Witty and warm, Engineering a Love Story questions how much a smart woman can risk when she’s the only female in the room.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Engineering a Love Story by Kathleen Reidy, which releases on October 6th 2026.
It’s the year 2000—dot-coms, Bush v. Gore, and sky-high San Francisco rents. But while the country swoons with irrational exuberance, Chelsea Lefevre’s life is deflating faster than a tech bubble.
She’d had everything she thought she was supposed to want: a house on Boston’s North Shore, exquisite wedding china, a Waspy mother-in-law. A safe, steady marriage.
But after a mortifying slip-up, Chelsea finds herself heading into the 21st century alone. Her lifeboat? A new job advising tech execs, taken to escape the misogyny she endured as a software engineer—only to discover she has a surprising knack for spotting the next hot thing.
Determined just to stay afloat, Chelsea doesn’t have time to wonder if anything beyond safe and steady is possible.
Then, on a West Coast assignment, she meets Seth Murphy, a magnetic sales executive at one of the country’s hottest startups. Professional boundaries make him off-limits, but she can’t resist his pull. What begins as a secret, casual affair soon jeopardizes Chelsea’s career, her newfound independence—and her heart.
From Chapter 1
By the time I pull my car up the sloping rise of our drive, I’m ready to confess. From behind my steering wheel, I see Ash is in the garage, already in his skintight kit and fiddling with a road bike he’s about to ride. He turns at the sound of my engine switching off, and I lift my fingers from the wheel in greeting.
This will be the catalyst, finally. The shove that pushes us into the conversation I’m now certain we need to have.
I planned it all out on the plane, everything I want to say to him. I refused snacks and even ginger ale as I rehearsed this speech I’m about to deliver. There are the facts and then there is the fault, which is all mine.
Slowly, I open my car door and step out. From my trunk, I lift my suitcase, and then I rattle to a spot just outside our open garage door. Afternoon sun warms my back, and there’s more heat in the day than when I left. The air seems brighter. The lilac hedge we inherited when we bought this house a year ago has also popped, filling the breeze with a sweetness that makes me think the seasons changed too in the quick week I was away.
“Hey,” Ash calls from inside the garage, his voice as cheerful as the weather. “Welcome home.” Crossing to where Ash crouches with a wrench in his hand, I keep my gaze steady, attempting to avoid the familiarity all around me. There are Ash’s old bikes and his piles of gear. Boxes of oddball wedding gifts we haven’t in five years felt the need to unpack. Two plastic bins holding college memorabilia, each neatly labeled: Chelsea, Ash.
When I reach Ash, I perch on an overturned milk crate, far away, on the off chance he might lean to kiss me. And I’m aware of watching myself in this moment, when everything is about to change, but this person sitting next to me, this person it seems has always been sitting next to me, has no idea.
“Good trip?” Ash asks, his hands and attention still fixed on his bike.
I nod, pressing my palms into the thighs of my jeans, not daring to even utter our usual pleasantries. If I don’t speak immediately, my certainty might slip, this sureness that slid like a warm glove over my body in the past twelve hours.
I hadn’t expected to find clarity in Orlando—no one probably ever expects that. I was enthusiastic though, flying from Boston down to Florida last Sunday for my first trip to The Gilroy IT Symposium, an event known affectionately as only The Symp around the office. Everyone said The Symp wasn’t as glitzy this year. With the latest rout two week ago, the Nasdaq has lost more than half its value since the start of the year, the froth of the nineties finally overflowing. But not even the bursting of the dot-com bubble could deflate my new-girl energy. After six bewildering years struggling as a woman in the world of software engineering, I’m late to the news you can feel jazzed about something you’re being paid to do.
But at The Symp, I got carried away.
“I’m tired, though,” I say, unable to stop the truth from slipping out. “Listen, I need—”
“Are you sure it’s just the travel wearing you out?”
From my side view, I scrutinize Ash’s face, wondering if he somehow already knows. But his half smile tells me he’s speaking of something else entirely.
One morning back in January, Ash asked me to stop taking the pill. “We could get moving,” he said then, his eyes pointed down as he adjusted his tie. He wants several kids, to be a family like the one he grew up in, and I’ll turn thirty later this year. “It’s a new millennium,” he added. “Could be a milestone in more ways than one.”
What Ash doesn’t know is that when I left for Orlando last Sunday, I actually was late. But my cycle isn’t regular, I couldn’t be sure, and so I stayed quiet. I might want children … someday. And with Ash I’d have Kelsey children, who’d learn all the ways to act in the world—such a gift! I just haven’t felt ready to have those children quite yet.
Then my period arrived as soon as I checked into my floral, Floridian hotel room, and I was swamped by an unexpectedly strong wave of relief. It felt like a bonus, another month when I didn’t have to worry too much about those children, beautiful as they’d undoubtedly be in their tennis whites. After throwing my stained underpants into a seashell trash can under the sink, I left that hotel room buoyed, practically bouncing my way into The Symp.
And that’s when I first met Walter. I tumbled into him right there in the hotel hallway.
“No,” I say to Ash. “It’s not that.” Telling him about my pregnancy scare isn’t part of my plan. It would be cruel to dangle this in front of him if I’m only going to snatch it away.
Ash nods, not interrogating me about my period or anything else. But then Ash isn’t one to make a fuss. He loves his cycling, the world humming by amid a steady whir. Sometimes I think his warm, safe spot as the youngest child in the Kelsey family wore away all his rough edges and jagged bits. I’ve never seen Ash inflamed about anything—or anyone.
The plastic slats of the crate are sharp against my thighs as I lean forward, intending to speak. But the motion pushes my cell phone from my pocket, and the device, slim and silver, clatters on the cement floor. Ash looks at my phone.
“Tried to call you on that thing a couple of times this week,” he says.
I tell him I kept forgetting the phone in my hotel room, avoiding his inherent question of why I never called him back. “I’m just not used to it yet,” I add.
Ash nods again, an easy acceptance I don’t deserve. His gaze shifts back to his bike.
“Listen,” I try again. “We have to—”
“I know,” he says, plucking a tire spoke. “I’m just headed for a quick one. Then we’ll go.”
I sit back. “Go?”
Over one arm, Ash tosses me an odd look. “Aren’t we driving up tonight? I told my folks to expect us, but late.”
“Right,” I say, startled into remembering that I booked the early return to Boston this morning so I’d arrive home with enough time for Ash and I to drive to his family’s place on Squam Lake tonight. Just a few weeks ago I arranged these details, so sure I was then of my plans for this weekend—and my life.
