Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Melissa R. Collings’s new release: The Love Operation
A brilliant spine surgeon gains the power to perfectly recall her past―only to discover that some memories are better left undisturbed. A witty, emotional story about the intersection of medicine, memory, and the messy reality of loving imperfectly.
Dr. Cordelia Wren has always been in control―of her surgical career, her emotions, and especially her memories. But when she joins a cutting-edge memory enhancement study at her hospital, she gains an unexpected ability: the power to vividly relive any moment from her past. It seems like the perfect opportunity to analyze her failed relationships and finally understand why every man she’s ever loved has walked away.
There’s just one problem. Actually, three:
She may have…borrowed…access to the highly restricted memory study.
She’s secretly dating the hospital’s new COO while competing for chief of surgery―a relationship that could destroy both their careers if discovered.
Her first love has just reappeared in her life, stirring up feelings she thought she’d buried.
As Cordelia dives deeper into her past, the lines between memory and reality begin to blur. The truth she uncovers forces her to question everything she thought she knew about love, ambition, and what it means to be “in control.”
With her career hanging in the balance and her heart pulled in two directions, Cordelia must decide: Should she trust the memories that have shaped her life, or finally let go of the past to embrace an uncertain future?
Perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Ali Hazelwood, The Love Operation is a witty, emotional story about the intersection of medicine, memory, and the messy reality of loving imperfectly.
Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from The Love Operation
EXCERPT — from THE LOVE OPERATION by Melissa R. Collings, Text copyright © 2026 by Melissa R. Collings,
Published by Mindy’ Book Studio
From Chapter 4 Betcha Can’t Have Just One
“It’s just a coffee,” I tell Tad Cooper the next morning, as if he’s my skeptical lizard dad with a firm stance on my love life.
I sling my lab coat over my shoulder sexy trench style, as if I’m not wearing hospital-issued, antiseptic-scented scrubs.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I mutter. “It’s not a date. I’m going to shut this down.”
And then I march out before he can rotate those judgmental, satellite dish eyeballs at me.
Except, the universe wants to be humorous (or an evil bitch) because I’m yanked back when my coat fuses with the door. I attempt to free myself, but it’s like this coat and that door have conspired to teach me a life lesson, and both hold firm.
That’s when I feel it—Tad Cooper on the other side of the door laughing his ass off, his impossibly cute little mitten hands death-gripping his faux tree branch so he doesn’t fall in hilarity.
“This means nothing, Tad Cooper!” I yell through the wood, and I hear him roll his eyes.
I should calmly open the door, remove the coat, and proceed to my not-date. But no. I yank. The house and I engage in a spirited game of tug-of-war. House wins, the smug piece of architecture retaining a small corner of my coat, its consolation prize.
Chin up. I will not be derailed by this. I get in my car.
This means nothing. It’s not a date. It’s coffee. Two professionals ironing out life.
I picture life being laid out and ironed, every crease erased by heat and friction. And then I wish I hadn’t just thought of heat and friction.
When I arrive at 1 Hotel Nashville, I think, I shouldn’t have agreed to meeting at a hotel.
It’s not like I’m going to sweep our coffees off the table, climb onto it, and breathily whisper that we should get a room.
I’m not.
But the fluttering in my stomach makes me feel like I could, which is alarming.
I text Isaac: I’m in the lobby.
I should’ve texted: This is a fucking hotel, Isaac. Why are we meeting at a hotel?
But I didn’t, and not just because I don’t know how to underline a word when texting. I just came here, no questions asked, like a woman who answered a Craigslist ad and naively expected not to get murdered.
Isaac: 19th floor. Harriet’s Rooftop. Already got the coffees.
How is a text this sexy? He’s so clear, to the point. The lack of subjects and verbs is wildly erotic.
It may seem like I’m abandoning my feminism here, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I like it when a man knows what he wants. When he doesn’t hedge, doesn’t ask. Just tells. But that’s only because I know what I want. I don’t hedge. I’m just as forceful, if not more so.
It’s like finding a worthy opponent in tennis. Not that I play tennis. But if I did, I imagine that’s what this is like. Beating an inferior player is satisfying, but beating an equal? Now, that’s the stuff of life.
And precisely why I shouldn’t be meeting Isaac Thompson.
