Blurb: A Brush With Love is about Harper and Dan meeting at dental school and falling in love. Harper is a top notch, no nonsense student who deals with her anxiety by striving to do her best in school and avoid all distractions. So, when Harper begins to fall for Dan, who is also a medical student, she tries to keep her distance to preserve her lifestyle.

This is going to be a strange review because I can’t decide what to think of this book! On the one hand, I loved the character development and emphasis on healing that wove it’s way through this book! On the other hand, the romance fell a little flat for me and I didn’t really connect with the story.

This was a really cute, rom-com style book with a sweet love story and fun friends. That being said, it also did a wonderful job discussing challenging topics like women in STEM, anxiety and panic attacks, death of a parent, and therapy. I loved how the characters grew and strengthened during this book!!

Overall, this was a good book. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was really cute with great themes! I recommend this book to romance readers who like books about working women, dealing with grief, and (dentistry-based) humor 😂.

Harper is a final year dental student with an anxiety disorder who has no time for distractions, including relationships. Dan is a first year dental student who does not really want to be a dentist or take on the family practice, but has been guilted into going to dental school. This is their very cute story of falling in love.

This was a different but very well done story. I liked the setting of dental school, including people who did not want to be in school. The author did a great job of writing a complex character with an anxiety disorder and being in a relationship did not "solve" her disorder. This was a dual POV narration and it was great! The narrators really made you feel like they were the characters in their emotional deliveries, especially in the last few chapters.

The main characters take you on a whirlwind trip of emotions culminating in a happily ever after, but be forewarned that you'll need a tissue or two to get through this one. It's an emotional rollercoaster wrought with anxiety and sadness that leads to an inability to completely connect. Never fear, you will get your happily ever after, but it's quite a journey to get there. While this isn't a light, fluffy romance, it is a romance that has a bit more meat to it with the underlying mental health issues that are woven throughout. I am definitely intrigued by this author's writing and will be looking for more from her.

Friends to lovers isnt really my favorite trope, so I cant say too much about this book. But I did appreciate the way the author represented anxiety and how the MC dealt with it. Anxiety looks different for everyone, but I feel this book did a good job of showing just a little of what it is like for some people, and how much it can effect every aspect of your life.
I don't like I'll ever reread this book, but I'm glad I read it!

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to listen to this advanced reader copy. This honest review was based off my experience listening to this ARC, which in no way biased me. All opinions are my own.

First off, I would like to say this is the first book I have read from this author, but it definitely will not be my last.

Now, lets get to the good stuff. This book was a very pleasant surprise. Going into this I knew I was going to like it, but I definitely UNDERESTIMATED how much. Here I thought I was walking into a cute, fluffy, little contemporary romcom, but what I got? It was that plus very well handled heavy topics. (AND THATS HOW HEAVY TOPICS IN CONTEMPORARY ROMANCES SHOULD GO *cough cough* @ another book that did this terribly).

Here we have Harper, the 26 year old FMC, bestie was so fucking relatable I almost felt personally attacked. She is a senior in dental school applying for residencies to become an oral surgeon when she quite LITERALLY falls down the stairs into Dan. Dan is the 26 year old MLI/MMC. He comes from a family of dentists, but went into finance until some unfortunate situations had him change gears and is now a first year dental student.

Harper struggles with mental illness, this has been an ongoing thing but definitely got worse after a traumatic accident that left her an orphan. Since then she has had some internal ableism against herself that she has to work through. Meanwhile Dan has to deal with the verbal abuse/neglect of his now dead father, and the guilt he feels towards his mother. Through his side of the story we get to see familial legacy and what happens when someone doesn’t follow in the family footsteps.

This book had a surprising slow burn strangers to friends to lovers relationship that I just ATE UP. It was amazing and I was listening to this audio at work trying to hide my grin or my laughs. This book brought me to tears almost twice, and I like to think I am a tough bitch, but damn this shit made my chest hurt (in all the good ways).

I was ready to buy my own copy of this book before the halfway mark. I had a wonderful time and this definitely deserves all the 5 stars I am giving it.

