Grad or Die Romance, Book #1
Romance, Contemporary Romance
Date Published: February 14, 2026
forced proximity STEMinist romance for fans of Ali Hazelwood and Abby Jimenez.
Mathematician Daisy Zhang-Wainwright’s fiancé Ethan
unceremoniously dumps her 29 days before she’s due to move cross-country
to be with him and start a new university job. But Daisy’s always been
stubborn, and she’s not about to turn down a postdoc at MIT over a
failed relationship, so here she is, in a last-minute apartment with minimal
furniture, no friends, and a dumpster fire of a bank account.
To make matters worse, her new downstairs neighbor is Professor Lars
Berg-Anderson, Ethan’s academic rival, infamously cold and notoriously
antisocial. Daisy has barely settled in when she discovers that not only is
Ethan in a new relationship, it’s with Daisy’s new potential
colleague… who is pregnant. Daisy doesn’t need her math PhD to
work out that the two relationships overlapped.
So when the happy couple arrives at Daisy’s house-warming party, what
can she do but impulsively suggest Lars kiss her? Lars might be MIT’s
ice man, but he’s also objectively hot. But, the more time they spend
together, the harder it is for either of them to maintain appropriate
boundaries. Daisy’s not ready for anything serious and Lars believes
relationships have an “unfavorable benefit to effort ratio”, so
these two are definitely way too smart to get emotionally entangled in a
for-show, completely fake, rebound. Right?
I’m a blessed (but often exhausted) mother of four. I learned English by
reading regency-era romances by the bagful, and when I ran out of escapist
fiction that was exactly the type I wanted (usually lower stakes, usually
lighter on the angst though sometimes I lean in), I started to write my own. I
also publish children’s books under Marie Chow.
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