Like all Eddings romance novels, Late Bloomer has a strong voice and great wit. Unfortunately, I didn’t love the pacing of the story or the romance. The two MCs felt a little samesies and the premise was a little too implausible that I could never fully buy into their attraction and love story.

As always, the neurodivergent representation and sapphic romance for the masses is appreciated but didn’t seem to have the typical Mazey Eddings shine.

I appreciate the advanced copy from NetGalley and the publisher!

I'm glad she is writing more Sapphic Romances for the masses. However, the story fell flat for me. This will most likely read better for me on audio like the rest of Eddings' books.

A fun, sapphic, hallmark-esque story about two neurodivergent female leads.

Opal wins the lottery after her trash friend gives her a ticket. She buys a flower farm that, well, darn, Pepper already inhabits.

A cute grumpy/sunshine story with a bit of a deeper tone due to the neurological brains of our main female leads. I appreciated it in so many ways and it was definitely adorable.

At moments though, it was a bit too cringe for me or over the top. The dialogue was a bit clunky in places and I wanted more tension from outward sources instead of them getting basically bookended at the beginning and end.

Overall, I had a great time and definitely recommend this one to anyone looking to escape into a sapphic rom-com.

The publisher gifted me an Ecopy of this book but the opinions are all my own.

First off thank you to the publisher and netgalley for allowing me to read this book!

Opal is a mess of a human being but really sweet and kind. Pepper is also kind but a bit grumpy since Opal is messing with her structure and kinda bought the farm out of nowhere. This book was very cliche and is a HEA but I didn’t really love it as much as I thought I would especially since the cover is a lot cuter than others and the description is cute too. I think it’s because I’m around Opal’s age just a year older and I pray that I’m not as much of a mess as Opal is in the beginning of the book. Or that I sound like how they talk, which I know I do and need to reevaluate how I talk lol. I think I’ll maybe reread again one day but it might be in a few months!

This book! Was it a little cheesy, filled with pop culture references, and classic tropes? Yes. Was it also so cute and so much more? Also, yes! This was an excellent sapphic romance. Opal and Pepper are the perfect “grumpy/sunshine” pairing. They were very enjoyable to read about. They are also both neurodivergent and written excellently. Eddings wrote them very believable and real but also didn’t make their neurodivergence their only personality characteristics. Super cute story and I highly recommend!

This was a breezy, fun read that doesn't take itself too seriously. The plot was a little unlikely, but it was still enjoyable.

I really love a sweet sapphic love story. Pepper and Opal are two interesting characters that are fun to read about. I did not adore this book, simply because of some cheesy moments and the lack of relationship development. I did really like the personal growth each character went through and both women’s support systems. Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publishers for this earc in exchange for an honest review.

i think this book might be a perfect case of it's not you, it's me. something to know is that i'm not a romance girly. i like my romance minimal and secondary to a non-romantic plot. this is something that i've learned fairly recently so i'm struggling to rate this one because i think, for the most part, people will very much enjoy it, it just didn't work for me.

this book starts with opal, who is kind of a doormat, working in an ice cream shop. we learn very quickly that she's not very assertive - her coworker (who just so happens to be the same girl that opal's ex boyfriend maybe, probably cheated on her with) takes advantage of her generosity by constantly requesting that opal cover her shifts. for reasons i cannot fathom, opal always allows this. this is where my rough start begins. i'm not sure i can relate or get into the mindset of a character who constantly, willfully allows herself to be taken advantage of.

anyway, her coworker/"friend" is back to her old tricks and manipulates opal into taking her saturday shift. when opal says yes, she's rewarded with lottery tickets. when she scratches them off? she realizes she's won a cool 500k. second point of contention - opal is aware of her coworker's antics. first thing she does? she stupidly tells her coworker that she's won the lottery. oof. i don't get it.

from there, we understand that people who have historically taken advantage of opal are going to chase her down - her shitty cheating ex, the "friend" - obviously all desperate to get their chunk of change. not to worry, though. opal, sight unseen, decides to dump the majority of her lottery winnings into a flower farm she's only seen photos of on facebook marketplace. seriously. this is the moment where i knew i wasn't going to have a good time. i understand that opal is meant to be a neurodivergent character, but i'm not sure how that contributes to this level of decision-making.

at the farm, opal instantly realizes there's a problem - due to a missing will and some murky inheritance laws, the farm has been sold to opal right out from under pepper by pepper's estranged mother. pepper has lived there all of her life and isn't going to go quietly.

