Ali Hazelwood: books, reviews, and where to start

Love on the Brain

Bee Königswasser sees a NASA neuroengineering project as the chance to lead work that matters. The catch is Levi Ward, the engineer she remembers as a hostile graduate-school colleague, has been assigned to co-lead it. Their shared objective gives the romance a useful source of pressure: missing equipment, blocked access, and uncooperative staff threaten Bee's professional credibility before she can determine whether Levi is part of the problem.

The workplace material is most convincing when Bee must separate personal dislike from institutional resistance. She advocates for women in science online, recognizes how easily a man's silence is treated as authority, and knows that being labeled difficult can damage her career. Levi's practical support gradually contradicts the villain Bee has constructed from old encounters. That correction drives the romance, but it also makes her continued certainty frustrating once the evidence has shifted.

Bee's first-person voice uses Marie Curie as an imaginary adviser, turning scientific history into a running test of courage and common sense. The device gives her anxiety a comic rhythm and connects ambition with grief rather than presenting STEM details as decoration. Hazelwood is good at the instant when a technical problem becomes personal. She is less disciplined when every observation circles back to Levi's height, muscles, or physical proximity, a pattern that narrows an otherwise lively voice.

The attraction has energy, especially when Bee and Levi solve practical problems together, but the emotional conflict depends too heavily on a mistaken reading that the audience can resolve early. Levi is also so consistently competent and devoted that the enemies-to-lovers premise loses friction before Bee admits it. Their chemistry remains pleasurable; the difficulty is believing that an observant neuroscientist would ignore the accumulating behavioral evidence for quite so long.

A late turn toward conspiracy and physical danger raises the volume without deepening the book's best conflict. The professional obstacles would have supported a more grounded climax about credit, trust, and scientific institutions. Even so, the project is not forgotten once the romance becomes explicit, and Bee's career retains real weight in the resolution. Choose this for a funny, explicit workplace romance with science and a high-concept setting, not for a realistic account of NASA or a subtle mystery.

Hazelwood uses first-person comic anxiety, science references, and rapid banter, often letting attraction derail Bee's stated professional focus.

Bee's neuroscience career, NASA project, social-media advocacy, and conflict with Levi give the romance a workplace structure beyond attraction.

The central misunderstanding lasts too long, Levi is idealized, body-size repetition is distracting, and the thriller turn is excessive.

Check & Mate

Check & Mate is Ali Hazelwood's YA chess romance about Mallory, a former chess prodigy drawn back into competition against reigning champion Nolan Sawyer. The setup makes chess a source of rivalry rather than a barrier: the book uses accessible match summaries and emotional stakes, so readers do not need board-analysis expertise to follow what the games mean.

Its strongest move is turning preparation, risk, and public expectation into a shared language for attraction. Mallory's family responsibility and return to competition give the rivalry weight beyond teasing, while Hazelwood's close contemporary voice and rapid banter keep the romance moving toward a low-spice emotional payoff.

The tradeoff is convenience. Mallory's brilliance is sometimes asserted rather than demonstrated, and the repeated reluctance to explain her break with chess can stretch the miscommunication. Choose Check & Mate if you want gifted rivals, chess pressure, family stakes, and a gentler YA romance; skip it if you need detailed chess instruction or little patience for secrecy. If that makes it the right book, see current formats on Amazon. For Hazelwood in a more explicit adult workplace romance, try our Love on the Brain review, or browse Ali Hazelwood's books.

Hazelwood uses close contemporary voice, rapid banter, and match summaries that emphasize emotional decision more than full board analysis.

Mallory's family responsibility, return to competition, and rivalry with Nolan give attraction a shared language of preparation, risk, and public expectation.

Miscommunication stretches, chess brilliance is sometimes asserted rather than shown, and secondary problems align neatly around the romance.

Mallory repeatedly avoids explaining why she left chess after the emotional reason is clear enough to require conversation.

Yes. The romantic and competitive resolutions allow Mallory to choose chess on new terms rather than treating love as her only prize.

Chess is central to the tension, but not presented as a technical manual. Match summaries prioritize the emotional choice and changing trust between the rivals over move-by-move explanation.

That makes the book a useful choice for readers who want a chess romance with the competitive charge of sports romance, but a gentler, low-spice YA focus.

The novel's prodigy framing can feel convenient when Mallory's chess ability is stated more often than dramatized through the games.

Its secrecy also lasts beyond the point where a direct conversation would help, so readers who prefer low-conflict romance may find the middle less persuasive.

Ali Hazelwood's YA chess romance follows a retired chess prodigy returning to competition against the sport's reigning champion.