A Brush with Love follows dentistry students, Harper and Dan as they crash into each other's lives. Harper is top of her class and is dreaming of getting into an oral surgery residency. While Dan is only in dentistry school to make his mom happy but it's the last place he wants to be.
I loved the title of this book. It had a great meet cute and I really liked Harper's friends but that was about it for me. I struggled with connecting to the main characters and their relationship. I would find myself zoning out while listening to the story.
This book just wasn't for me but that doesn't mean others won't love it.

📚 A Brush with Love (listened to audio version)
✍ Mazey Eddings
📖 Contemporary Romance
⭐ 3.5/5

Thank you to @netgalley and @macmillanaudio for the ARC of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Fourth year dentistry student Harper eats, sleeps and breaths root canals, fillings and oral surgery and is just weeks away from hearing whether she's secured a spot in a highly competitive residency program when she literally runs into Dan. As first-year dental student with a family legacy to contend with, Dan doesn’t have the same passion for pulling teeth that Harper does but he's immediately smitten with her.

Despite a mutual attraction that's hard to resist, Harper is determined to keep her focus on her studies and quickly friend-zones Dan. Through months of late night study sessions, deep conversations and quirky grocery store races, that attraction becomes harder and harder to resist but both will need to fight inner demons they've put off battling before they can give in to love.

What I loved: Eddings was able to shift seamlessly between light-hearted banter and LOL moments and raw commentary on the challenges of living with an anxiety disorder. Dan was a sweet MMC that demonstrated how a truly compassionate partner both supports and challenges their sig. other in situations related to mental health while being committed to the relationship. Dental school was a unique setting for a romance book and it looks like Eddings is giving some happily-ever after spin-offs so some of Harper's boisterous buddies in her next few books!

What I didn't: I really enjoyed the narration of Harper's side of things on the audiobook and liked Dan's character when he was voicing Dan but when the narrator voicing Dan's parts voiced anything that Harper was saying, I cringed. The awkward falsetto was just too much and it made it difficult to take anything Harper was saying to Dan seriously. That combined with a really high ration of pining to action made the story a little less appealing for me. Overall though, a sweet story with some depth/commentary on living with mental illness.

Read if you love:
*mental health awareness (spec. anxiety)
*medical school/dental school settings
*slow-burn romance

TW:
panic attacks, robust descriptions of living with an anxiety disorder

See also: Booked on a Feeling, Sadie on a Plate, The Heart Principle

#abrushwithlove #mazeyeddings #medschoolromance #dentalromance #romcom #bookstagram #bookreviews #romancereviews #bookstagrammer

Thank you Net Galley for a copy of A Brush with Love in exchange for an honest review

This romance book was filled with laughable, embarrassing and cute moments. As well as, family drama and anxiety representation

Harper is a dental student anxiously waiting for acceptance into the top oral surgery program and Dan is a first year dental student after leaving his dream finance job to help his family business. Together the two navigate dental school, family drama and internal issues.

Overall it was a cute and fast read.

Pros:
- Trigger warning at the beginning of the book (can we please make this a normal and common thing)
- Anxiety representation
- adorable moments of the couple together

Cons
- Pacing, the book felt rushed in some moments (like the end) but snail slow in others.
- Insta love. Personally because of the pace it felt like the characters jumped very quickly from being nothing to being in love

If dentistry and romance are two things you enjoy, you should definitely pick up A Brush with Love.

This was an enjoyable read - if not a little stressful. I appreciated the unique setting of a dental school, and it was clear that the author was an expert in the subject. I thought that the book held importance in the representation of anxiety - but on the whole, it was not for me. As a person with anxiety, I know that it manifests in different ways for different people, and appreciated the insight into how the main character, Harper, dealt with hers in a realistic way. The instant-love trope is not one of my favorites, so that is perhaps why this romance in this book fell a little flat for me. Overall though, if you are looking for a cute and realistic romance, with no big outside conflict, this book hits those boxes.

I feel as though it was slow getting going and into it at first. I really liked it and thought the characters were really cute and felt real. Although with the two different speakers I thought it would be first person, where it seems as though they were telling their story versus third-person storytelling. I still feel like this was a good book and had a lot of feelings and down-to-earth feelings.

