Every February, we hit Valentine's Day. Some of us eat chocolates, some of us buy flowers,

some of us forget, sometimes, maybe. But do we ever stop and call out the elephant in the

room, that big, empty box at the center of it all? What is love? How does it work? Why does it

work? So this Valentine's Day, we're sharing a favorite episode of ours with you.

It's all about the quest for a scientific answer to one of life's most confounding mysteries.

Look, I'm a romance novelist. I know the money is in those beginning feelings.

Sarah McLean, Casey McQuiston, Talia Hibbert, and Emily Henry are all romance authors and some of the biggest names in their field.

So these are the experts in figuring out how to make two people fall in love.

Every time I sit down to write a new book, I have to think,

okay, why should these people be together?

When I set two characters on page to fall in love,

it's kind of an instant feeling of familiarity and of knowing someone.

There is that adrenaline rush and giddiness that if you were in a slightly different situation,

you'd be like, oh, I'm in danger. I need to run and hide. When it's good banter and you click

with somebody, it's like this high. For some reason, they make you a little bit shinier and they make

you, you know, smarter, funnier or more compassionate and kind, and that's exhilarating to see in characters.

But sometimes the hardest part of the job is getting those characters to cooperate.

Characters might seem like they're exactly right for each other.

And then you put them on the page and you think, oh, no, this won't work.

I thought I wanted to write this one type of pairing, and then this other character just kept jumping and being think, oh no, this won't work. I thought I wanted to write this one type of pairing,

and then this other character just kept jumping and being like,

actually I'm way more compatible with the protagonist.

...