Written in 2024, Not in Love is Ali Hazelwood’s fifth contemporary adult romance novel and follows the contradictory interactions of Rue, a brilliant but socially awkward engineer, and Eli, a cofounder of the private equity firm that is trying to take over Kline, the company that employs Rue. Although the two are attracted to each other, Rue feels that indulging in a romantic relationship with Eli is tantamount to showing disloyalty to Kline’s CEO, Florence, who has been her friend and mentor for years. As they teach each other how to love, both Rue and Eli ultimately learn that an honest relationship must be founded on genuine loyalty.

In addition to penning Not in Love, Ali Hazelwood has also written a young adult romance and several novellas. Because she is a professor in the field of neuroscience, all of her adult romances feature characters who are immersed in STEM-related fields, and each story illustrates a different angle on the common conflicts that arise in such male-dominated spaces. Two of her previous novels, The Love Hypothesis and Love, Theoretically, became New York Times Best Sellers, and The Love Hypothesis is currently being adapted for film by Bisous Pictures.

This guide refers to the 2024 Berkley Romance paperback edition.

Content Warning: Both the source text and this guide contain descriptions of sexually explicit scenes, child abandonment, death, food insecurity, and disordered eating.

Plot Summary

Dr. Rue Siebert works at Kline, a biotech startup company. When a private equity group called Harkness takes over Kline’s loan, Rue and her best friend, Tisha, worry that they will lose their jobs. Rue also learns that one of the Harkness representatives is Eli Killgore, a man whom she met the night before when they connected via a dating app designed for one-night stands and casual sexual encounters. Their date was ruined by the invasion of Rue’s volatile brother, Vincent, who was angry over Rue’s refusal to relinquish her half of a cabin that they both inherited from their father. Eli, believing the man to be an ex-boyfriend, chased Vincent away and drove Rue home. Eli was attracted to Rue and was disappointed that their night did not go as planned. She kissed him goodnight and gave him her phone number before going inside.

Now, Eli requests interviews with all the team leaders, including Rue. He tells her that he doesn’t believe there is a conflict of interest if they want to see each other again, but Rue is not interested in dating someone who is a threat to Florence’s career and her own. After talking to Rue, Eli meets with his friends and fellow Harkness members—Conor “Hark” Harkness, Minami, and Sul—and admits to knowing Rue in a romantic context. The friends also discuss their first impressions of Kline and Florence and their intention to gain ownership of the biofuel tech that she has developed. However, Eli’s personal relationship with Rue could complicate their plans, especially given that Rue is very close to Florence. After the meeting, Eli goes home, where he lives with his younger sister, Maya, and a huge dog named Tiny.

Eli visits Rue at her lab, and although they agree that their physical attraction is undeniable, Rue still refuses to date him. Meanwhile, Hark and Eli try to find a way to force Florence to share the documents that they need to investigate whether she has been adhering to the terms of her loan; they decide to contact members of Kline’s board. When Eli and Rue are both invited to a Kline board member’s retirement party, they kiss on the balcony and agree to attempt a tryst later on. After they have sex, their emotional connection deepens, and they share traumatic stories from their childhood. When they later run into each other at the ice rink, they learn that they both love to skate and that the same ice rink offered both of them a safe space during their turbulent childhoods. Eli is intrigued by Rue’s serious demeanor and wants to learn everything about her in order to make her happy. He knows that Tisha and Florence are Rue’s best friends, but he and his team at Harkness know something about Florence that will challenge everything that Rue believes about her.

They continue sleeping together and become a part of each other’s lives. Eli knows that he is in love with Rue, but he also knows that she is not used to being in a relationship, and he doesn’t want to scare her away with his intense feelings. Rue eventually discovers that Florence knew Eli, Minami, and Hark when they were graduate students and has been lying to Rue by claiming never to have met them.

One night, Rue’s brother, Vincent, shows up at her apartment, so she calls Eli, who convinces Vincent to leave and then spends the night with Rue. Rue tells him that her father left when she was six, after which her mother’s inconsistent work was the family’s only source of income. Rue and Vincent would often go hungry for days at a time, and as an adult, she has developed a disordered relationship with food. She also doesn’t want to take official action against Vincent because she feels responsible for him and believes that she let him down by going to college and leaving him behind. Eli comforts her, and they fall asleep.

The next morning, Rue decides to find out the real story about Florence. Eli tells her everything. He, Minami, Sul, and Hark were all graduate students at the University of Texas (UT) in the chemical engineering program. Florence became their faculty advisor and worked closely with them. Eli reveals that Minami invented the biofuel tech that Florence later used to found Kline; Florence stole Minami’s and filed a patent for it in order to lay claim to it. Eli and Hark were then asked to leave UT, so they never completed their PhDs. Eli had no money and had assumed custody of his younger sister, Maya. Hark’s father had always wanted him to go into finance, so the friends pivoted and started a private equity firm with the goal of eventually buying Kline’s loan and taking Minami’s biofuel tech back from Florence. Rue is shocked to learn that the woman she thought of as her friend and mentor could do something so terrible. Realizing that Eli and Harkness are not the villains in this scenario, Rue provides the documents that Harkness needs to incriminate Florence.

Meanwhile, Florence is trying to sell some of the tech developed by Kline employees, including Rue’s microbial coating, for which she has been trying to file a patent. Nyota, Tisha’s sister, calls Rue and tells her that her patent is not valid because the board never signed off on it. This means that her idea belongs to Kline, and Florence can legally sell it. Rue realizes that Florence is about to do to her what she once did to Minami. Before Rue can take action, Eli negotiates with Florence and agrees to allow her to remain CEO of Kline in exchange for Rue’s patent. He also has Hark’s lawyers figure out a payment plan for Rue so that she can buy Vincent’s share of the cabin.

Rue has a difficult time expressing her love for Eli because she has never felt this way before. She makes a grand gesture at the skating rink despite her fears. As they skate together, she admits her love for him and commits to a relationship. She also warns him that he might find her difficult to live with.

One year later, Rue and Eli are staying in her father’s cabin in Indiana and are taking Eli’s dog for a walk. Eli proposes, and she accepts.