Steminist Stories

Ella Quinn didn't plan on becoming a ghost, just ended up that way. Ghostwriting her stolen thesis. Ghosting dates that turned to disasters. Ghosting the version of herself who trusted too easily. Her ex-boyfriend Alex is thriving off the academic work he claimed as his own. His new girlfriend is shiny and perfect and entirely unbothered by ethics. Ella's once-promising future is stuck in limbo, dictated by bad advisors, worse funding, and the tiny, sharp voice in her head that won't shut up about everything she's lost. Then there's "N." An anonymous message. A question about AI. A connection she didn't ask for but slowly begins to crave. Whoever he is, he listens. He challenges her. He sees the brilliance no one else bothers to notice anymore.

Inspired by Ali Hazelwoods STEMinist Novels: Stella Rodriguez's dream of her very own research expedition to protect and conserve endangered sharks has been ripped out from under her, due to budget cuts at the university she works for, UC Santa Cruz. Instead, she is offered an assisting position on Kai Jackson's research. Even if it's not her dream job, it's still work, so she embarks on a journey to the Great Barrier Reef with a man she has just met and already has an unexplainably complicated relationship with. As tensions rise around their research project, and it's continued failure to get results, and around the spark neither of them can deny, both of them feel like their swimming in the deep end and can't seem to figure a way out.