Overdue

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Synopsis

Ingrid Dahl, a cheerful twenty-nine-year-old librarian in the cozy mountain town of Ridgetop, North Carolina, has been happily dating her college boyfriend, Cory, for eleven years without ever discussing marriage. But when Ingrid’s sister announces her engagement to a woman she’s only been dating for two years, Ingrid and Cory feel pressured to consider their future. Neither has ever been with anybody else, so they make an unconventional decision. They’ll take a one-month break to date other people, then they’ll reunite and move toward marriage. Ingrid even has someone in mind: her charmingly grumpy coworker, Macon Nowakowski, on whom she’s secretly crushed for years. But plans go awry, and when the month ends, Ingrid and Cory realize they’re not ready to resume their relationship? and Ingrid’s harmless crush on Macon has turned into something much more complicated.

Overdue is a beautiful, slow-burn romance full of lust and longing about new beginnings and finding your way.

Synopsis source: Goodreads

Review

Genre(s): Contemporary Fiction, Romance
HB&W Rating: 3.5 stars, 3 flames
View on StoryGraph | Goodreads
Buy on Barnes & Noble, Amazon
Release Date: October 7, 2025

This was a sweet book. While I binged 85% of it in a day, I will say it felt kind of long and drawn out. Very very slow burn. The first half of the book mostly felt like a coming of age story, except the FMC is almost 30. It feels like a social commentary both on contemporary dating and on how stuck many of the younger millennials seem to be in their lives. I like that Ingrid was able to get herself unstuck and come to some realizations about her life, but even so, she felt a little more damsel-y than I’d have liked in a character, but that might just be me. I think it was all the “he’s an adult” references.

The dating she did during her break with Cory felt messy and real, which I appreciated even if I hated that she chose to lead one of them on a bit. This was what felt very coming-of-age to me in this book, all the self-awareness gained by being with the wrong people before she could find the right person.

I really liked Macon. Sweet but salty, shy but shows up. He’s the grumpy to Ingrid’s sunshine. I liked that he gave her the space and time she needed to figure herself out, even if that was mostly a result of his shy personality and inability to make the first move. He made plenty of other moves though, and showed up for her in all the best ways.

Mostly, I loved that this novel shows us that in order to have a meaningful relationship with someone, you have to be courageous enough to be truly vulnerable. Moreover, it shows how great the reward can be when you risk that vulnerability.

All in all, I enjoyed it, it was a sweet romance, just a bit too drawn out, and the damsel thing irked me a bit.

Thank you Saturday Books and NetGalley for an eARC of this title in exchange for my honest opinion.

Until next time,

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