Post-grad academic rivals to lovers (with friends in the mix somewhere), NYC, and some hilarious and supporting side characters. What more could you want from a fun contemporary romance?

While at times, the book itself like a college assignment, I thought that the parallels between FMC Rosie, MMC Aiden, and their characters Max and Hunter. It felt like they could safely explore and test their relationship through their shared novel before trying things out in real life. I adored getting excepts of Rosie and Hunter's book but my biggest complaint was the formatting; at times I struggled to tell if I was reading the main plot of Not in My Book, or the fictional book it's characters are writing.

The exploration on familial expectations and trauma wasn't something I was expecting but it added so much to the story.

Not in My Book hasn't been marketed as a holiday romance but would be the perfect cozy festive read this season!

4.5 stars. I’ve been following Katie Holt on Instagram for a couple of years now, and I had no doubt her own romance novel would be right up my alley.

Rosie and Aiden had a tension that was palpable on the pages when they were arguing and chemistry whether they were fighting or another f-word.

I really enjoyed the way they found to communicate with each other through their manuscript since they weren’t great at it face to face. They both knew what the other was doing even without acknowledging it until much, much later. Also, chapter 17 had me *blushing*.

When Aiden was a jerk, he was a JERK, but his soft side was endearing and he ultimately gave good grovel.

This was a great debut and I can’t wait for more to come from Katie. Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC. This is my honest opinión but just one opinión, you should read it and judge it by yourself]

What a great debut! I’ve been hooked from start to finish. This is a true enemies to lovers about two writers with irreconciliable diferences that are force to write a Romance novel together. Of course there’s no real feud between they and they start to come closer and fall for each other.
The writing is lovely, more impressive since it’s Katie Holt debut, and she has the ability of create a Romance novel inside a Romance novel and make you interested on both stories.
I found the MC delightful and I couldn’t put down the book.
Hoping to read more love stories by Katie Holt!!!

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for a review.

This is a book for people who love books and reading. It's got the enemies to lovers, one bed, he falls first, she falls harder, and it's full of the whimsy parts of New York City throughout the seasons. Whether it's more like The Hating Game or You've Got Mail I'm not sure, but it was such a fun book with great characters, and little to no miscommunication (which is the worst trope for sure).
Rosie and Aiden are such well written characters. She's too optimistic and he's too cynical and together they balance each other out in a wonderful way.

Rosie, an idealistic and passionate Peruvian American, leaves her Tennessee hometown to pursue her dream of making it in New York as a writer. But her plan is derailed when she ends up in class with her archnemesis and ex-crush, Aiden Huntington—an obnoxious, surly, and gorgeous literary fiction writer who doesn’t have much patience for the romance genre or for Rosie.
Rosie and Aiden regularly go to verbal battle in workshop until their professor reaches her breaking point. She allows them to stay in her class on one condition: they must cowrite a novel that blends their genres.
The reluctant writing duo can’t help but put pieces of themselves into their accidentally steamy novel, and their manuscript-in-progress provides an outlet for them to confess their feelings—and explore their attraction toward each other.
When Rosie and Aiden find themselves competing against each other for a potentially career-changing opportunity, the flames of old rivalry reignite, and their once-in-a-lifetime love story is once again at risk of being shelved—unless they can find a way to end the book on their own terms.

Not in My Book by Katie Holt is a love letter to romance - it makes you think about Nora Ephron, and Harry and Sally, and all those wonderful and witty romcom books and movies that put a huge smile on your face.

There are coffee shop moments, walks in the park, looking for perfect books at the Strand book store, and going to the Christmas Market on Union Square - thus Not in My Book is also a love letter to New York City and I put it right up there with some of my NYC favorites, such as The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston, or Winter in New York by Josie Silver, or Love in the City by Jen Morris.

This book is rivals-to-lovers slow-burn perfection and the twist that these two rivals are forced to write a manuscript together for class was just brilliant - and written perfectly. A very impressive debut novel; thank you so much Alcove Press and NetGalley for the ARC!

Rosie and Aiden are two people enrolled in the same MFA program at NYU. They met through one of the courses and even though, the first minute of the first impression was great, soon they both became classmates enemies based on their writing genre and their personal perception of the other. Now they are in their second course together and the animosity for each other it’s also affecting their other classmates and professor, who decides to put them together in a special project in order to stay and pass the course.

