Book: An Academic Affair by Jodi Mcalister
Reviewed by Maggie Hayes
Rating: 4.5/5
📚✨ ARC REVIEW ✨📚
An Academic Affair by Jodi McAlister
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25 (4.25/5 stars)
Thank you, @atriabooks and @netgalley, for providing a free ARC!
Sadie and Jonah have been academic rivals since their second year of university. Thirteen years—and five failed ceasefires—later, nothing has changed… until they’re both up for the same full-time teaching professorship. There’s just one problem: only one of them can win. Unless they’re married, because that would activate the university’s partner-hire clause.
So begins a marriage of convenience complicated by unresolved tension and a lot of suppressed romantic feelings. Can they keep the peace long enough to pass the probation period? Or will their rivalry get the better of them?
I absolutely loved this academic rivals-to-lovers gem! I geeked out over every single literary reference (modern drama AND popular fiction). This book reads like a love letter to literature and academia, making it right up my alley.
Sadie and Jonah’s dynamic was everything. The sharp banter, the mutual respect, the way they challenge each other to be better—it’s the kind of chemistry you feel. Even when they “hate” each other, there’s such deep admiration underneath. Their intellectual duels double as flirtation, and I would’ve killed to sit in on one of their lectures.
And Jonah? My sweet, yearning nerd. This man has been hopelessly in love with Sadie since the day he met her, and it shows. His support for her, his respect for her brilliance, and his willingness to stand beside (never above) her made my heart melt. The bar for fictional men in academia? Permanently raised.
If you’re in the mood for an intelligent, slow-burn rivals-to-lovers romance with tension, yearning, and whip-smart writing, An Academic Affair absolutely belongs on your TBR.
For fans of: 🎓 Academic rivals | ❌ Rivals ➡️ Friends ➡️ Lovers | 💍 Marriage of convenience | 🏠 Forced proximity | 🔥 Slow burn | 😍 He yearns
ARCReview #AnAcademicAffair #JodiMcAlister #RivalsToLovers #AcademicRomance #MarriageOfConvenience #SlowBurnRomance #HeYearns #Bookstagram #RomanceReaders #ContemporaryRomance