Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings

Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings

Published by St. Martin's Griffin on April 16, 2024

Genres:  Romance, LGBTQ, Sapphic, Contemporary Fiction

Pages:  400

Format:  eARC/Audiobook

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★★★.5

🌶🌶/5 spice

A sapphic opposites-attract romance with Mazey Edding's signature sparkling voice!

Winning the lottery has ruined Opal Devlin's’s life. After quitting her dead-end job where she’d earned minimum wage and even less respect, she’s bombarded by people knocking at her door for a handout the second they found out her bank account was overflowing with cash. And Opal can’t seem to stop saying yes.

With her tender heart thoroughly abused, Opal decides to protect herself by any means necessary, which to her translates to putting almost all her new money to buying a failing flower farm in Asheville, North Carolina to let the flowers live out their plant destiny while she uses the cabin on the property to start her painting business.

But her plans for isolation and self-preservation go hopelessly awry when an angry (albeit gorgeous) Pepper Smith is waiting for her at her new farm. Pepper states she’s the rightful owner of Thistle and Bloom Farms, and isn’t moving out. The unlikely pair strike up an agreement of co-habitation, and butt-heads at every turn. Can these opposites both live out their dreams and plant roots? Or will their combustible arguing (and growing attraction) burn the whole place down?

I absolutely adored some of Eddings other works so when I saw this GORGEOUS cover and the promise of a friends with benefits to lovers sapphic read I was excited... but it was a bit of a slow start for me.

I'm not sure why but I started and stopped this book so many times. It wasn't that it wasn't good - it just wasn't as witty as her previous books were this one had a more serious edge to it. Eddings always has put characters with something they are trying to overcome and I appreciate that.

There was so much miscommunication in this one that it took away from the story at times. But I did adore Pepper and Opal overall. They had great chemistry and really leaned on each other. Opal helped Pepper come out of her shell and Pepper helped Opal become a bit less of a people pleaser. The audiobook was great and the narration was perfect.

I loved this flower farm though and the idea of the competition. It was interesting and I wanted to see what their final design was which was what pushed me to continue. But really I just wanted these characters to tell each other about their feelings for about 75% of the book before I SCREAMED. No so much a slow burn but definitely a slow burn when it came to feelings being shared.

The character arcs were great though and I did appreciate the growth. I actually loved where the ending went and how things ended up for the two of them.

Overall a 3.5-star read. It was good but not my favorite sapphic romance I have read. I do recommend this for those who love Mazey Eddings writing and some people will love it more than I did.

Big thanks to St. Martin's Griffin, Mazey Eddings, and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinions!