Under One Roof by Ali Hazelwood

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The 2nd book I picked up for the Romance Takeover Readathon - Light v. Dark round was Under One Roof by Ali Hazelwood. This is the first book in her STEMinist Novellas series. Under One Roof worked perfectly to cover romcom and forced proximity for the readathon. I also was able to use it for Summer of Swoon to cover the grumpy sunshine prompt and Ripped Bodice Summer Bingo to cover the title has a number prompt.

After Mara's doctorate mentor passes away, she's leaves her half of a house in DC to Mara. The other half is owned by her nephew Liam. Liam is a corporate lawyer for a company that is known to not have enviromental friendly policies. Mara is an environmental engineer, so of course this rubs her wrong before they even meet. Liam tries to buy Mara out, but she decides to stay despite them not getting along. As they become friends, after some squabbles, they start to really learn who each other are.

This is a cute trope centered novella. I enjoyed my time reading this and thought for a novella it was paced pretty well. I also liked that when we got to the end it wasn't a magical "let's get married" but more of a let's have a serious relationship and keep moving forward. It just felt a lot more natural. This wasn't a full five-stars for me though, mostly because of Mara. She felt very childish at times, especially with being almost 30-years old. I didn't understand her actions at times and her excuse to stay in the house was quite a bit flimsy. What really bothered me is when she doesn't accept a package for Liam from UPS after she deduces it's probably something important. Just not okay. Otherwise, once they became friendly I enjoyed the way their relationship evolved into deeper feelings.

This was a decent start to this novella series and I'm certainly intrigued to read more. I think this book helped reset my expectations for these since the only other book I've read by Ali is The Love Hypothesis (which is her only other published book as of now). I can't wait to pick up the other two trope-tasitc novellas and think they'll be a perfect pick-me-up or palette cleanser.

Have you read Under One Roof?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Under One Roof, Ali Hazelwood, 4-stars, 0 days, eBook, 112 pages, published in 2022, traditionally published