And while Don quickly disqualifies her as a candidate for the Wife Project, as a DNA expert Don is particularly suited to help Rosie on her own quest: identifying her biological father. She also is strangely beguiling, fiery, and intelligent. And so, in the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers. MEET DON TILLMAN, a brilliant yet socially challenged professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife. Don's Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie - and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent - and on a quest of her own. She will be punctual and logical - most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a 'wonderful' husband, his first reaction is shock.

He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion