5/5

For fans of: fake dating, contemporary romance, grumpy meets sunshine, spicy books, arrogant jerks who hate the world but love fiercely, pining, female gaze, STEM, women in STEM, diversity in STEM, the cutthroat world of academia

Synopsis: Ph D. candidate Olive Smith wants just one thing, to do research in a lab that could one day help save lives. Love is not something she thinks she is even capable of, let alone have time for. Her best friend Anh, however, wants her to also have a life. When caught up in a lie about a date, Olive somehow ropes in the notoriously unpleasant academic hotshot Dr. Adam Carlson into a fake dating scheme. She needs to convince her friends she is in a relationship and he needs to convince Stanford University that he isn’t going to up and leave despite the constant headhunting from other universities and private labs. Can they convince Olive’s friends and Adam’s bosses that love is in the air? A fated shared hotel room at a work conference will test this scheme and their resolve to keep things…scientific.

Review: I had heard rumors of a Reylo-inspired contemporary novel coming down the pipeline a while back on Twitter and didn’t want to get my hopes up so I didn’t pay too much attention. Once I started seeing the book pop up on Book of the Month lists, quotes on Twitter, and photos all over Bookstagram, I had to have it. Of course it was sold out everywhere, but once my copy finally arrived, I couldn’t stop reading it. I inhaled the book in 48 hours while riding the subway, eating breakfast at a diner before work, and finally forcing myself to put it down so I could sleep before having to teach on a Friday. Olive is adorable with her awkward social skills, heart of gold, and badass scientific skills. Adam is arrogant, a nightmare to his grad students, but away from that world, he is something entirely different and far more intriguing than Olive expected. Thank God for mask mandates because I looked like an absolutely lunatic maniacally smiling and quietly squealing to myself, texting one of my best friends who already read the book, and annoying my husband to death recapping what just happened every few minutes. All the awkwardness, the growing attraction, the overthinking of every interaction, THE REVEALS, my heart just refused to let me think clearly until I finished this book. GO BUY IT, BORROW IT FROM THE LIBRARY, LISTEN TO IT ON AUDIBLE. You will not be disappointed, I promise.