The Theory of Love

Theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway is on the verge of being derailed by the many lives she leads. Most days, she is an adjunct professor, preoccupied with the arduous demands of lab work and thermodynamics lectures, dreaming of a professional position that will finally give her stability. On other days... well, on other days, as a way to make up for her non-existent salary, she works as a fake girlfriend, drawing on her innate skills to become whatever version of herself her client prefers.

As luck would have it, she actually enjoys the job—until her own world falls apart. The culprit is Jack Smith, her favorite client's irritatingly attractive older brother; and also the experimental physicist who ruined her mentor's career and tarnished the reputations of a number of other theoretical physicists everywhere. And, as if that weren't enough, it is the same Jack Smith who sits on the MIT hiring committee, standing between Elsie and the job she wants.

Elsie thinks she is prepared for an all-out war of academic sabotage... but what is she to do about those lingering, piercing glances? What is she to do about the feeling that she no longer has to be anyone but herself whenever she is near Jack?