Love, Theoretically

By day, Elsie Hannaway is an underpaid adjunct theoretical physicist stretched thin across too many campuses; on the side, she works as a professional fake girlfriend, becoming whatever each client needs her to be. The two worlds collide when she meets Jack Smith — the older brother of her favorite client, a celebrated experimental physicist, and, as far as Elsie is concerned, the man who once torpedoed her mentor's career.

Worse, Jack sits on the hiring committee for the tenure-track MIT job that could finally change Elsie's life. As their sparring turns into something harder to categorize, she has to decide whether the person she becomes around Jack might be the truest version of herself.

Ali Hazelwood's third STEM rom-com is a witty, warm story about ambition, code-switching, and the risk of letting yourself be fully known.