“Sincerity, my research had taught me, was often seen as a vulnerability. To earnestly express a feeling was a weakness. It was part of the reason people—including, but not limited to, Professor Christian Fisher—liked to hang shit on romance novels. There was something inherently earnest at their heart: a sincere love and hope and joy that readers often reacted to with the same feelings, a delicate flower that provoked some people to want to crush it.”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair

What do you know about the cutthroat world of academia? Personally, I know next to nothing, but a new romance, and start to a new series, by Jodi McAlister called An Academic Affair discusses the lengths that people go through in order to secure an academic job. If you’re interested in a marriage of convenience or a rivals to lovers romance, I recommend you give this title a read!

Sadie Shaw and Jonah Fisher, English professors and academic rivals, have been fighting since they first met as undergraduates almost fifteen years ago. While they have been battling about almost anything and everything, they have had stalemates over the years. Teaching part-time and both dreaming of a full-time secured job, the two are shocked when a new teaching opportunity comes available that they are both qualified for. Obviously they are both going to apply for it and obviously their rivalry is going to reach untold heights.

Sadie and Jonah have their own reasons for wanting this job. For Sadie, she would finally have a full-time teaching position and the financial security and freedom that comes along with said job. The same is also true for Jonah, plus this job is in the same town as his recently separated sister, thus allowing him to help her and her children. Only one of them can get this job though.

After the hire is announced, Sadie discovers that the job offers partner hire. This may be a way for them both to secure full-time employment! Sadie proposes a legal marriage of convenience to Jonah. What could possibly go wrong? The positives far outweigh the negatives, but when the two spend more and more time together, their opinions of each other change. Maybe they could actually be friends? Or something more?

Let me be honest: I checked this book out based purely on the cover! This is a marriage of convenience, rivals to lovers, and open door romance that had me kicking my feet and giggling as the characters grew. The relationship between Sadie and Jonah was incredibly genuine and felt like it could have actually happened. Jodi McAlister is releasing a sequel called A Study in Sparkling which should be publishing in July 2026, starring some of the side characters from An Academic Affair. I can’t wait.

Literary Lovers (or Love Notes) series

1. An Academic Affair (2025)
2. A Study in Sparkling (2026)