The dynamic of the relationship between Rosie and Aiden is interesting and the essence of their personalities remain until the end. Don’t let Rosie’s childish character fooled you, all the discussion about literary genres and the view about romance novels is really on point which make you realize and appreciate all the creativity romance novelist need to put in every book in order to tell a love story while also addressing complicated topics about their characters past, and present struggles.
I really enjoy this story and the mobile used by the characters to discover each other and built their relationship. I definitely appreciate happy endings, specially when the real world seems so complicated. What’s wrong to scape to a world where everything is possible? Specially when their stories sometimes relate to our own.

Thank you, Alcove Press, for this amazing romance! 💖

Rosie is a romance writer—she loves reading, writing, and living romance. Always happy and chasing her New York dream 🗽, her life takes a turn because of Aiden. Aiden, the fiction writer in her class, seems to hate romance, especially hers. He’s always critiquing her work, stern with everyone, but particularly mean to her.

Rosie decides to stand up for herself and voice her thoughts about his sad fiction. Their arguments quickly become the highlight of the class and a sort of foreplay neither Rosie nor Aiden can stop, until they’re forced to write a romance together—without a happy ending. 📚

I was super excited to start this book; I absolutely love the enemies-to-lovers trope, especially when they’re forced to work together. This book is really entertaining, and I loved how Rosie and Aiden started to communicate through their inconvenient assignment.

I appreciated that we never get Aiden’s direct POV, but we can understand him fully through the character Hunter.

The third-act breakup? I saw it coming a mile away and knew why and how it would happen, but the author executed it so perfectly that I cried. I felt so much for both Rosie and Aiden—it was just perfect. 😢

Grad student Rosie is an idealist in multiple senses of the word. She loves to believe in love, she sees the positive in everything she does, and always sees the glass half-full. That is, until she meets fellow grad student, Aiden. While Rosie plans to write romance novels for a living. Aiden writes literary fiction and constantly criticizes Rosie's outlook on life and romance submissions in class. When their teacher challenges them to write a piece together or be dropped from the class, Rosie and Aiden must find a way to meet in the middle.

This was an adorable rivals-to-lovers / grumpy x sunshine romance. With Rosie's love for romance, I adored all the descriptions of why Rosie loves the genre. For example, how even when you know a book is enemies to lovers, and things can go wrong, "nothing is unfixable" and love is always worth fighting for. My only con was I didn't like how their professor allowed them to berate each other in class, and then threatened to kick them out, even though the professor had allowed it to go on for so long.

*** I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. ***

Rival MFA students Rosie and Aiden are forced to work together on a novel after their bickering almost gets them kicked out of their workshop. Rosie is determined to be a romance author and brings Aiden along with her, protesting the entire time. A cute novel set in New York, the books gets a tiny bit meta as the characters are writing a novel and the romance genre is defended well by Rosie.

Oh my gosh, this was adorable!
A book inside of a book 👌🏼

“I can’t hate you anymore,” I said quietly. “We’re too far gone for that. I don’t want to go back to where we were.”

They were definite enemies, throwing every verbal punch at each other. The tension was so strong, I couldn't wait for it to break!

My favorite part was when they're on the phone, writing together. The build up! Ugh!

I was in so deep with this book.
And when Christina Lauren was mentioned!! 🫶🏼


"I never thought I’d want to be in a mess like this. One where I couldn’t sleep because I was imagining telling her how much I loved the freckle at the top of her ear, and how much I wanted to kiss it. But I’d give just about anything to stay here." — Excerpt from Untitled by Rosie Maxwell and Aiden Huntington


I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
Katie Holt joined the literary world with a 4 ⭐ read!!

****➍ 🅢🅣🅐🅡🅢 ********

It has been a little while since I've read such a catchy and fun romance! All of my favorite tropes (𝖼𝗅𝗈𝗌𝖾 𝗉𝗋𝗈𝗑𝗂𝗆𝗂𝗍𝗒, 𝖾𝗇𝖾𝗆𝗂𝖾𝗌 𝗍𝗈 𝗅𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗋𝗌 & 𝗀𝗋𝗎𝗆𝗉𝗒/𝗌𝗎𝗇𝗌𝗁𝗂𝗇𝖾) all in one book, it was wonderful!

