🎧 Reviewed by LD | Rating: 3.2/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read Below Zero yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
The Opening
An aerospace engineer stranded alone in a hole in the Arctic with a sprained ankle, a catastrophic storm closing in, and the man she’s spent months hating crackling over the radio telling her he’s coming. He’s not coming for NASA. He’s coming for her. That’s the whole book in one image and it’s a good one.
The Full Story — Spoilers Included
Three Timelines
Below Zero jumps between three timelines, which is either ambitious or confusing depending on your tolerance for non-linear storytelling. For me it leaned confusing, and I’ll do my best to lay it out clearly here even though the book itself doesn’t always make it easy.
Timeline One — Five Years Before
Hannah Oroyo has wanted to work at NASA since the Curiosity Rover changed her life as a kid. She built her entire academic path around it. While completing her PhD she’s assigned to interview someone working in her chosen field — her friend Mara’s cousin Ian works on the Mars Rover project at NASA and agrees to meet her. He was, hilariously, blackmailed into it with a baby video.
They meet for coffee and she manages to convince him to head to the Jet Propulsion Lab. She convinces him to let her come in and they end up spending hours debugging code together, talking, genuinely connecting. He’s only there temporarily — his home base is Houston — but the chemistry is immediate.
Things get heated. They both get off without fully getting there, if you follow. He asks her to dinner and a real relationship. She turns him down because, she doesn’t date. She has a deeply low opinion of herself and has spent her life feeling like people don’t actually want to spend time with her. and She walks away from what is clearly the best connection she’s had in years because she’s too scared to let it become something.
That night, and the field she ends up specializing in at NASA, are shaped entirely by him.
Timeline Two — Four Years Later, First Day at NASA
Hannah arrives at NASA for orientation and Ian spots her immediately. He walks straight up to her the moment it’s done. They catch up — she’s leaving in a couple of days for a research expedition in Norway, he has to leave for JPL that night. They barely have time to breathe before they’re separated again.
Six months later, she hates him with a passion.
Her supervisor tells her Ian vetoed funding for her project — not because of the project itself, but because of concerns about her specifically. Like her capabilities. Her role in it. The implication is that Ian doesn’t think she’s good enough. She confronts him. He tells her he opposed it because it’s too dangerous. She tells him to get out of her way and refuses to hear another word.
What’s actually happening: her supervisor is corrupt, cutting safety corners and using faulty equipment that will put Hannah’s life at risk. Ian saw it. Ian tried to stop it. Her supervisor got alternative funding anyway and has been carefully engineering Hannah’s anger at Ian ever since, framing everything Ian did as personal rather than protective.
Ian, knowing the mission isn’t safe, takes his personal vacation time and travels to Norway on a boat to sit offshore and track her coordinates. Just in case. He’s been there six days — one full day before she even arrived.
Timeline Three — Present Day, The Arctic
Hannah is in a hole in the ground with a sprained ankle. Her equipment has failed. Her assistant never even came out with her. A catastrophic storm is moving in. NASA tells her it’s too dangerous to send anyone — they’ll get to her after the storm, which by then will be too late.
Ian’s voice comes over the radio. He’s already on his way.
When he reaches her she realizes he isn’t in NASA gear. He isn’t using any NASA equipment. He didn’t come as part of any official mission. He came because he hacked into her tracker, knew something was wrong, and couldn’t leave her there. He risked his own life in genuinely dangerous conditions because the alternative was leaving her to die.
They wait out the storm together in the cabin. The truth comes out — all of it. The veto, the corrupt supervisor, the six days on the boat, all of it. They get home. They’re together.
Best Part of This Book
Ian showing up. Not as a NASA employee following protocol, not because anyone told him to — but because he hacked her tracker, got on a boat, and came anyway. He knew it could kill him. He came. That’s the emotional core of the whole book and it delivers completely.
Worst Part of This Book
The three timelines. Jumping between them constantly makes it genuinely hard to follow the emotional through-line, and some of the STEM-heavy sections run dry in a way that slows the pace significantly. If you’re not a fellow nerd, some of it will probably lose you.
The Steam Rating Breakdown
🔥🔥 — Fade to black energy with one more heated moment early on. This is very much a romance driven by emotional tension rather than physical heat. The STEM is doing more heavy lifting than the steam.
The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?
Satisfied. The cabin scene where everything finally comes out is the payoff this book is building toward and it lands. Everything Ian has done in the background while Hannah thought he hated her — once it’s all laid out — hits exactly right.
Would I Reread It?
Yes — already have.
Who Is This For
Anyone who loves the “secretly protecting her the whole time” trope, STEM romance, or a hero who shows up in the most literal possible sense. If non-linear timelines frustrate you or science-heavy content isn’t your thing, adjust your expectations going in.
Where to Get This Book
📱 Ebook
Kindle .ca | Kindle .com
🎧 Audiobook
Audible Canada | Audible US | Libro.fm
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Plot Twisted. 🔥