witchbuns

Nicole Alfrine, 2026.

Three and a half stars for a rom com set in the first year of surgical residency. Delilah got into her dream hospital for Neurosurgical residency, trailed by her nemesis Brad. She’s accustomed to competing and sparring with him, but he wants a change of tone for this new chapter, and it takes her much of the novel to adapt and relearn her relationship with him. And yeah, she’s gotta fall in love with him, if she can trust herself.

I really appreciated that Delilah was both hard working and flawed: we see her studying for surgeries and although she has innate talent, the girl is pushing herself and earning every opportunity. We also see her not trusting the friends around her and keeping people out, always on her guard. As a woman of colour in a highly competitive field, we understand that she’s built this armour where it was needed to survive. Brad doesn’t disclose his feelings to her, and although his displays of affection are top notch and he is devoted to her success, his mixed signals give her reason to jump to conclusions.

The spice between them was really hot, with our girl getting lots of attention from Brad and taking what she needs with no questions or doubts. That was a lot of fun because she shows an innate belief in herself in all areas. I do wish that she’d had deeper relationships with her friend the anesthesiologist so that she could have had deeper conversations about the situationship with Brad, rather than keeping it all in. If she’d covered some of that ambiguity with her girlfriend, we might have had more space for her in the second and third acts to reflect on other areas of her life and connect more deeply to other people, or more storylines to hear about the cases that her friends are working. We’re in Delilah’s head a lot, and I wanted to zoom out to the larger hospital and have some fun seeing overlap with other interns, or experiences with the other students of colour.

Overall, it’s a light read and a big win for fans of Grey’s Anatomy and medical soaps, because it’s very much an episode of the interns trying to stay awake and alert through cases and love lives. I appreciated the multicultural storylines and emphasis on the medicine as well, but I did want to see more self-awareness from the heroine.

Thank you to NetGalley, Wattpad WEBTOON Book Group, and the Nicole Alfrine for the ARC to review early.