hoa showdown

When Collins Carter moved back home to Ohio, she didn’t think she could fall much farther. Her screenwriting career in L.A. had been put on a hard pause when the video of her yelling at her boyfriend in the parking lot went viral. So she’d moved back to her parents home, where she could regroup and figure out what’s next. And that’s where she ran into the boy who had once been her best friend, and then he was the guy who left her behind for the popular crowd, and now he is putting himself right in the sights of all her anger.

Because he came for the one thing that meant the most to her family.

Nathaniel Adams didn’t leave Ohio after high school the way Collins had. He’d stayed and became a real estate agent. He bought a house in Collins’s parent’s neighborhood. He joined the homeowner’s association. And he tried to get Collins to move away again by threatening HOA action against the tree her father had just planted for her mother.

Collins found herself at the next HOA meeting, stirring up the crowd, who was already upset by the board’s overreach. And when the president of the HOA abruptly announces his retirement, handing the reins over to Nate, Collins is done. Before she can think it through, she makes an announcement of her own, and suddenly there is a fight for HOA president, because Collins is running against her old buddy Nate.

The next weeks go by in a blur of backroom meetings and lawn decorations, glittery signs and patriotic yard flamingoes, secrets splashed across the Facebook neighborhood group and a deflated Benjamin Franklin inflatable withering on the lawn. But what’s worse is that Collins finding herself attracted to that man again. The one who broke her heart as a teenager. The one who makes her blood boil when he acts like he is the more obvious HOA president. The one she can’t stop thinking about. And not only that, he’s inspired her to start writing again after letting her laptop sit closed for weeks.

So now Collins has to decide what she really wants for her future—the glamorous Hollywood writing career and all its excitement, or a life in Ohio with lots of HOA meetings and the boy who got away.

Next-Door Nemesis is a steamy rom com about figuring out what really matters and going after it, complete with hand-painted lawn flamingoes and googly eyes. There are lots of lovely surprises, suburban gossip, lawn care, MLM leggings, sangria, chain restaurant appetizers, and Midwestern good manners. There is a lot of snark, some spicy scenes, and a State Fair, so there is a lot to love.

I loved Next-Door Nemesis. As a lifelong Midwesterner, I appreciated all the moments of Midwest love as well as the hot Hollywood writer information. I thought the characters of Collins and Nate were both charming and authentic, but I really fell for Ruby the most. This novel has a genuine sense of place, strong characters, and the writing sizzles on the page. I did not want to put this one down, and I can’t wait to see what Alexa Martin comes up with next.

Egalleys for Next-Door Nemesis were provided by Berkley through NetGalley, with many thanks.