Ali Hazelwood Heats up the Video Game World in Enemies-to-Lovers RomanceTwo Can Play(Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Ali Hazelwood and the cover of ‘Two Can Play’.Photo:Penguin Random House; Spotify Audiobooks

Penguin Random House; Spotify Audiobooks

Like so many of us this year, romance novelist Ali Hazelwood couldn’t get enough of Luca Guadagnino’s tennis movieChallengers.“I literally started looking for fanfiction the second the movie was over,” the Italian writer, who writes under the Hazelwood pen name, tells PEOPLE. “If people were not giving me the right answer when I ask, ‘Who do you ship?’ — and the right answer is, ‘All three of them together’ — I was like, ‘We’re not friends anymore.’”Like theZendaya-led film, competition runs rampant in many of the bestselling novelist’s books, too. There’s the STEM-based academic rivalry in her runaway success, the 2021 novelThe Love Hypothesis, and the competition between a diver and swimmer in her upcoming 2025 release,Deep End.

But in the author’s new audio-only novella,Two Can Play, available Oct. 1 through Spotify Audiobooks, Hazelwood turns her pen toward the world of gaming — a world that the author admits she was only familiar with in passing.

Spotify Audiobooks

“I get really excited about the things that my friends get excited about,” the author adds. “I think it’s a fandom thing. I just love when my friends have special interests and I get interested in what they are excited about.”

Two Can Playis an enemies-to-lovers romance following Viola, a video game designer forced to adapt her favorite book series with Jesse, her co-lead who wants nothing to do with her, per the book’s description. Things heat up when the two are forced to spend time together during a winter retreat at an isolated mountain lodge.

The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!“When I was writing this, I was asking my friends their opinions about games, and then they become opinions of the characters,” Hazelwood says of the subject matter. “It was just so fun.”

The cover of Ali Hazelwood’s 2021 novel ‘The Love Hypothesis’.Penguin Random House

Penguin Random House

Even though she’s not a gamer, the authordoesknow the fandom realm well. Hazelwood famously got her start writing fanfiction —The Love Hypothesiswas originally aStar Warsfanfiction — and says that despite her status as a revered romance novelist, her readership feels more like a mutual relationship than anything.“On the one hand, there are people who are like, ‘Oh my God, I love your books.’ But then I am talking with those people about how much we loveotherpeople’s books,” Hazelwood says. “It just feels like it’s more of a community than me having a readership … It feels very equal to me lots of times.”

Ali Hazelwood.Penguin Random House

“I think audiobooks are fantastic,” Hazelwood adds. “I love narrators. Some narrators, they’re actors. They are so talented, they bring everything to life. They make me think of characters in ways that I hadn’t before. It’s a whole art.”The romance genre is also one Hazelwood loves to read. Writers likeYulin Kuang, Nalini Singh and Shirlene Obuobi are among some of the author’s favorites, and she gravitates more toward the paranormal romance genre too. Hazelwood has some thoughts on theTwilightbooks, however.

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.“It was never quite smutty enough for me,” the author says. “Listen, I got to admit who I am.”And for readers who, like Hazelwood, gravitate toward different sub-genres depending on the weather, good news:Two Can Playwill serve that purpose.“I just hope people will like it and that it will give them a few hours of escapism in their fall and winter,” the author says.Two Can Playis available now through Spotify Audiobooks, and can be purchased at any audiobook retailer.

source: people.com