Give Me Butterflies

by Jillian Meadows

Contemporary Romance

Grumpy Sunshine

Slow Burn

340 Pages

"This story reached right into my chest, grabbed my heart, and didn't let go. Millie and Finn are the opposites attract love story of my dreams. I'll be thinking about these characters for a long time."

Synopsis

Millie loves her job as a natural science curator, inspiring museum visitors with her passion for entomology every day. When a rare director position opens up, she's determined to land it — nothing is going to derail her focus. Not even her grumpy coworker Finn, with his permanent scowl, electric blue eyes, and seemingly endless supply of astronomy ties. Not that she's noticed. Finn Ashford doesn't mean to glare at everyone. He's quietly juggling grief, trying to be there for his two young nieces, and failing at dinner for the fifth night in a row. When Millie walks into her interview and finds Finn sitting on the committee, she realizes the one man who could derail her promotion is also the one man she can't stop thinking about. Give Me Butterflies is a slow-burn, steamy STEM romance about a sunshine entomologist, a grumpy astronomer with a soft center, and the kind of nerdy, fiery tension that makes it impossible to root against either of them.

Our Take

If Ali Hazelwood's STEMinist romances are your comfort read of choice, Give Me Butterflies belongs on your shelf immediately. Jillian Meadows' debut does everything the grumpy-sunshine trope promises and then quietly surpasses it — because underneath the nerdy banter and slow-burn tension is a genuinely moving story about grief, anxiety, and two people learning to let someone in again. Finn is the rare romance hero who is gruff with the world but unmistakably tender where it counts, and the found family thread running through this book — especially his relationship with his nieces — gives it an emotional depth that lingers long after the final page. Publishers Weekly and Booklist both gave it starred reviews, with Publishers Weekly calling it "funny, sexy, sweet, and deliciously nerdy." Kirkus called it "a delectable blend of sugar and spice." It earned every word of that praise. Perfect for readers who loved Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis, Tessa Bailey's It Happened One Summer, or B.K. Borison's Lovelight Farms.