Thanks NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced copy.

This was a cute read. I'm pretty sure I know more about dentistry than I would like (in a good way). The tension between Dan and Harper was amazing but honestly sometimes I wanted to yell at Harper, Get it together girl!

This is such a good read. Harper and Dan feel so real. They each have so many things going on in their own lives. This book is a good reminder that love happens even when you don't want it to. This book shines a light on what it is like, or can be like, to live with anxiety.

This book has so many great characters. They are fun, and knowledgeable. Overall an enjoyable listen. The narrators did such an incredible job bringing this story to life.

I got to about 50% but unfortunately confirmed that I am not good at reading audiobooks. I did not like how they did the multiple voices in this audiobook, and I think I would have rather had the female read the male parts. It was confusing when the male tried to do the girls voice. The story line was cute, but I couldn’t get through the audiobook.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

Rating is for the audiobook reading not the story

A Brush with Love, unfortunately, did not manage to meet my expectations for this genre or work.

The Instalove was too insta and highly unbelievable. The protagonist is hard on herself to the point of self-destruction and debilitation. While I do not shirk away from romances that dare to offer discourse around "serious" topics such as mental health (i.e., The Charm Offensive) I do not feel this book achieved those aims.

The humor was fine, but most of this novel just didn't land for me. Not to mention all the dental jargon just did not appeal to me as a reader.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I was not that into this book. I like the dynamic of Harper and Dan, but the mental health/panic attack issues seem to overrun the book. I see that there is a need to bring these issues to light but I also think that it can be too much. I like to read Romance books with romance and to escape everyday issues and I didnt find that in this.

I really enjoyed the representation in this novel. I like the way anxiety was handled on the page, although I don't suffer from anxiety and can't comment to the accuracy or sensitivity of those portrayals.

I did not like the main character. I found her annoying and I was often frustrated by the way she stood in her own way. I found the romance between Harper & Dan too instantaneous and their intimate scenes felt cheesy and unbelievable.

I was not a fan of this interpretation of the medical romance - I hate the dentist and any descriptions of dental work were cringy for me. Although this is a problem with me, not the work.

I loved the sense of humour throughout - Harper and especially the side characters.

Yikes. This was not good.

I am so baffled by A Brush With Love. This is a romance book; that is, an entire book that is, at least in large part, dedicated to developing a romance. Where, pray tell, is the development, then, because it is definitely Not Here.

To put it plainly, A Brush With Love is unbearably instalovey. In Chapter 1, the main character, Harper, accidentally bumps into the love interest, Dan, in a stairway. She breaks some teeth mold thing (?) of his and wants to make it up to him so they arrange to meet together the next day so she can help him redo it. In the next chapter or two, they redo this mold and then hang out. And this is when I start having trouble suspending my disbelief--literally two chapters into the book and it's already going downhill. During that first meeting of theirs, there are already so many instalovey things happening: Harper is so proud of Dan for remaking the mold that when they hug, she puts her palm to his cheek (can you imagine doing this to a person you've literally just met??), they meet in a diner and basically give each other their life's backstories, they go back to Harper's place and almost kiss, and on top of all that the whole time all they're thinking about is how desperate they are to kiss each other, touch each other, etc. etc. etc. Let me remind you that, at this point, they've known each other for less than a couple of hours. And I just ??????? I am so deeply confused, because this novel almost immediately fails at the one thing that it's supposed to do: DEVELOP THE ROMANCE. Where is the tension????? The best part of a romance is getting to see how the characters grow closer over time, how they slowly learn more about each other and how that translates into them wanting to be with each other. None of this is present here because the novel just gives you all of these things without actually leading up to them: you get honesty and intimacy and attraction, but none of it means anything because it doesn't grow organically out of the characters' interactions.

And because it doesn't do that initial fundamental work of building its romance, the novel's foundation is not strong enough to really sustain anything that comes after. It already lost me from the very beginning, so anything it tried to do afterwards was just doomed to fail. The romance started out as contrived, and it just continued to be contrived. And also SO cringey. Seeing people who have literally just met be so obsessed with each did not endear me to them at all.

Other issues include: clunky dialogue, irritating side characters (you can't just make a character crass and have that be her entire personality), and ~kooky~ scenes that were trying to be funny but that weren't funny in the slightest.

Listen, I can forgive romances a lot, but I can't overlook a failure to do the very basic work of developing the romance.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for providing me with an audiobook ARC of this via NetGalley.

