Mara Ellison builds systems for a living.
Clean logic. Clear outcomes. No mess.
When she creates PAIRWISE, a new kind of dating app designed to be smarter, calmer, and more ethical than endless swiping, it quickly becomes a sensation. Unlike other apps, PAIRWISE does not chase attention. It asks better questions. It encourages pauses. It promises something rare in modern dating: intention.
Then the app begins doing something unexpected.
Using patterns of emotional carryover and unfinished attachment, PAIRWISE starts intervening. Gently at first. Quietly. Deciding who should not date yet. Deciding who still has something unresolved.
And then it pairs Mara with the one man she never fully let go of.
Theo Calder is not a mistake in the data. He is the reason the data exists.
As public fascination turns into backlash, and as users begin confronting truths they were not prepared to face, Mara is forced to reckon with a question she never thought she would have to answer:
Who gets to decide when someone is ready for love?
As the line between help and harm blurs, Mara must choose between defending a system that works and protecting the people it touches. At the same time, she and Theo are drawn into a careful, unoptimised reconnection that refuses to follow rules, prompts, or predictions.
The Algorithm of Love is a smart, emotionally grounded contemporary romance about choice, consent, and what happens when technology learns too much about the human heart.
It is not a story about finding the perfect match.
It is a story about choosing to be present.
