The Algorithm Didn't Know About Us

The Algorithm Didn't Know About Us

She built an algorithm to prove love could be predicted. He's the one data point it got completely wrong.

Nia Carter doesn't believe in chemistry. She believes in patterns—in the six hundred data points that make up her new compatibility engine, Amara, and in the six years of work she's poured into proving that heartbreak is a problem you can engineer your way out of. So when her own algorithm flags chef Julian Hayes as her worst possible match, a two percent compatibility score out of six hundred people, she treats it exactly like she treats every other result: as information. Not a warning.

Then her company's biggest investors book his restaurant to cater their launch party, and Nia meets the man behind the number in person—infuriating, unbothered, and completely unimpressed by her spreadsheets.

Julian doesn't believe in algorithms. He believes his parents fell in love because of a blizzard, a broken-down car, and nothing that could ever be quantified. When a publicity stunt throws him and Nia together for five dates as a marketing experiment, he agrees for one reason only: to prove her precious model wrong.

What neither of them plans for is what happens next. Not the arguing. Not the late-night kitchen rescues. Not the way two people who were never supposed to work discover that some of the best things in life were never meant to be predicted at all.

A witty, heart-tugging opposites-attract romance for anyone who's ever wondered whether the numbers—or the person standing right in front of you—are the ones actually telling the truth.