I liked it, but I think I had high expectations of this being one of my favorite romances of 2022. It was enjoyable, but there is a lot of mental health/family guilt topics that were heavy and made this cute love story more challenging for me to enjoy. Instead, I was left feeling sad for both main characters. Even though they find love, they have some major personal issues that they are working through. I was hoping for a lighter book with a cute meet story.

I would like to thank NetGalley for the audiobook to listen to to give my honest feedback.

This was a fun love story about a lady that is to hard on herself. She gets in and puts herself through dental school with aspirations to be a oral surgeon. She did not however put in and plan to fall in love or make any time in her life for love. One day it just happens she see and meets the most amazing man. Through many ups and downs and her doubting herself she eventually gives in and falls in love. Their love story is a fun one!

Harper and Dan are both dental students in Philadelphia who meet and feel an instant connection. Though they ultimately decide to become friends instead of lovers, they cannot deny their feelings forever. Both characters have struggles throughout the book - Harper struggles with anxiety and grief over the death of her mother and Dan struggles with family expectations following the death of his father.

I think one thing I really didn't love about the book was the constant "will they, won't they" and then the fact that Dan very consciously agreed to be Harper's friend with the goal of eventually wearing her down enough in order to seduce her into confronting her true feelings. I found that pretty manipulative - if a woman tells you she wants to be friends and you are incapable of that because of your own feelings, then you should be honest and remove yourself from the situation.

While I appreciated the storylines of anxiety, grief, and family obligation, it unfortunately fell a bit flat for me. The scenes where Harper was experiencing panic attacks were difficult to listen to and I can imagine them being fairly realistic. However, I personally just do not vibe with the storyline of "going to therapy is bad, it means I've failed" etc. It's 2022 - while I understand some people do feel that way, particularly the younger generations are so much better at getting help than previous generations that it doesn't feel particularly realistic to me (especially in the way Harper was refusing help).

Thank you NetGalley and McMillan Audio for the Advanced Audiobook of a Brush with Love in exchange for an honest review.

Source of book: NetGalley - Thank you for the opportunity to listen to this audio book ahead of release!

This book was a cute romance about a hyper-focused dental student, Harper, who stumbles upon another dental student, Dan, that she tries oh so hard not to fall in love with. Harper is the top of her class, working towards a very prestigious residency program while Dan is there at dental school to follow in his father's footsteps (although he'd much rather be doing just about anything else). I enjoyed listening to the audio book as the chapters alternated between Dan and Harper (and had different narrators too).

I wanted to love this book so much - but it just fell short for me for a romance. I really loved the Dan character - I thought he was very dynamic, very compelling and I loved how he ultimately broke away from the mold he felt forced to fall into, leaving dental school and returning back to a career in finance. He unapologetically loved Harper. However, I really struggled with Harper - I know some of it was who her character was, but I just felt she didn't really love Dan and it felt forced.

Also, I love a good medical romance/drama, but I can honestly say that dental medical romance didn't do it for me - and brought me back far too often to the orthodontist chair when I was a teenager (impressions and all!)

A Brush with Love by Mazey Eddings
4/5 Stars
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

•••Spoiler free review below•••

While I am in the majority of people who like cute romance books with cartoon characters on the cover, I am also in the minority of people who actually enjoy going to the dentist. Even if going to the dentist absolutely terrifies you, I am confident you can still enjoy this funny, sweet love story.

In A Brush with Love we follow Dan and Harper, both dental students, who are completing courses for entirely different reasons. Their romance is so heart warming right from the beginning that you will want to finish this book in one sitting. Their banter and overall adorableness had me grinning while reading. ALSO, we had alternating POVs between chapters which...come on...I think we can all agree we need more of that in these romance books 😉.

This book does also deal with some important mental health issues and facilitates discussions of coping treatments and therapy. The author did a wonderful job, in my opinion, of portraying Harper's anxiety in an authentic way while still being respectful. She also did a great job of showing that you can't blame someone for their mental health issues but that doesn't give them the excuse to mistreat others.

I would absolutely LOVE to see more of Harper and Dan but I would also love to learn more about Harper's three BFFs that we see throughout the story. Rumor has it a sequel featuring Lizzie is due out in September...

This book will be released March 1st and if it's not already on your tbr, it should be!
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TW: Discussion of anxiety, anxiety in social settings, on page panic attack, discussion of death of a parent and different ways one might feel about that

This was a good slow burn romance, the MCs became best friends first and such a mutual respect for each other. I really felt the author did an amazing job writing in the anxiety storyline. I also liked how the story was based on a dental residency as that’s not something you see in books. It covered loss, family issues and trust issues. A fantastic read. Great Narration

Thank you NetGalley and McMillan Audio for the ALC of a Brush with Love. I am sharing my review voluntarily. This is a cute story in a unique setting. I liked the rawness of the characters and how believable the resolution was. The friends were great side characters.

