Yesterday we reviewed–and loved–the latest by Ali Hazelwood who is one of the doyens of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) romance. I think she might be the first author I recall whose work was branded with that title but I’m not sure. STEM romances are also about the long standing and pervasive sexism women scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and those in medicine have faced in their fields and as such often have a lovely sort of depth to the stories they tell.
We have a tag for STEM heroines and it has 81 books attached to it. The oldest reviewed book with that tag is from 1996: Scoundrel by Elizabeth Elliot. (Sadly, it is no longer in print, nor is it available in an ebook.) Its heroine is a master cryptographer! (I really want to read this book!)
I suspect we could add many more titles to the STEM tag. For starters, any book whose heroine is a nurse, a doctor, or midwife should qualify. What other fields qualify? (If you know of any books we haven’t tagged and should, let us know in the comments.)
What’s your favorite romance with a STEM heroine? Do these books call to you? If so, why? My personal favorites is either Sherry Thomas’ Beguiling the Beauty or Meredith Duran’s Written on Your Skin. Suggest others to me, please!
My favorite STEM books are ones where I can feel the passion the women have for their sciences. A few of my favorites include:
The Love Remedy by Elizabeth Everett (Lucy creates salves and lozenges and is an advocate for women’s health.)
Ravished by Amanda Quick (Harriet loves her fossils.)
Tessa Dare’s A Week to be Wicked (Minerva wants to present her work at a Geological Society Symposium.)
Hazelwood’s books (In Not in Love, Rue is working on improving the shelf life of food – she grew up food insecure).
I appreciate when the author shows the challenges these women face and how they overcome them.
How could I forget Harriet and Minerva/
It looks like Soundrel is still available in print at Amazon. I wish it was an ebook. It’s an old favorite.
I want to start a business that gets these old romances updated to ebooks!
Sounds like a brilliant idea!
Probably The Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan followed by The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite.
Lady’s Guide is my go-to for this one.
Penny Reid wrote two series called Laws of Physics and Elements of Chemistry. I have not read any of them but from the synopses I am guessing that they have STEM settings with STEM heroes and heroines.
Elizabeth Everett’s whole oeuvre is wonderful for this category; Lots of other good recs down here, but I love this series a lot. One of the best books I’ve read this year has a scientific heroine (and an artistic hero); we’ll get there.
Historical:
Midsummer Magic by Laura Kinsale is hilarious & excellent
Yes, I remember reading it. Humorous and tender.
Kinsale is always perfect.
Possibly my all-time favorite romance: Earth Bound by Emma Barry and Genevieve Turner, set in the 1960’s. Both main characters work for NASA (or maybe fake NASA).
YESS their whole NASA series is fantastic!
If you read m/m, Kay Simone’s One Giant Leap features a romance between an astronaut and the communications officer who is the crew’s link to home. It’s the longest of long distance romances – the leads don’t meet face-to-face until about ⅔ way in – and it’s lovely.
I was thinking about the mm I’ve read that have a character in a STEM occupation and I realized that in romance, that isn’t super common for mm books either. Yes, there are books with people in the medical field, say, but it’s rarely germaine to the story. Lots of sports, musicians, military or quasi-military careers like bodyguards and PIs.
I definitely enjoyed One Giant Leap, and one that stood out recently was Natural Enemies by Roan Parrish, where both men are botanist, and one is in research. His dedication to his research plays a big part in the story.
It just made me think that stereotyping of main character jobs happens to male characters as well, with male leads often having a job that feels very masculine, like motorcycle groups, body builders, carpenters/builders, athlete, military or such, or they are very high-powered, like billionaire execs, or music stars. It’s not always, of course, and I’m sure I could come up with plenty of examples of non-sterotypically masculine roles, but you don’t have to look far to see a sort of machismo attitude in mm as well.
Hi Carrie, I feel like I have read a fair number of M/M romances where one of the characters was a scientist (and not a medical doctor). Many of these are less angsty reads or NA romances so maybe this is where our reading experiences differ? There are also several authors who have written “nerd vs jock” series, in which the nerd is often a STEM major (but not always). Here are some examples (the starred ones I highly recommend):
Lane Hayes’ The Script Club series (6 books)
Eli Easton and Tara Lain’s Nerds vs Jocks series (4 books)
N.R. Walker’s Imago series (3 books, same characters)*
Mia Monroe’s Written in the Stars series (2 books)
Project Hero and The Inconvenient Love, both by Briar Prescott*
Always by Loren Leigh*
Get What You Need by Jeanette Grey*
I’ve read Imago, but not the rest of the series, and Project Hero. I’d forgotten them. I haven’t had the mixed results Eli Easton, but I’ll look these up. I’ll look the other one’s up, thanks for the recs. I’m not familiar with Loren Leigh or Jeanette Grey.
I was thinking of books where the occupation was intregal to the story, and not just a backstory, so I know I missed plenty of titles. I also don’t read much NA these days. I generally like protagoinist to at least be out of college, and older (30’s and 40’s are great).
Ooh, thank you! I hadn’t heard of this but will definitely check it out. What a fantastic premise.
Susannah Nix wrote a series called Chemistry Lessons and I enjoyed a few of those.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned Helen Hoang yet – I remember The Kiss Quotient was marketed hard as a STEM romance.
And Kate Claybourn’s Beginner’s Luck has a STEM heroine in Kit.
Everything’s Fine by Cecilia Rabess is sort of on the border between romance and something else, but it was lovely and SO ACCURATE. Beginner’s Luck by Kate Clayborn is nice, a bonus because the science isn’t’ total garbage (a huge pet peeve of mine). Emma Barry’s Earth Bound is A+. Christina Lauren’ Soulmate Equation. Flowers in the Storm by Laura Kinsale (though it’s the man who’s the mathematician, she is more of a transcriber). Penny Reid has several, including 10 tips to seduce your best friend.
Oh and The Prince by Katherine Ashe — the heroine is pretending to be a man to go to med school. Falling for Enemy by Claire Kingsley has dueling psychologists. The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson, My Darling Caroline by Adele Ashworth (she’s an aspiring botanist and polymath).
I very much like My Darling Caroline. Very realistic in the way the heroine saw her choices.
This is one tag that I don’t have on Goodreads, but maybe I should! I’m not sure I could pick out specific titles off the top of my head, I often don’t remember characters and story plots, unless it’s a really really good book and I have a reason to specifically remember it. I do like stories with STEM heroines though, since I’m one myself as an analytical chemist in my day job.
I liked Ali Hazelwood’s THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS more than the reviewer here did. She had problems with the hero, whereas I found him understandable and difficult but not cruel. OTOH, I found the heroine often weak and insecure and dithery. Nonetheless, I would have given the book a B rather than a C.
The book also has a personal connection for me. Although it mostly takes place at Stanford, it mentions the biology labs at Harvard. I worked there for 2 years right after earning my undergraduate degree when I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life; it was a safe, in-between space while I sorted things out. Perhaps I liked the hero more than the reviewer because, like Adam Carlsen, my boss had a reputation as difficult and I got lots of warnings when people found out who I worked for, but we got along fine (may have helped that I worked for both him and his wife, another bio professor). The book doesn’t mention one of the best things about the Bio Labs: the 2 rhinoceros statues at the entrance.
https://www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/news/the-return-of-the-rhinos/
I love walking past those!