A forbidden, secret affair proves that all’s fair in love and science—from New York Times bestselling author Ali Hazelwood.
Rue Siebert might not have it all, but she has enough: a few friends she can always count on, the financial stability she yearned for as a kid, and a successful career as a biotech engineer at Kline, one of the most promising start-ups in the field of food science. Her world is stable, pleasant, and hard-fought. Until a hostile takeover and its offensively attractive front man threatens to bring it all crumbling down.
Eli Killgore and his business partners want Kline, period. Eli has his own reasons for pushing this deal through—and he’s a man who gets what he wants. With one burning exception: Rue. The woman he can’t stop thinking about. The woman who’s off-limits to him.
Torn between loyalty and an undeniable attraction, Rue and Eli throw caution out the lab and the boardroom windows. Their affair is secret, no-strings-attached, and has a built-in deadline: the day one of their companies will prevail. But the heart is risky business—one that plays for keeps.
Ali Hazelwood quickly became a favorite author of mine and I rarely miss a release from her. When Not In Love came across my review requests, it was an instant yes for me. Unfortunately, this one didn’t have the same pull her novels usually give me. I love reading about women in STEM in her books, and in this one we follow Rue who is a biotech engineer. Her company, which is made up of some of her closest friends, is undergoing a hostile takeover, and there are a lot of questions surrounding it including – does she really know the people closest to her? Eli is one of the partners looking to take over Kline, but the attraction between him and Rue cannot be ignored. They both try to stay away from the other, especially as things only get messier with legalities and the past comes to play, but will their secret affair be exposed to the people who matter the most to them – and their careers?
I will admit that sometimes reading about biotech engineers and food science can be a bit over my head, but typically with Ali’s novels I can still get fully invested in the storylines. This one seemed a bit disjointed for me, a few plot points I didn’t think were fully fleshed out, and then the sex scenes – while always spicy – seemed thrown in from time to time to get readers to focus on something else for a minute. I was a little surprised that I didn’t love this one, but it doesn’t deter me from reading more of Ali Hazelwood in the future!
