I tried reading this one - I really did but my god the MCs are so annoying. Especially the first one we are introduced too. The "oh my ex is talking to me and thinking about me" dude he was clearly cheating on you with your coworker AND he only is thinking about you now cause you won the lottery.

What garbage.

Rating: 2 ⭐️ | Spice: 2 🌶️

🤍 Only One Bed
🤍 Forced Proximity
🤍 Roommates
🤍 Grumpy x Sunshine
🤍 Flower Farm

Thoughts:
I wanted to like this book SO BAD but I just didn’t 😢 I always like to keep my reviews positive even if I give a book a low rating so here are my thoughts.

This one just didn’t submerge me into the story. I felt like the characters were lacking depth and a connection with each other. The premise of this book sets up for some amazing tension between these two women but it just ended up being anti-climactic for me.

The spicy scenes were well done but I wanted their chemistry and personalities during those scenes to bleed into their characters through out the rest of the book. There were also quite a few of pop culture references in this one that really took me out of the story.

But, I did love the setting! The flower farm was a great setting for this spring themed read. There were a few moments between these two characters that I loved as well and I liked all of the side characters, especially Opal’s sisters!

As always, reading is subjective so give this a chance if you like the tropes and want a steamy spring sapphic read! 🤍

I FLEW through this!! Sapphic delight. Maybe my favorite sapphic romance yet? Idk. I devoured it. The main characters have ADHD/Autism. The side characters are a delight (actually wished for more from them!). The setting is immaculate. The sex is so hot. It was a delight! Probably my favorite part about it is that being queer was just accepted and there was no coming out or homophobia to speak of. JOY ONLY!! It’s silly and fun and adorable. 4.5!

✨ PRINCEMAN REVIEW ✨

📝 When Opal wins the lottery, she feels like all her problems are solved! She's able to quick her job where no one respected her. But all good things come with a price. As a winner, everyone is knocking on her door asking for a handout, and Opal struggles to say no. One opportunity has her buying a struggling flower farm. She's excited to live in North Carolina in peace...that is until Pepper shows up at her door demanding that she's the rightful owner. These two couldn't be any more opposite, but can they come together to save the farm?

What I 🤍:
💞 Opposites Attract
🤝 Workplace Romance
💐 Flower Farm
🎟️ Lottery Winner
☀️ Grumpy X Sunshine
🤗 Close Proximity
🌸 Small Town
🧠 Neurodivergent Rep
🥰 Found Family

What an adorable sapphic novel. What I appreciated most was how these two characters felt so 'human.' They were both flawed, and that allowed for beautiful character growth individually and together as a couple. I love how Eddings' books are always such comfort reads, and this one didn't disappoint. Also, hands down to the cover illustrator because this cover is GORGEOUS!

The plot is a bit unbelievable but it is a cute story. Similiar authors would be Alison Cochrun and Alexandria Bellefleur.
.

Thank you NetGalley for sending me this arc in exchange for my honest review!

Rating 4.75 stars

So I'd never read a Mazey Eddings book, but I'd heard amazing things and that prompted me to pick up Late Bloomer. Wow, I was not disappointed in the slightest! Not only is it a true enemies to loves and opposites attract, but it is such a raw and swoon worthy sapphic novel I could not get enough of. This may just be an auto-buy author for me going forward!

I finished the book a while ago and am late with my review. Thinking back on the story itself, the story was cute, fluffy, and easy read but it was also a bit forgettable. I enjoyed the atmosphere and wished I could be on a flower farm in the mountains! I thought the the romance was fine… but yeah I’m struggling with the romance and I think I spent more time thinking about being at a flower farm, ha. I'd still recommend it to some friends who I think would appreciate a story like this.

This book is the perfect blend of sapphic romance and an easy read. The characters pepper and opal were interesting and I found myself continuing to want to see what happened next.
If you are in the mood for a cute queer romance, this book is for you!

Mazey Eddings does it again!!! This is such a sweet love story with a whole lot of spice!

The way these two characters have so much mentally to work through before they can come together fully is so honest and felt realistic to many relationships.

And the way they meet each other in the middle and care for and understand each other melted my heart.

Mazey writes mental health representation so well.

My one downside that I think was just a mood reader issue - when I was reading this I wasn’t quite in the mood for the amount of smut that was in this book. I love a smutty book, but this one felt a little too consistent and close together at times - but I do really think it was just a me thing because it was also well written smut!

This lighthearted, breezy read was a romp. The setting was one of my favorite things about the book. The cozy, cottagecore-esque flower farm was truly a dream. One might even say the vibes were immaculate. Plus, the witty, quippy dialogue was a blast. The fusion of Opal and Pepper's eccentric personalities made for some riotous chemistry. I was snorting my way through the whole thing. Personally, I would have preferred a little more focus on the odd-ness of the situation these two find themselves in legally, and/or at least a little more believeable tension. It could tend to be pretty cliché and cheesy, but hey. It's a romcom to be sure. Overall a win for us queer neurodivergents.

Thanks to NetGalley and the author for a copy of the eARC.

I really enjoyed the premise of this book but the execution fell flat. Opals character was very confusing and neither one of them made me feel strongly about them. I love the themes of acceptance but I just wanted to care more about their journey and growth

*3.5 stars

I wanted to love this book...and I did really enjoy it. It hit a lot of tropes I love - small town romance, there's a flower farm, autism representation, grumpy/sunshine, etc. I loved the cottagecore vibes of the home on the flower farm, the work that was done on the flower farm, greenhouses, creativity talk (one of the main characters loved to create - painting, crafting, drawing, etc). The vibes were totally there.