Plot: 𝐑𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐱𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥, an idealistic romance writer, clashes with 𝐀𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐇𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧, a stoic literary fiction writer, during a workshop at NYU. Their head-to-head battles lead them to the point of potential expulsion from class, unless they agree to work together on a novel. Through the process of writing together the two budding authors learn about each other, learn how to love, and how to heal.

Once I started reading, I couldn't put the book down. I was hooked into Rosie and Aiden's relationship, but I was even more into the characters they were writing about! (I would love to read the book they wrote together) Having Rosie and Aiden use their characters to tell each other how they felt, and their express their emotions, was very relatable, I mean I cannot tell you how many times I have wanted to do the same thing or even use literature or music to express things I couldn't say myself out loud. In the end, I found the story a little rushed, but overall it was a fun read that made me feel all the emotions.



*𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒕𝒐 𝑵𝒆𝒕𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒚 & 𝑨𝒍𝒄𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝑨𝑹𝑪 𝒊𝒏 𝒆𝒙𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒎𝒚 𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒓𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒆𝒘!*

LOVE LOVE LOVE. I can't say enough good things about this book. I adore Rosie and Aiden so much.

This enemies to lovers had everything. The tension was top tier. My favorite part was that it technically WAS dual POV - Katie Holt wrote a book within a book and the dual POV while writing the manuscript was so well done. It was my absolute favorite part finally figuring out how Aiden was feeling.

I can't wait to get my copy and highlight and mark all my favorite parts. Thank you so so much for an early copy!!

This book could have been a 5 star for me, until the first half. Despite the childish behaviour that I would have justified with younger characters, it was fun and interesting and I love stories within stories! Then came the usual "if he's pulling your hair it means he likes you and that if he's being a d!ck, lying to you and gāslighting you it's because, poor guy, he's got daddy issues" message and all the töxicity that goes with that thought, plus the fact that it's redundant and full of clichés.

But let's take it in order.

The story starts nicely, I immediately liked the setting and the idea of two rivals with opposing interests who have to write a book together. In short, the potential was there, and plenty of it. Too bad that the book they start to write is a carbon copy of what happens to them in real life. You basically read the exact same scenes twice, including the dialogues, and in the long run you get tired of it – as well as not seeing the point. It would have been much more interesting to read a story within a story, full of more or less subliminal messages not immediately recognisable as such, but the author preferred to take the easy way out. And well, they are choices.

Rosie, whose POV we follow, has no personality beyond her obsession with Aiden, who is far too disrespectful towards her most of the time: it's fine to tease at each other, but he crosses the line more than once and I wonder where the difference was between him and her ex who constantly belittled her. By the way, they don't communicate with each other – except in their novel, but they're so stupid that they say "naaaah, they're not talking about me". There are so many moments when they could have done it, been honest and overcome their differences, but no. The fair of miscommunication, just the way I like it. (*sarcasm mode: on*) And the spicy scenes come without any warning – and as usual, he goes from silent and almost not swearing guy to dirty-mouth in a second. Okaaay.

Then, there's the final conflict. It was a complete reversal of the characters, who behaved so differently from the first part that I wondered if I was still reading the same book or if the author had changed. He, in particular, turned out to be a vile little creature. Not only does his reason for disliking her (or pretending to) match that of a five-year-old who doesn't know how to handle his emotions, but he lies to the woman he's supposedly in love with, makes her feel guilty when she rightly gets angry, and doesn't even apologise to her properly at the end. What the f— Rosie, run away, please!

Personally (and unfortunately), I don't recommend reading it.

I absolutely adored this book! It has become one of my favourite romances I’ve ever read and I’m so excited to get myself a physical copy and reread it.

We follow two grad student writers, Rosie and Aiden, who are part of the same writing workshop and constantly critique one another’s work and bicker, to the point it becomes a disruption to the class. Because of this, they are tasked with writing a novel together, which is definitely a challenge as Rosie writes romance and Aiden writes literary fiction. Spending time together and writing alongside each other, romance ensues and I just loved every second!!

We get excerpts of the novel Rosie and Aiden are writing throughout this book, which mirrors their own relationship, with them writing how they actually feel towards each other through the characters of their novel.

