroine Rue is a brilliant scientist. She is developing an application that will allow produce to stay fresher longer. Hero Eli is former scientist, now part of a corporate raider business that is taking over the company where Rue works. You can guess the rest.
But the book also drifts from Hazelwood's tried and true. For one thing, about thirty percent of the book is sex. Good, well-written, hot sex, sure, but a big change for Hazelwood. Her early books generally featured one or two sex scenes, and they were awkward. In Not in Love, both leads are sexually experienced and immediately are great at banging each other. On the one hand, swoon. On the other hand, I really loved Hazelwood's earlier, more realistic depictions of sex, as an act that takes practice in general and with a particular partner to be really good.
Unlike in Hazelwood's earlier books, Eli has not been silently in love with Rue for years and years. They just met. But for him it is basically love at first sight. He will do anything for Rue from day one. Rue, who it is hinted is on the autism spectrum, is, I like to think, more sensible, although Hazelwood's point of view is that Rue takes longer to find the courage to admit that she is as madly in love with Eli as he is with her.
Also, in a rare departure for Hazelwood, a lot of the plot made no sense. Yes, the book concerns business dealings which, unlike science, is not Hazelwood's specialty. But one plot point is that Rue can't find a real estate attorney to help her buy out her brother's share in a cabin they inherited. Really? Honey, you can throw a stone in any direction and hit a residential real estate attorney. It's only 11 AM and I have already randomly bumped into two today.
That said, Hazelwood remains one of my all time favorite modern romance writers. She is relatively new to the scene, and I hope that she does not get lazy as her success continues.
Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited and in paperback. Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.