i love the idea of a meet-cute being opal generously allowing pepper to continue to live and work on the flower farm that opal now rightfully owns, but a constant theme throughout this book is pepper, various friends of pepper's, etc. constantly asserting to opal that she has zero ownership over the farm when... legally, she does. opal is treated constantly as an malevolent, evil person for purchasing the farm when, push comes to shove, she did so legally. there was a scene where opal decided to explore the home and was told she wasn't allowed to go into pepper's grandmother's old room, kept in pristine condition. and opal? she just takes it. i found this to be infuriating.

let's talk about the spice. i love a spicy sapphic book! here, i don't think it worked. i didn't see the attraction at all between opal and pepper, they were just too contentious. when it finally happened, diminutive doormat opal metamorphosed into a dirty-talking sex goddess. i'm not a prude, but the transformation felt entirely disjointed to her established character and further took me out of the story.

anyway, i can't pretend the flower imagery within this writing wasn't viscerally pretty. i could feel the breeze under the warm loom of a spring sun, hear the flowers rustle. i just had quite a few issues with the story. most, i think, will really love this one. this one just very much wasn't for me.

I am such a fan of Mazey Eddings’s other adult works, so I thought I would also be obsessed with Late Bloomer. Unfortunately, it probably ranks at the bottom of her books for me. It was still okay, just not anything I would read again or recommend.

I feel that this book did drag on a little; at points I was definitely thinking “Get to the point!!” Everything built up to one big thing that happened so quickly and then the resolution quickly followed. I would’ve liked to see more little climaxes rather than one big huge one. Sometimes it felt like the author didn’t know where to go so she added a sex scene.

At times I was wondering if this book was YA simply due to the maturity level of the two main characters (especially Opal), but, of course, a book about two adults is not YA. They just maybe still have some growing up to do. I also found Pepper and Opal to be so similar that it was sometimes difficult to tell whose POV I was reading and I’d have to go back and check.

All that being said, it was a cute story. The cover is absolutely gorgeous. And I had a pretty fun time reading it.

Thank you so much to Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Goodreads for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
3.5/5 rounded to 4

What an amazing story of thinking you know yourself only to find yourself. As someone going through a similar journey, the exploration of self is amazing from both leading characters. A budding love story that warmed my heart!

Opal (24) is a sweet little fool, and her decision-making abilities (or distinct lack thereof) made me want to hurl my kindle across the room. She buys a flower farm unseen from a stranger on Facebook, and finds her new home already occupied.

Pepper is a skeptical untrusting flower farmer that finds herself in a precarious situation after her great aunt dies. The flower farm she thought she’d inherit was sold by her mother, a human trash bag, and now she’s stuck living with Opal while she figures out how to buy her home back.

There is a lot of crying and hugging. Despite the tension between Opal and Pepper at the start, not very much actually happens.

3.5⭐️

i have not much more to say than if you fell in love with dani and jamie in the haunting of bly
manor, you will absolutely LOVE opal and pepper (plus no tragedy!)

this was such a refreshing and heartfelt romcom that was filled with the best kind of cheesy, awkward, and adorable moments you would expect. also the cover is just so gorgeous i need to go and buy the physical copy for my own bookshelf.

All hail Mazey Eddings, champion of romance. This book was gorgeous, start to finish. I'm always looking for a great Sapphic romance for my shelves, and this one hit so many marks. I loved the flower farm, I loved the characters, the plot was stunning. Eddings is solidified as an insta-buy and insta-recommend author in my books.

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

This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2024 and I'm so disappointed. The neurodivergent representation was honest and real, but I kept getting confused because both characters blended in with eachother. The story started off strong, the setting at the flower farm (and the cover!) simply divine, but it progressed at such a disjointed pace that I lost interest and it was a struggle to finish.

Thank you to NetGalley and St.Martin's Press for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Yall, this book. THIS BOOK. It was such a great sapphic love story. Mazey Eddings has such a way with words and normalizing what feels so abnormal. I mean, a girl winning the lottery then buying a flower farm? TBH, that feels like something I would do, which almost made this book more fun. This book was cringey and cheesy and full of pouch out loud moments. I loved every single page. Mazey is truly a master with words. I love Opal and Pepper and their weird reluctant friends to lovers and their AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES energy (not really, but….ya know). I knew I would love this book because I love Mazey, but I thoroughly did not expect to LOVE this book as much as I did.