However, I could not get over the miscommunication - over and over and over and over. It made me dislike the characters SOOO much at times. Then things would get better and I would think we were through it. Nope.. miscommunication again. Over dumb stuff. I hated it. I felt like it took away from the plot.

Overall, this was a really enjoyable read!

Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings was stunning! I loved her book A Brush with Love and these might be duking it out to be my favorite of hers! Escape to a North Carolina flower farm filled with found family and friends with benefits you won’t regret it!

Sweet YA story of first love. Always nice to see such an innocent take on coming into yourself as a young person.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and the author for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for my honest feedback!

Pepper and Opal 🌸🌸🌸

Mazey Eddings is the real deal. I’ve read all her books and was so excited to get my hands on this one! She’s a killer romance writer, but in my opinion, she’s on another level writing about mental health and neurodivergent people. It’s so wonderful seeing parts of yourself represented in her characters and experiencing their happily ever after.

I also loved the author’s note in the end where she discussed the various meanings of different flowers and how she incorporated them in the story. Going that extra mile to make a sweet moment in the book even deeper!

Read this book if you love:
🌸 Small town
🌸 Forced proximity
🌸 Mental health, healing, and growth
🌸 Opposites attract
🌸 Found family
🌸 Representation for all romance readers

3.5/5 stars ✨

This queer romance was incredibly cute. Honestly, I thought the cover was adorable, so I went for it and I am glad I did. This story is about two neurodivergent women Pepper who has some serious impulse control issues due to her ADHD and Opal who is autistic.

Pepper, is an artist who wins a scratch off lottery ticket and immediately buys a flower farm off of FB marketplace. Upon arriving to her newfound property, Pepper she meets Opal, a flower farmer who has lived in the farm with her grandmother who had recently died. Awkwardness ensues immediately due to all the confusion and frustration as the property was sold without Opal’s knowledge. The two women try to make sense of the situation which includes the ownership of the property as well as the finances.

Despite their frustrations about the situation of the farm, the two women decide to live together until Opal can buy the farm from under Pepper or if a will is ever found. While living together their attraction becomes palpable which leads to some sexual frustration.
This definitely is a slow burn romance with a lot of spice. It is a very sweet book, but I did find myself being a little frustrated with Pepper’s impulsivity which I found to be a little over the top.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty fun read and would say it’s an excellent spicy spring read.

I want to thank #Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing my with this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this title! All thoughts are my own.

This was my first read by this author and I do admit it has me wanting to read more for sure!

These characters are likeable and entertaining. The writing style caters to me ADHD brain and the banter was superb.

I love a good sapphic story, but the actual storyline felt a bit forced at times and the timeline of some of it seemed to not make sense.

Even though I didn't overly love the storyline, I did really love the characters and the neurodivergent representation! That's why I'm rating this 4 stars.

Unfortunately, did to the SMP boycott on social media I won't be posting my review. I was given access to this title prior to the start of that. I hope SMP does take action soon so we can all share and talk about books like this one and spread the love for authors and all their hard work.

What happens when all of a sudden you win the lottery and have more money than you know what to do with? If you answered "buy a flower farm in North Carolina" you'd be making the exact same choice as Opal.

With a start of cute and fluffy, this quickly switched gears and while I expected some of the tougher subjects- this fell just a smidge flat for me. I adore cute sapphic romances and the premise of a flower farm is honestly adorable. There was some disconnect between Opal and Pepper in terms of relationship growth that just didn't fully work for me. The no strings attached was fine, I was excited for the 'who falls first' turn but the work these two need to do independently before falling for anyone really took me out of the romance aspect. These are some wishy-washy characters and you've just gotta get into the right mindset to really appreciate them and the story.

“𝗙𝘂𝗰𝗸 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝘀𝗼 𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗶𝘁 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴. 𝗔 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘂𝗻𝗻𝘆 𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵𝘆. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗹.”

References to The Mummy AND Twilight? I think I’m in love with Mazey Eddings. 🥰

This book was like a warm hug and a cup of coffee on a rainy day. It was so sweet and achingly wholesome. How I wish I could go to the Thistle & Bloom to visit Opal and Pepper!

This book offers the audience mental health representation and also a cast & crew of lgbtq characters with various neurodivergence. 🫶🏻 Pepper is autistic and doesn’t really go by any sexual orientation and Opal is either autistic or ADHD, but she’s never really been tested. She’s also bisexual.

It was so nice to see this representation in the book and it was done well which I loved! I really enjoyed getting to see thoughts that are so similar to my own neurodivergent brain. ☺️💜

I would absolutely recommend this one if you’re looking for a light & fluffy romance mixed with a bit of spice!

- I adore Mazey Eddings’ writing. Her characters are such beautiful portrayals of neurodiverse people (autism and ADHD in this book), showing readers that thees people are full human beings worthy of being loved just as they are.
- The setup of this plot, on the other hand, I had a bit of a hard time wrapping my mind around. I think I just had a hard time believing that they would come around to each other, despite the incredible chemistry they had.
- Regardless, everything else about this book is lovely and tender.