Review: Love Overdue - Ali Berg and Michelle Klaus

Review: Love Overdue - Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus - July 2025

There’s something especially lovely about receiving a book as a birthday gift, and Love Overdue by Ali Berg and Michelle Klaus arrived in my hands courtesy of one of the Birthday Bookstagram groups I belong to. A paperback, a birthday present and a cute second-chance romance? It certainly sounded like a recipe for a cosy afternoon of reading.

Lauren Green was once a frizzy-haired bookworm with big dreams of becoming a writer who got her heart broken . Twenty years later, she has swapped those writing dreams for a responsible life as vice principal of North Caulfield Primary School. Then Jamie Sultana the boy who broke her heart walks back into her life, and suddenly all those carefully shelved feelings aren't quite as forgotten as Lauren thought.

I really enjoyed the second-chance romance aspect of this story. There’s something wonderfully nostalgic about reconnecting with someone who knew you when you were young, remembering who you were then and discovering who you’ve both become. Lauren and Jamie have history, baggage and plenty of unresolved feelings, and watching them navigate all of that made for some genuinely sweet and amusing moments.

Lauren is a character I could easily picture in real life, colourful dresses and all. I liked her warmth, her bookish nature and the sense that beneath all those responsibilities was a woman who had quietly put some of her own dreams aside. Jamie, meanwhile, has that charming combination of confidence and vulnerability that makes a second-chance hero hard to resist.

And yes, there are plenty of laughs, romance and a little steam along the way. The authors have created a story that feels nostalgic without becoming overly sentimental, and there are some lovely reminders that life doesn't necessarily follow the plot we imagined for ourselves.

My one little disappointment was the setting. Going in, I had expected Love Overdue to be much more library-orientated. With that title, the bookish premise and my own love of books, I was rather hoping for shelves, libraries and perhaps a little more of that cosy library atmosphere! Instead, the story is predominantly set within a primary school environment. While the school setting works perfectly well for Lauren's story, it wasn't quite the bookish haven I had imagined.

Still, Love Overdue was a sweet, entertaining read about first loves, second chances and discovering that sometimes a story isn't finished simply because you thought you'd reached the final page.

Goodreads Link : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/229302270-love-overdue