The Soulmate Equation
Christina Lauren's The Soulmate Equation, published in 2021, is a smart, sweet contemporary romance that puts a genetics startup at the heart of its meet-cute. Jess Davis is a thirty-year-old freelance statistician raising her seven-year-old daughter Juno in San Diego with the help of her grandparents. After years of bad dates and worse breakups, she has effectively retired from romance and channels her energy into work, family, and a daily caffeine pilgrimage to her favorite coffee shop. There she keeps overhearing a tall, glowering scientist named River Pena, the cofounder of GeneticAlly, a startup that uses DNA analysis to score compatibility between potential partners. On a dare from her best friend, Jess submits her sample, mostly as a joke, and is told her score with one of the founders is 98, the highest ever recorded. River, who has spent his career on the data and not on himself, agrees to date her in exchange for the publicity her case will bring the company. Christina Lauren, the writing duo of Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, lean into their strengths here: clever banter, found family, the slow opening of two guarded people, and a love story that is willing to be funny without giving up emotional weight.
Where The Soulmate Equation keeps showing up
Three of our editors' lists feature this novel.
Also by Christina Lauren
What you might want to know about The Soulmate Equation
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Single-mother San Diego statistician Jess Davis spits in a tube on a coffee shop dare and is matched at a record ninety-eight percent compatibility with Dr. River Pena, the irritable founder of the GeneticAlly DNA matchmaking startup. The company offers them a paid trial as its public test couple.
Yes. The Soulmate Equation contains explicit on-page romance scenes, around 4 out of 5 on the spice scale. Christina Lauren is known for steamy contemporary romcoms with banter.
Yes. The Soulmate Equation contains explicit on-page romance scenes, around 4 out of 5 on the spice scale. Christina Lauren is known for steamy contemporary romcoms with banter.
The Soulmate Equation is a standalone Christina Lauren novel. The duo has written more than 30 connected and standalone romcoms.
The Soulmate Equation was written by Christina Lauren, published in 2021 by Gallery Books.
The Soulmate Equation is 368 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Soulmate Equation takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
The Soulmate Equation is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
