Let me start this review by saying I'm a HUGE fan of Mazey Edding's work, but this book just wasn't for me.

Late Bloomer follows Opal, a quirky people pleaser, that wins the lottery and buys a flower farm. MY DREAM. She then meets Pepper, the previous owner who is now jobless and homeless be of her mother. In comes the forced proximity/roommates, small town romance and ofc - saving the farm!!

First - I LOVED the queer & neurodivergent representation in this book. Mazey hit the mark with that one. I don't know if my expectations were too high bc I loved The Plus One and the mental health representation, but I think the characters were lacking for me. I was struggling to find like a real connection b/t Opal and Pepper outside of a physical attraction. I also struggled a bit with their dialogue. It was so hard to differentiate between the two and some internal monologue was hard to read. Also, the first 5% with Opal being a complete doormat was hard to stomach. It was ALOT.

That being said, this book might just be a one off that doesn't work for me. Which is such a shame bc I was so excited for it and the cover?? So beautiful. I will obvi still be reading more books by Mazey regardless.

Thank you to Netgalley for this arc in exchange for an Honest Review. Late Bloomer is out now!

(3.25/5 stars) This book had me waffling over a review for a week.

Things I appreciate: Mazey Eddings writes neurodivergence so well. She also writes grief so well. I can always count on her to create characters that feel fleshed out.

Things I wished were better: Opal and Pepper had such similar voices, at times it was hard to tell them apart. Also, for an *adult* novel, this read so YA to me. Perhaps it's because the characters are still relatively young (mid-20s), perhaps her previous venture into YA is running over into this book, but the YAness of it all really come through.

Absolutely fun premise- what if you bought a flower farm because you won the lottery and want a new start but someone is living there claiming to be the owner? Opal handles it a lot better than I think most people would allowing Pepper to stay there and earn enough to buy it back. Throw in some romance ans it’s quite a tale.

I loved this book with my entire heart. Is there anything Mazey Eddings can't write?! Pepper and Opal now share the top spot in my heart with Lizzie and Rake. This is one of the best sapphic romance novels I've ever read. Sweet and steamy in equal measure with countless lol moments and so many gorgeous flower details. The steam in Late Bloomer is A+++ with some of the best depictions of oral sex and a scissoring scene to boot! Pepper and Opal made me fall in love right along side them. I know I will read this one again and again and I cannot wait for Mazey to write another one.

Opal was delightful, perfect, loved her. Pepper was your basic borderline toxic character that doesn't really take accountability because they need therapy. It was overall alright I guess.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me an e-arc!
people-pleaser Opal’s life is instantly changed when she wins the lottery off a scratch off card she receives from her “best friend” who forgot her birthday. Opal is tired of working a job she doesn’t love, wanting to invest more time into her art. She’s also painfully reminded by her sisters of the shady treatment she receives from her best friend Lainey and ex boyfriend Miles. Lainey and Miles only come around when they want something from Opal, so of course they’re interested in hanging out with her once she wins the lottery.

However, shocking everyone, Opal decides to buy a flower farm off Facebook Marketplace and go move there to work on her art. Opal is ecstatic about the prospect, but there’s one tiny bump in the road when she arrives- there’s already someone living there.

Pepper has lived at the flower farm for years, ever since her mother abandoned her and dropped her at her grandmother’s doorstep when she was 17. Pepper lived with and worked on the farm alongside her grandma until her recent death. Having no idea that the farm was sold out from underneath her, Pepper has no idea what she’s going to do for a home or for work. That is, until nice, people pleasing Opal suggests that the two live together.

As the two girls spend more time around each other, their attraction for the other grows. When they decide to act on their desires, they insist it’s a feelings free situation. However, as the two work together on a floral/art competition that could help Pepper buy the farm from Opal, the two realize they may actually have real feelings for each other- but neither one wants to admit it.

Filled with quirky, charming characters, a lovely flower farm and a unique storyline, this book is perfect for readers who enjoy romcoms, sapphic novels, or just want a read that will make them smile.

Opal Devlin is struggling. She's in a dead end job with no alternative prospects on the horizon, her "best friend" sucks, and her on-again-off-again boyfriend is a irredeemable cheater. When she wins the lottery, literally, on a scratch off ticket, it just may be the push she needs to jump start her life. When people come out of the woodwork, palms outstretched, after hearing about her windfall, she decides she has to get away. Always impulsive, Opal spends a sizable amount of her winnings on buying a down-on-its-luck flower farm outside of Asheville, NC where she plans to hole herself up and focus on her art.

