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 arrogant 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 he’s the same Jack Smith who rules over the physics department at MIT, standing 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?
Release Date: Jun 13, 2023
Heat Level: Scorching
Publisher: Penguin Group
Imprint: Berkley
Price: $10.99
Elsie has struggled a bit in life. She is pursuing her dream job at MIT’s physics department. In the meantime, she is working as an adjunct professor and a fake dater to pay the bills. I found the whole fake dater to be rather interesting. She is an all-around good girl, except she is just too much of a people pleaser.
With her sights on the dream job, she narrows in on Jack, the head of the physics department. He destroyed her mentor’s career and is the brother of her favorite client. How is she supposed to go up against him? He has the ability to grant or dash away her dreams. Elsie is determined not to go out without a fight.
Jack did not know Elsie was working at MIT. He has no plans on giving her the position but the more time he spends around her, the more he realizes that who he thought she was, in the beginning, a complete façade. In fact, he is enjoying getting to know the real Elsie.
I came into thinking it may be a miss. I’m not going to lie. I have had a few misses by the author, but she did manage to lure me right in this time. I’m so glad to have read this enemies-to-lovers STEM romance. The two characters rub each other wrong but have such strong chemistry.
Jack comes around way longer quicker than Elsie as she held onto resentment for what transpired between him and her mentor. I really disliked the whole mentor ploy because it was a very weak attempt to create angst between them. At that point, it really didn’t hold weight and made Elsie appear childish at times.
Overall, I recommend
~ Samantha
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