Olive Smith

Olive Smith is the quirky, science-focused PhD candidate protagonist of Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis — a third-year biology graduate student who kisses the intimidating Professor Adam Carlsen to convince her best friend she has moved on from her ex, and who finds herself in a fake relationship with the last person she expected in order to maintain the deception. Hazelwood writes Olive with warmth and genuine scientific curiosity — her passion for her pancreatic cancer research and her slightly chaotic approach to everything that isn't science are equally defining.

Olive's position in the academic hierarchy — a graduate student who needs her advisor's support, who has funding concerns, and who is navigating the politics of a biology department while trying to conduct actual research — gives the romance its specific institutional context and its genuine stakes. Her fake relationship with Adam affects her professional situation in ways that the romance must honestly address.

The Love Hypothesis became one of the bestselling academic romances in recent publishing history, establishing Hazelwood as one of the genre's defining authors and spawning significant interest in STEM romance fiction more broadly.

Begin with The Love Hypothesis (2021).