Ali Hazelwood's New Release & Top Romance Book Recommendations
Rose Graceling-Moore is an author and the Books Editor for ScreenRant. She has been writing about film, TV and comics since 2013, and published her debut novel, The Second Chance Summer, in 2026. Rose has written for Horror Honeys, Moviepilot and Quirkbooks as well as Screenrant, also co-hosted the DC Movies Podcast, and has guested on other nerd and entertainment podcasts over the past ten years. She also runs a Writers Guild and is involved with a local literary non-profit in small-town Ontario.
October 22nd marks the release of Ali Hazelwood's latest project - a first for the romance author. Bad In Bed, an Audible Original, will be the first time that Hazelwood ventures into an audio-first release, although her impressive backlog of novels are all available in audiobook.
It's been a big year for the author, with The Love Hypothesis adapted into a film by Prime Video earlier this year (with adaptations of The Deep End, The Two-Body Problem, and Love Theoretically all in development).
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Bad In Bed stars narrators Brooke Bloomingdale (Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood, A Very Good Bad Idea by Lauren Blakely) and Teddy Hamilton (Fourth Wing series by Rebecca Yarros, How To Troll A Guy In 10 Days by Pippa Grant), and, as usual, sees women in STEM falling in love:
Billie van Buren’s orderly world comes unraveled when her years-long engagement ends in humiliation. It’s bad enough that the messy break-up disappoints her family and threatens to tear apart her friend group. What Billie—a brilliant but sheltered doctoral student—really didn’t need was for her ex-fiancé to publicly disparage her bedroom skills, leaving her confidence shattered.
Dr. Maxwell Austin, a medical fellow, is reckless, charming, and self-assured—everything Billie isn’t. Opposites should attract, but barring the occasional bickering and teasing session, Billie and Max prefer to steer clear of each other. That is, until Billie’s statistics skills bring them together.
There’s nothing wrong with professionally collaborating with one’s longtime frenemy. Enlisting his help to become more confident in bed through hands-on practice, though… That’s a whole different matter. As Max helps Billie embrace her own pleasure and challenge her insecurities, their no-strings relationship evolves into something deeper, propelling Billie and Max into uncharted territory. And Billie just might discover that love is her most significant finding yet…
For the release, ScreenRant spoke to Hazelwood about the new project, upcoming adaptations, and her must-read books for romance fans:
ScreenRant: Love On the Brain was also narrated by Brooke Bloomingdale, while Teddy Hamilton has narrated for Mate and The Love Hypothesis - and now the two are teaming up for Bad in Bed. It’s rare for you to use the same narrators multiple times, what was the reasoning for that with this one - and how much say did you have in the casting process?
The team at Audible suggested them, and the second I listened to the sample I was like, yup, they’re perfect!
SR: Do you think that Billie and Maxwell have a lot in common with the characters that these narrators have portrayed for you before, and did you choose them in order to lean into that?
Hmm, I have to say that any similarities are probably a coincidence! Although, both Max and Koen can be obnoxious little shits…
How does the production of an Audible Original compare to the level of input you had into the film adaptation of The Love Hypothesis?
I think I am a pretty hands-off author on both fronts. Mostly, I really trust producers and narrators and actors and screenwriters to be great at their craft and to know how to handle stories and characters (while I know very little both about audio production and about how to make a film!)
SR: Bad In Bed has the most in common with Not in Love or Deep End, on the surface - your books where the sexual dynamic is front and center from the start. However, those books aren’t always known as the spiciest in your work - how do you think that Bad in Bed compares in terms of spice level, and did writing it for Audible Original impact how you approached those scenes?
It’s tricky to say, because I don’t necessarily approach writing books thinking that I want them to contain a certain level of spice. To me, it’s more about the characters and the kind of intimacy that is going to be most impactful in their journey, so there is no objective way of measuring and comparing. Billie and Max definitely spend a lot of time in bed throughout the story, but I’ll let readers decide how spicy that time actually feels…
SR: What other tropes or microtropes (or inversions of tropes, like the one bed trope in The Love Hypothesis are your favorites, or the ones that readers/listeners can look forward to in this one?
Billie is from a wealthy background and Max isn’t—I really enjoyed writing that juxtaposition. Also, both Max and Billie are highly competent at what they do. And they do a lot of sneaking around!
SR: Where do you fall on the ‘audiobooks as reading’ question - and on readers speeding up audiobooks? Do you think that audiobooks should be consumed at the speed they are recorded?
I am very fascinated by the never-ending discourse on this topic and would love to reframe it as: why is it that some people feel the need to judge and demean others’ reading habits, choices, speed, quantity, quality, tastes, etc? I think everyone should be allowed to consume art and entertainment in whatever way and format is most accessible to them.
Ali Hazelwood's Top 5 Book Recommendations
- Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh
- My Beautiful Enemy by Sherry Thomas
- Indigo by Beverly Jenkins
- Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas
- Kulti by Mariana Zapata
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.