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Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

Romance

Love, Theoretically

by Ali Hazelwood

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Quick take

Physicist by day, fake girlfriend by night—life seems to be in stable orbit until a new colleague swoops in comet-like.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, 400

    400+ pages

  • Illustrated icon, Quirky

    Quirky

  • Illustrated icon, Salacious

    Salacious

  • Illustrated icon, Enemies_to_Love

    Enemies to lovers

Synopsis

The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she’s an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs.

Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, right between Elsie and her dream job.

Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but . . . those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?

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Get an early look from the first pages of Love, Theoretically.

Love, Theoretically

PROLOGUE

In my life I have experienced regret, embarrassment, maybe even a touch of agony. But nothing, absolutely nothing prepared me for the ignominy of finding myself in a bathroom stall, pressed against the arrogant older brother of the guy I’ve been pretending to date for the past six months.

It’s an award-winning, rock-bottoming low. Especially when coupled with the knowledge that Jack Smith is saving my ass. When he picks me up by the waist to maneuver me around the cramped space, gravity-defyingly strong, I’m not sure what’s worse: the fact that his hands are all that prevent me from crumpling like a scrunchie, or the mortifying amount of gratitude I feel toward him.

“Settle down, Elsie,” he says against the skin of my cheek, terse as usual, but also incongruously soothing. He’s close—too close. I’m close—too close. Not nearly close enough? The sweet oblivion of death. “And stop fidgeting.”

“I’m not fidgeting, Jack,” I say, fidgeting.

But after a second I just give in. I close my eyes. Relax into his chest. Feel the scent of him in my nostrils, anchoring me to sanity. And wonder which one, out of my millions of asinine life choices, led me to this moment.

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Why I love it

The best parts of having a crush are the giddiness, the hyperactive joy, and the wondering of what will come next. Which is to say, if it’s possible to have a crush on a book, I have a massive one on Love, Theoretically. The latest from romance mastermind Ali Hazelwood delivers on all the sappy, giggly, and blush-worthy fun of falling in love, full of clever and science-filled twists.

Elsie Hannaway, a theoretical physicist and a fake-girlfriend-for-hire, should be good at handling abstract concepts like romantic feelings. But as she finds herself battling it out with stoic experimentalist Jack Smith for her dream job, it turns out she has a lot to learn. She’s not just figuring out how to stand up for herself in a toxic workplace, and be vulnerable with people in her life, but also maybe how to turn all those longing looks and flirty insults in the halls of MIT into something more.

Elsie and Jack are incredibly easy characters to love, even if they have to figure that out for themselves over the course of this story. But I can’t wait to see readers fall for them as deeply, and happily, as I did. If you enjoy screaming for characters to “just kiss already,” an intellectual battle of wits with hidden flirty subtext, or a heroine learning how to be her true self, this is the romance for you.

Other books by Ali Hazelwood

Member ratings (14,851)

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Romance
View all
Yours Truly
One-Star Romance
Leather & Lark
The Pairing
Is She Really Going Out With Him?
Pictures of You
PS: I Hate You
Happily Never After
The Paradise Problem
The Love of My Afterlife
Not in Love
The Rom-Commers
The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
Butcher & Blackbird
The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love
Ready or Not
Four Weekends and a Funeral
Just for the Summer
The Second Chance Year
A Winter in New York
This Spells Love
Red, White & Royal Blue
You, Again
Love, Theoretically
People We Meet on Vacation
Hello Stranger
Stars in Your Eyes
Part of Your World
Love & Other Disasters
Georgie, All Along
It Ends with Us
The Heart Principle
The True Love Experiment
A Rogue of One's Own
The Holiday Swap
The Bodyguard
The Love Hypothesis
One Last Stop
The Bride Test
Love on the Brain
Head Over Heels
Most Wonderful
The Reunion
This Time Next Year
One Day in December
Things You Save in a Fire
Lunar Love
Bringing Down the Duke
Ana María and the Fox
Beach Read
Before I Let Go
The Boyfriend Project
How to Marry Keanu Reeves in 90 Days
The Heiress Gets a Duke
The Rewind
In a Holidaze
Kiss Her Once for Me