Only when she arrives at Thistle and Bloom, it isn't quite the solitary oasis she's hoped for. Inhabiting the farm is the grieving and angry-at-the-world Pepper, who refuses to leave. When Opal cautiously suggests they live together and work out a payment plan for Pepper to buy the farm back, Pepper reluctantly agrees. Their cohabitation leads to the inevitable bumping of heads as both women figure out who they are and what they want.

This was just delightful. Full of the best romance tropes - grumpy x sunshine, forced proximity (one bed at one point!), neurodivergent and queer representation, miscommunication...it's got it all! Told in dual POVs (Opal and Pepper, naturally), Eddings really lets you see inside each woman's thought process and how they cope with their various disappointments, loss, and eventually attractions. Eddings nails the banter between the two, and also nails the representation of Pepper's autism in the book in a way that doesn't feel trite. She needs control, routine, and absolutely hates change - things that are exactly the opposite of Opal. They both have to figure out how to coexist. I also enjoyed the relationships between Pepper and her chosen family/friends - they see her for who she is and meets her where she is, not expecting her to change or taking advantage of her. Opal's sisters are much the same, embracing their wildcard sister and supporting her as best they can while also being an anchor to reality for the artsy and somewhat flighty Opal.

Overall, loved it. No Notes.

When Opal wins the lottery she's both ecstatic and terrified. She can finally quit her dead-end, minimum wage job and focus on her art, but as a perpetual people pleaser and yes woman she has fake friends and old flames crawling out of the woodwork asking for a handout and she's not sure she can say no. So to avoid the issue, she buys a flower farm in a town few hours away, tying up her money in the land and distancing herself from her old "friends." But when she arrives at her new farm, gorgeous farmer Pepper is there claiming that the land belongs to her. The two agree to cohabitate temporarily until they can work out a solution. An undeniable attraction between the two may make things both more difficult and easier.

First, can we just comment on how GORGEOUS this cover is? The pink, the illustrations, the flowers--love it all. I'm so glad they didn't give Opal the horrid neon green hair that she phases in during the book. Setting aside that, this book was so sweet. It was a feel-good romance between two softies with some great autism rep. The backstory of Pepper and her mom was fascinating, and I seeing Opal's relationship with her sisters. Seeing them each come into their own and stand up to people they had previously caved to were moments to celebrate. A cute read all around.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for my eARC and finished copy! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

5 stars - 8/10

A huge thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and of course, Mazey Eddings for providing me with this eARC. I am voluntarily leaving a review, all opinions are my own.

Okay. It's official, I love Mazey Eddings and just absolutely adore the stories she tells. This book was only my second by her, but I will definitely continue to read anything I see by her.

The characters felt so real and so tangible, I felt like I knew how they were feeling even when it wasn't explicitly stated because the writing and the conveying Eddings did with them was so spot on. I adored the characters in this book and found myself rooting for them from the very beginning, which doesn't always happen for me.

I cannot wait to get my hands on a physical copy of this book, this is definitely one I'd recommend and couldn't be happier with!

🌸 Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings Review 🌸

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5

💭 Thoughts:
The trope combo in this book was the BESTTTT! Grumpy sunshine, forced proximity, opposites attract, neurodivergent rep, LGBTQ+ rep ☀️🧠🏳️‍🌈 I loved it all! And to top it off, it all takes place on a FLOWER FARM!!! 💐 Where can I sign up?!! Also, the depth of grief and healing and complicated parental relationship layered into the romance made it well rounded and complex. Thank you, Mazey Eddings, for continuing to share your gift of writing with us 🙌🏼

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings
⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

This book took me forever to finish, for no good reason really. This was a cute romance about Opal, an artist, and Pepper, caretaker of a struggling flower farm. Whem Opal wins the lottery (!) she takes the chance to get away from her toxic relationships with a former best friend and boyfriend, andbuys Pepper’s flower farm on a whim. When she gets to the farm, she finds out that Pepper knew nothing of the sale and believes the farm should really belong to her. Eventually, the two decide to work together to reach their goals and feelings start to develop.
Both Pepper and Opal have some trauma from people that have mistreated them and that makes beginning a relationship difficult. I had some difficulty with the immaturity of Opal’s character. At first, I assumed she was still in high school, but both characters are supposed to be in their early twenties. I mostly just did not relate to either main character.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the advanced copy, which I read in exchange for an honest review.

This sapphic opposites attract contemporary romance is a fun, light read with an eclectic cast of neurodiverse and queer characters. Opal, a self-sabotaging people pleaser, wins half a million bucks on a lottery scratch card and impulsively buys a flower farm sight unseen. There’s just one problem - someone’s already living there. Pepper is the great-niece of the last owner of the farm and she’s not keen on moving out.