Found difficult to get hooked, slow read. I liked the characters, but I found the romance a little bit bland. I expected a little bit surprised, at least, and did not find any. It was a cute story, but nothing that was memorable.

I have tried a few times to push myself through Late Bloomer but unfortunately it isn't the book for me. I DNF @ 30%.

The authors writing in and of itself was decent. Some of the lines I found were pretty impactful such as, "I deferred my dreams, months ticking by, until those dreams faded and complacency disguised itself as comfort." It's raw and relatable allowing a chance for the reader to connect with Opal.

However, as the story progressed I felt like those moments were few and farther in between. The character development was sluggish and felt like it was developing into more of stereotypes than individuals. It might just be me but I also found both Opal and Peppers behaviour to be rather childish for their ages. I also wasn't invested in the romance that was forming between them because it felt pretty force and I couldn't buy into the progression that it was taking.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Late Bloomer is a sapphic, neurodivergent romance that was an absolute joy to read. The representation of neurodivergence in the novel is authentic and done with care. Pepper stims with no remorse and is never presented as a burden or unworthy of love due to her autism. Opal is fun and vibrant, and reading about her coming into her own felt vindicating, and you cannot help but root for her success. The romance between Pepper and Opal is filled with sweet tension; Their interactions had me kicking my feet and giggling every time I opened the book. I would happily recommend this novel to anyone who wants a truthful and kind romance about people not always represented in romantic comedies.

This was the sapphic cottage-core romance of my dreams! Opal wins the lottery and in an effort to distance herself from her mooch-y fake friends, she literally escapes by buying the Thistle and Bloom. Enter Pepper, grumpy flower farmer and actual(?) owner, and the two of them quickly come to the agreement that they'll live together as roommates while they sort out the situation and enter a flower sculpture competition for the prize money.

I loved the idea of both Opal and Pepper finding refuge in the Thistle and Bloom at different points in their life. Both have been hurt in the past and the farm is their safe space as well as the source of inspiration for their art (the way the author describes growing flowers absolutely sounds like an art form; not to mention Opal's shoe-painting business), which is why it's all the more important that they save it from bankruptcy. However, things get further complicated when they begin a no-strings, no-feelings sexual relationship when obviously, there are some very real feelings growing between them.

I really like the way Mazey Eddings wrote both Opal and Pepper's characters; they come across as somewhat messy zillennials (complete with doctoring their own hair to fit their mood)— and they are! Opal and Pepper are 24 and 26 respectively. I saw some reviews call them immature but as someone around their age, I completely sympathize with the way they're both just trying to get by financially while navigating a new relationship. Like, there is a third act break-up that some might see as an overreaction, but I think it fits the pattern of their prior relationships, and the way they react makes sense. What I could have done with less of is the amount of zillenial pop culture references— from 3 different Taylor Swift references to Phoebe Bridgers and Timothee Chalamet. I feel like constant pop culture references tend to date a book.

This book has queer rep and neurodivergent rep; Opal is bisexual and Pepper identifies as queer, and both women are on the spectrum. I appreciate how Mazey Eddings also wrote in multiple queer side characters, as well as how she portrayed neurodiversity— everything from Opal's autism and ADHD causing her use alcohol as an unhealthy coping mechanism to Pepper's sensory sensitivities that cause her to dislike large crowds.

The sex:

I was pleasantly surprised by the sex scenes in this book! They're pretty damn hot and varied, super emotional as time goes on, and I loved the dynamic— Opal is the more assertive one in bed, which leads to some solid dirty talk on her part (it's also in contrast to how she is out of bed because she tends to waffle over a lot of decision making), while Pepper is a little more rough and uncertain but she also has this stern edge. And of course there's greenhouse sex because what even is the point otherwise.

Overall:

I had so much fun reading this book— it had so many laugh-out-loud moments while at the same time Opal and Pepper were such intensely sympathetic characters, perhaps even more so because they were not above messing up (also can we talk about the epilogue?? what Opal did for Pepper is literally the most romantic thing a person can do in this economy). I would recommend this book to anyone looking for an emotionally satisfying romcom that also brings the heat.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review.

Rating: 4/5
Heat Level: 3.75/5
Publication Date: April 16th

I loved the ADHD/autism rep (Pepper is extremely relatable to me) but unfortunately I didn’t connect to the writing style and the story itself was so formulaic I just skimmed the second half of the book because I could predict everything that was going to happen. Both characters had a similar voice, so I often forgot whose point of view I was reading.
Overall this book had a few great moments and excellent representation, but the story itself needed some more polish.