The characters were so well developed and fleshed out. I found Rosie to be really relatable, as a romance lover myself, and I just found her so lovable. Aiden is the exact kind of hero I love - he’s grumpy and people are intimidated by him, but underneath there’s so much depth and you really warm to him.

I could see the third act breakup coming and I was praying it wouldn’t happen, but it added the perfect amount of tension and drama and made sense for the story. I actually cried at this scene and did again when they came back together at the end.

This had the perfect amount of angst and the perfect amount of spice (some of my favourite spicy scenes I’ve ever read). I just loved it.

Overall, this was a perfect romance for me, and I think if you loved Beach Read by Emily Henry, you should absolutely give this one a go!

I love this adorable rom-com SO MUCH! I have read a lot of rom-coms recently, and this is one of THE BEST! It hooked me immediately and I stayed up several nights because I did not want to stop reading. Rosie is hilarious and Aiden is super swoony! Their banter was clever and their chemistry was off the charts! I also really liked Rosie’s friends and family. They definitely added to the humor. This is @readinromance ‘s debut novel and I cannot wait for her next book! I highly recommend if you are a fan of romance!

Thank you so much NetGalley, Katie Holt, and Alcove Press for the book. It was such a fun read!

This book was soooo cute!!! I honestly loved it. The story is well paced and I loved that we got the excerpts from the book Aiden and Rosie were writing. That was such a neat addition. Their characters were so relatable and realistic and I loved the nods to other romance movie and authors.

Aiden and Rosie were the perfect enemies/rivals to lovers. You really felt their hatred at the beginning and yet there was so much tension in their arguments, I was dying for them to get together. I loved the progressions of the seasons as the story moved. It was neat to see their relationship change with the changing seasons.

Overall this was a great romance read with a witty lightheartedness but good emotion at the same time. Romance lovers will enjoy this book! Thank you again to NetGalley and the author and publishers for this book.

AS MUCH AS I TRIED, THIS JUST WASN'T FOR ME

I really wanted to like this. I wanted to fight Rosie´s battle with her to have romance accepted as a genuine fiction-genre and not just a throw-away. But there were just too many things that bothered me.

What I didn't like

👎 Book in a book: This could have worked, if it wasn't for the fact that I pretty much had to read the same book twice. Aiden Rosie and are writing a book together, and they decide to pretty much just write their own story, often verbatim. It just felt really awkward, and I didn't think it worked.

👎 Predictable: There were no surprises. I had everything mapped out from the beginning.

👎 Ending: The ending felt off and very out of character. It undid a lot of character development, that had been established throughout the story, and it really bothered me.

Aidan and Rosie… or is it Hunter and Max? Two rival budding authors are forced by their professor to work together on a book that melds her love of romance for his lit fic (what I wouldn’t give to have the guy be the romance writer for a change!). Even though it’s only written from Rosie’s perspective, the excerpts from their book are supposed to be Aiden’s chapters, and it’s clear we’re getting a he-falls-first trope too. The chemistry between the two leads when they bicker in class sizzles – I only enjoy enemies-to-lovers when it’s clear at least one of the main pair doesn’t actually loathe the other – though I could see the third-act breakup coming from a mile away. Pretty good for a debut, a bit too derivative of Beach Read to really shine.

Thanks to NetGalley and Alcove Press for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is the review that I posted on Goodreads:

Thank you to Netgalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for my review. I enjoyed this book as I am a sucker for books about writers and the writing process. I thought the slow burn between Aidan and Rosie was incredibly well done, and I liked the character development, including the cast of friends. And, of course, the setting of Manhattan throughout the year's seasons was magical. However, I had an issue with the book's last third. Without giving away spoilers, I felt like Aidan's response during the conflict didn't quite seem in character with the growth he had made over the book's development.
Moreover, I strongly felt that Ida and Aidan should have been open with Rosie. So, for me, the last 3rd of the book felt weaker than the beginning. However, I still thought it was a delightful, fun, and easy read. I very much enjoyed the slow burn and Enemy to Lovers. And many of the excerpts from the Unnamed book were delightful.

This book HOOKED ME within the first few chapters. I can’t even describe how much I loved this book! Enemies to lovers… forced to cowrite a romance novel… writing about characters that represent themselves… AND THE SPICE!! This one is a must-read!!