Love & Lidocaine

Hope Elmswood has spent her entire life in a dental office, whether she wanted to or not.

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A few months after graduating as a dental hygienist and preparing to submit her dental-school applications, she’s completely burned out. And after a frightening incident with her father’s neurotic dental associate, she realizes she has to get away from the dental world…now. 

With nothing but a suitcase and a dream she’s never been allowed to chase, Hope flees to a small mountain town to stay in her brother’s off-grid survival cabin.

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She’s finally going to find a job she doesn’t despise, with no dentist drama and no spit.

But her plans for a dental-free existence unravel when she literally runs into her handsome new neighbor, Jay Alarcón. At first, he seems harmless enough, until Hope discovers he just so happens to be the very thing she ran from: a dentist.

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Hope wants absolutely nothing to do with her new neighbor. Dentists are her personal villain origin story. But when a series of mishaps forces her to accept a job at his clinic and rent his accessory apartment, Hope starts to wonder if maybe not all dentists are the same. 

As Hope confronts her anxiety and workplace trauma, she begins to wonder if healing and love might be possible after all.