DESCRIPTION:
Neuroscientist Dr. Frances Silberstein has success on the brain. As a grad student, she was offered a job by her brilliant boyfriend, but determined to make it on her own, she turned it—and him—down. Now, stuck in postdoc purgatory with no job security and no personal life to speak of, Frances is desperate to make a breakthrough. Her best shot is a summer conference packed with her field’s leading scientists. The only problem? It’s organized by her ex, who has found the success that’s eluded her. But backing out is not an option, because Frances desperately needs to network to save her career.
Enter Dr. Lewis North: her perceptive, meticulous, and inconveniently attractive rival. When their academic sniping gets mistaken for flirtatious chemistry, Frances doesn’t deny it—putting her integrity and career on the line. As soon as her prefrontal cortex is operational again, Frances realizes she needs to keep up the charade, or risk everything she’s worked for. Faking data is out of the question, but fake dating? That might just be the solution she needs.
But as Lewis starts to make her reward centers spark and a major setback has Frances questioning everything, she must confront what she’s willing to chase—for love, for science, and for the future she thought she wanted.
Dr. Frances Silverstein is undeniably brilliant. A gifted neuroscientist, she is chasing a career-defining grant that could finally provide the stability she’s long been seeking. Yet while her professional ambitions are clear, her personal life feels far less certain, and this leaves her quite unsettled.
Complicating matters is her growing attraction to fellow neuroscientist Dr. Lewis North, a man she considers her nemesis. Lewis once gave a sharply unfavorable review to Frances’s work, leaving her doubting not only her research but her own instincts. Now, as they find themselves competing for the very same grant, tensions rise. In an effort to strengthen her chances, Frances agrees to a fake dating arrangement with Lewis during the approval process. This quickly blurs the lines between rivalry and romance.
One of the more compelling elements of the story is the dynamic between Frances and her sister. That relationship adds emotional texture and a welcome layer of complexity. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough to keep me fully invested. With the familiar pairing of enemies-to-lovers and fake dating tropes, the story follows a well-worn path, and Frances herself struggles to truly come into her own.
I was immediately drawn to this novel because I’m always eager to read about a STEM heroine. I love seeing women portrayed as exceptionally intelligent while navigating the challenge of balancing ambition and personal fulfillment. Sadly, this one fell short for me. At times, the central relationship felt more forced than organic, and the professional rivalry bordered on exaggerated. Between her ongoing conflict with Lewis and the growing friction with her sister, I found it difficult to connect with Frances as a character. The romantic spice also didn’t quite work for me.
That said, Love and Other Brain Experiments is Hannah Brohm’s debut novel, and there is clear potential in her storytelling. While this particular story didn’t fully resonate with me, I would be open to reading her work again in the future.
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