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I could have done without the whole Magic Soulmates deal; it was a little too Twilight-esque, especially in a witches/vampires/shapeshifters book. Also... I get that Rhea and Laurel were both dealing with some pretty intense personal stuff that got in the way of them communicating, but could SOMEONE in the coven not have given Laurel a crash course in navigating magical society, somewhere in between working at the bookstore and going to parties?

It was good writing, a reasonable plot, and perfectly fine characters, but for whatever reason this didn't catch me quite as strongly as Hale's other books.

I swear I didn't intentionally read two sapphic superhero romances in a row, it just worked out that way.

I got a chapter or two into this, figured out what was going on, and spent most of the rest of the book giggling at the premise. I mean... A Hollywood star's personal assistant gets roped into a fake-dating arrangement by her boss (to whom she is, of course, very attracted). But wait! She's also secretly an alien superhero, and said boss is acquainted with both the hero identity and the mild-mannered PA.

It could easily descend into silly hijinx, but Thorne manages to give the characters some actual depth with their respective trust issues. Not so much relationship angst that I wanted to throw rotten fruit and shout "just talk to each other already!" but enough that I kept reading because I cared about them and wanted to know how they'd work things out.

I do wish the secondary characters had been fleshed out a little further, but overall it was a pretty good read.

I like the university setting, and the acknowledgement of class/hierarchy in university society was an unexpected bonus. I like that the POV character is in IT support. I appreciate that it didn't go too far into "our relationship has failed and my life is over, whatever shall I do, Friar Laurence*?" angst as so many romance novels tend to; it just felt like normal "that sucked and I'm disappointed" angst.

The book is aware of class and takes the less-common tack of pointing out that snobbery can go both directions, but it isn't particularly critical of social or economic inequality. If anything, it valorizes upper-middle-class university-educated lifestyles. sigh

The computer stuff was... fine? It really ought to get a sponsorship from Apple for how excited the characters are about Macs. I was surprised that nobody at a sizeable research university mentioned Linux even once.

Anyway, it was nicely low-key. This book is to the average romance novel as a cozy mystery is to an action thriller mystery: Same kinda thing, but way less intense.

• I had to look up the Friar's name. I'm rusty on Shakespeare, ok?

Aaaah! It's sapphic fake-dating between a techie who reads as autistic and someone who appreciates her frankness. Writing is good, plot moves fast, not too much angst for my taste at the moment.

Iris is a little stereotype-y (brilliant coder who is also successful in business in spite of not being good with people) and I'm not convinced that she would still be doing code reviews as CEO of a sizeable tech company. Even so, I really enjoyed her character. Many of the technical details were reasonably plausible.

I could have done with a little less of a "for-profit silicon valley tech entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas can change the world" attitude, though. Not that it was a major plot point, but it was definitely present.

The epilogue from a different POV was a fun twist; now I want to read a book about Carrie.

Oh, and it had some sex scenes. As you'd expect from a romance novel. You'll have to ask someone else for opinions on those; I'm ace-spectrum and mostly just skim them. :-)

I'm not too keen on celebrity romance, but there's a grad student character too! I like grad students!