You know what this means, romance readers.

There 👏 was 👏 only 👏 one 👏 failing 👏 flower 👏 farm 👏

The novel largely avoids the pitfalls that tend to bother me in contemporary romance, specifically the third act misunderstanding that could be solved with one conversation but for some reason isn’t. In this, they actually just have the conversation. Revolutionary.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 rounded up to 4.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s press for the eARC and Macmillan Audio for an ALC of this title in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you to me for pre-ordering the book to get a beautiful art inlay (*soon*).

Favorite line: My love for you exists because you exist.

NGL. My heart skipped a beat when I heard that line while listening to the audiobook.

Late Bloomer is a sapphic romance featuring two neurodiverse leads. Opal gets the chance of a lifetime when she wins the lottery. Due to her chaotic nature, it’s no surprise that she impulsively spends it by buying a flower farm in Asheville, NC off of Facebook Marketplace.

When she arrives at the Thistle and Bloom, she is met by a feral flower farmer - who happens to be the recently deceased owner’s pseudo-grandchild, Pepper. And also the perfect grump to Opal’s sunshine.

In an unlikely forced proximity situation, they work together toward a common goal but also end up finding themselves in each other.

Mazey Eddings is one of my favorite contemporary romance authors. Her characters are always charming and endearing, her banter is fresh and funny, and the spicy is always just enough.

This book checked all of the boxes for me, but somehow didn’t capture me the way I would have expected. It took me a really long time to finish reading/listening. The audiobook was well done, which is probably what kept me engaged enough to finish it. The narrator was able to give each character a distinct voice, and I was impressed.

It could also just have been the time of year I read this. I’m end of year teacher dead inside, and maybe I needed something that didn’t feel raw or vulnerable.

TW: parental abandonment, gaslighting by friends and lovers, death of a loved one off page

Could not finish. Too many parenthetical thoughts and characters with similar names.

I really wanted to like it but I just couldn’t.

DNFed at 22%

This was not the book for me, I liked it at first. I was drawn in by how crappy her life seemed to me. I mean she had a shitty ex, she wore an ice cream cone and then it started to go down hill for me.

If I have to read “she giggled” once more my eyes were going to roll out of my head. The things I enjoyed about the character at first quickly became her downfall. Both Pepper and Opal seemed robotic and their dialogue seemed choppy and forced at times. Which makes me sad because this book and the idea of the flower farm and the sapphic romance really appealed to me.

EARC provided by St. Martin’s Press.

In Mazey Eddings’ sapphic opposites-attract romance Late Bloomer, artist Opal Devlin buys a flower farm after winning the lottery and ends up cohabitating with flower farmer Pepper Smith, who claims she owns the farm and is reluctant to leave without a fight.

Late Bloomer, written in the dual-POV of Opal and Pepper, begins somewhat melancholy but lightens up with a nice balance between the humor, steam, angst, and emotional drama once Opal moves to the farm and starts interacting with Pepper and her friends. Eddings brilliantly characterizes her diverse, complex, fallible, messy characters through her vibrant description and details of their appearance, personalities, and funny, emotional, sweet, steamy, sexy, and intimate interactions. In addition to her lovely development of Pepper and Oval’s relationship, I enjoyed her descriptions of farming the Thistle and Down and Opal’s artistic endeavors.

Opal quits her thankless dead-end job after her lottery win. But instead of solving her problems, it complicates her life because people come to her wanting a handout once they discover she’s flush with cash. Unfortunately, Opal cannot say no, even when they are undeserving of her time or kindness. Out of self-protection and to escape her lousy ex-boyfriend and co-worker/best friend, who both thoroughly abused her tender heart, Opal invests almost all her winnings into buying a failing flower farm in Asheville, North Carolina. She hopes to use the property’s cabin to start her painting business while the farm’s flowers live out their plant destiny.

However, the farm where she thought she’d find isolation and self-preservation is already occupied by the angry and grieving Pepper Smith, who claims she’s the rightful owner of Thistle and Bloom Farms. Further, she won’t be moving out. Opal suggests they both stay at the farm, and Pepper reluctantly agrees. Their unexpected co-summer of co-habitation is not without its issues, as Opal and Pepper strongly disagree over just about everything. Can Pepper and Olive follow their dreams while planting roots together on the farm despite being so different? Or will their intense attraction, deepening desire, and emotional attachment continue clashing with their inability to agree on anything and bring all their dreams crashing to the ground along with the farm?

