Since publishing her debut novel, The Love Hypothesis, in 2021, the semi-anonymous best-selling author Ali Hazelwood has become known for her immensely popular STEM romances. (Hazelwood is a pseudonym for an Italian-born, U.S.-based former neuroscience professor who left academia to focus on writing. She keeps details about her identity private.) Her 2023 novel, Love, Theoretically, is a rivals-to-lovers charmer about physicist and adjunct professor Elsie Hannaway, who has been secretly working for an app that lets men hire fake girlfriends for family events. Elsie’s harmless (if slightly embarrassing) part-time gig was just a way to make a little extra cash while working toward getting a full-time job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She doesn’t even use her real name on the app. But when she realizes that Jack Smith, her work nemesis, is also the older brother of her favorite client, she begins to worry that her side hustle may keep her from getting her dream job. To smooth things over with Jack, who, as luck would have it, is on the MIT hiring committee, she has to tell the truth. Unfortunately, in this laugh-out-loud love story, fessing up to the obnoxiously alluring Jack is much harder than Elsie ever thought it would be.
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