Adam Carlsen

Adam Carlsen is the brilliant, guarded biology professor and central love interest of Olive Smith in Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis — a scientist with a formidable professional reputation and reportedly terrible social manner who agrees to help Olive maintain a fake relationship after she kisses him to convince her best friend she is over her ex. What begins as a practical arrangement becomes something neither of them anticipated as they spend more time in each other's company.

Hazelwood writes Adam as a character whose abrasiveness is professional rather than personal — he is demanding and exacting with students and colleagues because he takes science seriously, not because he is indifferent to the people around him. His genuine respect for Olive's research, which he expresses through engagement rather than compliments, is the romance's most credible foundation.

The academic biology setting is rendered with Hazelwood's characteristic insider knowledge of STEM academic culture — the lab hierarchies, the grant politics, the specific pressures of a PhD program and the relationships between faculty and graduate students give the romance its authentic institutional texture.

Begin with The Love Hypothesis (2021).