Despite the circumstances, Pepper and Opal are attracted and drawn to each other from their first meeting. However, they each decide to ignore it for all they are worth, not that they have much look. Their attraction is intense and fiery. I love Eddings’ development of Opal and Pepper’s relationship through sweet, sexy, steamy, funny, snarky banter, intimate interactions, and love scenes that reveal and evolve their characters and further the novel’s plot. Eddings beautifully writes and describes their kisses, looks, intimacies, and love scenes with vivid details. They’re incredibly sensual and steamy.

Though they are opposites in many ways, Opal and Pepper provide each other with the emotional balance and support they have longed for and needed for so long. Aside from the apparent property ownership dispute, much of their bickering and conflicts come from communication breakdowns and the inability to get outside their heads, as well as emotional issues, personality, and functionality to listen and understand each other’s viewpoint and express their own clearly. While love is always complicated in this way, it seems to be even more frustrating for Opal and Pepper because of Pepper’s autism, the emotional trauma from her childhood, trust issues, and grief. That’s a lot of emotion for anyone, but it must be even more overwhelming for Pepper. Likewise, Opal is so tender-hearted, empathetic, sweet, kind, and generous that she gets emotionally overwhelmed.

I love Opal and Pepper for both their good qualities and their flaws. Eddings characterizations make it difficult for you not to. Because she’s autistic, Pepper needs control, hates change, and her routine is sacred. She’s always ready to fight. Thistle and Bloom–her safe place where she’s been happiest—is vital to her. An artist and painter, Opal is a free spirit, who so hungers for connection that she sacrifices herself in relationships. She’s searching for where she belongs and can freely express herself and her artistic nature. Opal fits nicely with Pepper’s BFF and friends—essentially her family, who are non-toxic and don’t take advantage of Opal’s sweet and generous nature.

Late Bloomer is a sweet, funny, sexy, emotional, steamy, hilarious, and fast-paced romance perfect for fans of opposites attract, grumpy x sunshine, forced proximity, neurodivergent, sapphic, farm/nature-set romances. It explores self-discovery, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-love, belonging, following your dreams, finding happiness, first love, artistic expression, toxic parents, toxic friendships/relationships, grief, and loss.

3.5 stars

Content Warnings: Grief after the loss of a loved one, complicated relationships with alcohol, and parental neglect/abandonment.

St. Martin’s Griffin provided an advanced review copy via Netgalley.

This was a very sweet and romantic lgbtq book. I love to see the representation in this book! I loved every second of reading this.

Unfortunately, I wanted to like this so much more than I actually did. I ended up DNFing it around 50% because I was just so...bored, and, frankly, annoyed at the main characters. I've read and loved Mazey Eddings' writing in the past (The Plus One was one of my favorite reads of 2023), but I couldn't gel with this one. I found Opal to be insufferable - every chapter in her POV was a drag to get through. I found her to be extremely childish and impulsive to the point of being obnoxious. All of the books' central conflicts could have been resolved if she had just...thought for a second. I liked Pepper, but there was absolutely no tension to their dynamic. They were disgruntled acquaintances for a very short amount of time and then immediately became lovers. I just didn't buy their relationship, nor could I bring myself to care about the resolution.

I might try picking this up again another time, but it just wasn't for me.

Late Bloomer is a delightful saphhic romcom about Opal, a somewhat reckless, manic and lost in life artist aka the best disaster bisexual you can imagine and Pepper, a flower farmer whose own mother just sold her recently deceased grandma's farm right out from under her to brand new lottery winner Opal. Because Pepper has been unable to locate her grandma's will, her mother (and I'm using mother here in the derogatory mommy-dearest way) under North Carolina law as next of kin, the owner of the only stable and happy home Pepper has ever had.

When Opal arrives on the farm she's greeted by a confused and immediately hostile Pepper though she knows Opal isn't at fault here. Finding out her farm has been sold is the least of Pepper's worries as the farm is failing anyway. The two begrudingly agree to share the small cabin on the farm and slowly start to grow on each other. Opal agrees to help Pepper create a living flower display for a local competition hoping the cash prize and free advertising of magazine spread for the winner will infuse the farm with new cash flow and help save it. As you might imagine, sexual tension and romance ensue.

I loved Opal and Pepper as characters, but I think Pepper might be my favorite. Both women are just on opposite spectrums of neurodivergence and it makes their relationship so interesting to follow. The pacing on this one was a little off for me...I was hoping for a bit more of the enemies time before getting to the lovers part, but overall, it's a light, enjoyable read.

I thought this was a super cute and romantic read. I really enjoyed the development of the characters and their relationship. I found the beginning to be a little slow or hard to read, probably because I don't relate to main character as much. I'd never be so trusting when it came to purchasing a property off Facebook lol but overall I thought this was wonderful, and surprisingly emotional! <3