The audio was well done and the narrators were entertaining and skilled. I got a sense that I may not have enjoyed the book or even finished it if I had read it rather than listened.

I appreciated the viewpoints about grief, anxiety and family obligation. It annoyed me that people in Harper’s life wanted to her to be practical about something complex and illogical. I also found Dan to be annoying at times. His hero/savior complex was agonizing to listen to and he came off as schmalzy.

I also found the themes of sexism true but a bit heavy handed at times and then just left without further exploration. Perhaps that is to highlight their inevitably and pervasiveness. It annoyed me and maybe that was the point.

I’d recommend giving this a listen for a quick story, that is not light hearted but realistic and touching.

wowowow this blew my expectations out of the park. This is such a raw, insightful look into living with an anxiety disorder especially mixed with academics. The chemistry between Dan and Harper is soooo ooey gooey heartwarming and tender, I ate it all up. Overall this book was such a good romance story (with a little bit of spice) and is easily up everyone's alley.

This book is so dang cute!!! I really loved it. There is great anxiety and perfectionist representation in this one. I always love feeling seen when reading a book and this one did that for me. I love how committed Harper was to her goals and how hard she was working towards them - I felt that and can relate to over compensating in that department.

There is a little insta-love in this one but honestly it is done so well and so adorably. Harper is guarded so they don’t dive into a relationship right away and are able to build a good friendship which is sweet. This one skirts the line between new adult and adult romance since both are in grad school and could be appropriately placed in either. It also has a few steamy moments which for some reason I was not expecting! Maybe from the cover? I loved it! I definitely recommend it!

Also here is another book pubbing on my birthday!!! What a great day March 1st is going to be this year!

Rating: Really Enjoyed It

This book follows Harper and Dan, two dental students in Philadelphia. Harper has severe anxiety and Dan is dealing with parental expectations forcing him into a career path he doesn't want. They were a nice couple to read about and there were some decent steamy scenes in this one!

What I liked:
- I loved the depiction of Harper's anxiety. It's great to see mental health discussed and portrayed in fiction, and I feel like the depiction in this was done well
- The author included a content warning at the beginning. These should be normalized
- I enjoyed the story itself. I was invested in the characters, and I loved the side characters. I think that the author will hopefully be writing some spin offs to follow Harper's 3 friends, and I really hope this is the case
- I thought that the romance was written well and that there was a little bit of steam, which was great
- Judy the cat was a delight

What I didn't like:
- I felt like the angst and the will-they, won't-they aspect towards the beginning was way too drawn out. I was frustrated by the number of times we circled the same issues. This was present throughout the whole book but was particularly bad toward the beginning
- I thought that the prose at times was absurdly cheesy and super cliche. Those pieces really took me out of the story and had me rolling my eyes hard
- The pacing felt a bit off and really dragged in the middle before picking up again

Audiobook: I really liked the female narrator, Emily Lawrence, and did not like the male narrator, Vikas Adam, very much. I personally would have been happy if Emily Lawrence had narrated the whole thing. i just really didn't like the way that the male narrator imitated a female voice and by the end it really grated on me. I don't think that I would specifically recommend consuming via audiobook either because the cheesy portions were not possible to skim.

Overall, what I liked about this definitely outweighed what I didn't like. I had a great time with it and it was one of my more enjoyable romance reads this year. Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillian Audio for an advance copy of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review. This title releases on March 1, 2022.

Sweet and sensual! Fun and light while still tackling larger mental health issues. The dual POV is always a win for me and I thought the audiobook narrators did a great job!! Would definitely recommend.

A Brush with Love by Mazey Eddings was a cute rom-con based on Hannah and Dan who are both dental students. Hannah is focused on her studies and can never think of having a relationship, no matter how hard her friends push her. But when she stumbles upon Dan, literally, sparks fly. Will Dan be the change that Hannah has been looking for or will Hannah's steadfast professionalism get in the way?

This was a fun read. There were some times where the story was a little slow for me but overall a good read. I think the audio really helped me to get through the story, because the female narrator did a wonderful job. Some parts of the male narration were a little off-putting especially when he was speaking for a female character like Hannah's or his mom. I liked the two point of views though and thought that it helped bring the story together.

Overall, a solid romantic comedy that deals with anxiety and loss of a loved one. I do like the author's note that was provided and felt that it was heartfelt.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

A Brush with Love is a cute and steamy romance read with moments to remember. I listened to the book and the narrator made it hard to consintrate. Would love reading a physical copy.