I liked it for some things, didn’t like it for others. I’m very on board with the exploration of grief and mental illness and certainly the stigma we’re guilty of putting on ourselves when it comes to society’s views of those with mental illness. I loved that. And I loved that aspect of the story.

I did not, however, like how Harper dealt with her perfectionism. That was extremely difficult to listen to, and that could have just been a personal thing, but I found myself mad at her and that just took away from it for me.

I also don’t necessarily love the idea that they met in chapter one and instantly we’re in this story about their attraction. I always feel like that’s weirdly fake? I don’t know.

Like I said, liked it, but didn’t love it.

This was a cute rom-com. I appreciated the anxiety representation. Beyond that representation, there wasn't anything unique about it. I honestly hate going to the dentist, which I think made this book a little more cringe for me than it may otherwise have been. Trigger warnings for ableism and misogyny.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the ARC copy.

What a great debut novel from Mazey Eddings! The author's foreword was so thoughtful. I've never read a book with one and I appreciated the content warnings. I am not easily triggered, but it was nice to know what I was getting into before listening to this audiobook. This was such a fun and unique plot. Both main characters are dealing with anxiety in their own ways and are able to come together to help each other all while falling in love. How can you not go "Awwwww!"?

I read this book through NetGalley. A Brush with Love is a unique twist to a rom-com. Harper and Dan are easy to relate to which makes it easy to fall in love with their characters. I found myself rooting for Dan from the very beginning of the book.

Interesting spin on dental school. Cute romance, likable characters. The narrators did a great job and I enjoyed listening to them read this book. It made for a good walking audiobook.

Thank you to the author, publisher, narrator and Net Galley for providing a free e-audio copy of this title in exchange for my review.

This was a cute, fluffy type rom-com book, but also dealt with some hard facts - stress in school, anxiety concerns, loss of parents.

Overall I enjoyed the story, it was easy to read and flowed fairly well. Narration was well done. But I didn't feel the connection between Harper and Dan - it felt forced, like her friends pressured her into it more than anything else. It was a bit difficult to believe that Harper's friends were so close to her, spent so much time with her yet didn't have any indication that she was experiencing anxiety issues. It was also difficult to believe that Harper could go through so many years of medical training and was so resistant against therapy for her anxiety.

Not a bad book, certainly needs some trigger warnings.

3 stars for 'liked it'

This book is very cute. The struggles the to MC's face are, in my opinion, fairly relatable. I very much enjoyed it.

Harper is just trying to finish her schooling for oral surgery and move on to her residency. Her anxiety keeps her from doing a lot of activities which works out in her favor academically.

Then she meets Dan. He helps her through some pretty severe panic attacks and stays “just friends” with her even though he wants much more than that.

They both grapple with their past and future, which inevitably drives them apart. Distance makes the heart grow fonder though and at her graduation Harper realizes what she lost and what she wants.

I love how this book shed some light on mental illness. It was super cute how Dan supported her through the dark days. I hated that she friend zoned him though, ugh!

Wow! This book surprised me in such a good way. I had a little bit of a hard time getting into the book, but it didn't take long before I was hooked. I laughed and I cried with Harper and Dan! So glad I had the opportunity to listen to this audio book. I cannot wait to explore this author further!

A Brush With Love is my second book from Mazey Eddings and I find I like her more and more with each book I devour.

Love blossoms between two young dental students in this book, with an epic will they or won't they showdown to last the ages.

However, while I loved the characters and the story, perhaps what I loved most of all was the absolute lifelike portrayal of someone living with extreme anxiety. Eddings was able to write the character of Harper so realistically, handling her anxiety with the tender touch everyone who deals with the issue could only ever hope to be treated with. Her storyline of learning to let others in, to truly show her self, is a storyline I know first hand and seeing it portrayed in the pages so beautifully really gave me hope for the character as well as myself.

I will continue to pick up Eddings book, and highly recommend A Brush With Love to anyone who is looking for a lighthearted, sometimes steamy read, that shows the love between found family.