I don’t respond. I simply take the elevator up to the nineteenth floor and exit when the doors open with a soft ding. I square my shoulders, walking forward with determination.
But then I stop. Because this? This is a setup, a full-blown thirst trap. Harriet—whoever she is—is not on my side. Harriet wants to test my self-control. I should’ve told Isaac to meet me at a sewage treatment plant.
This place—atmosphere times ten.
Lush with plants.
Indoors melting into open-air patio seating.
Low glass walls.
Potted plants frame the edges like they were curated to make me want to strip out of my torn lab coat.
Buildings sparkling in the distance, a backdrop that is carefree and grounded at the same time.
Plush couches, low-set, organic wood tables—furniture free to be itself.
Intimacy. Openness. Freedom.
And then there’s the man . . .
Isaac stands at the glass wall, one leg casually crossed over the other, gazing out at Nashville’s skyline, which is brushed with morning gold, like the sky has been raiding Cleopatra’s jewelry box. But the peaceful serenity is completely at odds with how his navy blue suit stretches across his toned back, with how the fabric grips every inch of muscle like it was handsewn by fairies in a den of iniquity.
And don’t even get me started on his ass.
The whole scene makes lip-licking compulsory.
It’s indecent.
And . . . I’m in trouble. Because I just stand there, admiring him admiring the morning. Any second, swooning violins will start playing. I’ll look down, and I’ll suddenly be in a tight-fitting black dress, push-up bra, my hair mysteriously curled by unseen forces.
I exhale, gather my willpower, and force myself to walk forward, past the empty bar.
“Mr. Thompson,” I say in my provider voice, the one that makes patients relax, the one that assures them that I know what I’m doing, that I’ve learned it all so they don’t have to.
His turn is slow, like ice cream melting down a cone—unstoppable, sticky—and you’ve got to lick it before it drips too far.
“Dr. Wren.” His smile tries to lower my guard, like it saw the locks temporarily disengaged and made a move. I ram my guard back up, slamming his smile’s fingers in the process. But then his eyes do that thing again—they roll into me. My stomach likes it. So do my lady regions.
The rest of me does not.
He picks up a paper cup with a sleeve and a lid and extends it toward me.
I take it, my heart rate instantly going tachycardic when his fingers brush mine. The skinilicious sensation is so unexpected that I lose my grip on the cup after he’s already let it go.
It falls in slow motion. I watch the bottom of the cup hit the tile of this lovely patio. I watch the milky liquid fly up, arms outstretched like a high-diver (you know, if coffee had arms), and then rain down again. I watch the rogue droplets slam into the fabric of my scrubs and Isaac’s tailored slacks and soak in.
We both leap backward, but when our eyes meet, his smile has taken on a mischievous slant.
“Impressive reflexes, Doc,” he says. “You’re a surgeon, right?”
Yeah, now I’m glad I stained his ass-clinging pants.
I don’t move to clean up the mess. I just let the puddle inch outward as I ignore his comment and throw my arms out. “What is this?”
He looks around. “It’s a restaurant.”
“It’s obviously closed. We’re alone. What are we doing here?”
“I know people. What’s wrong, Dr. Wren? Are you afraid to be alone with me, or are you just upset that you spilled your coffee?”
The traitorous wind shifts, and the scent of him slaps into my face. Screw it all. Screw this gorgeous, closed rooftop restaurant. Screw this dreamy, skyscraper-filled ancient-Egypt sky. Screw Harriet and her voluptuous plants. Screw Isaac.
Scratch that last part.
“You let go before I had it,” I say, adopting calm. “That coffee’s on you.”
“Literally.” He gestures to his pants, then my speckled coat.
“Caffeine is a crutch for the weak anyway.”
His eyebrows scrunch as he continues to look at the coffee splatter on my clothing. “Is your coat ripped?”
I wave him off. “I got in a fight with a dragon on the way over here.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
I lift the coffee that’s still on the table and sip it.
He smirks. “Are you drinking my coffee?”
“I’m drinking my coffee,” I say. He takes his the way I take mine: cream, no sugar.
“Mine is obviously on the floor,” he says, lips still askew.
“Obviously,” I say. “But what isn’t obvious is why we’re having coffee alone on this rooftop when I need to be doing rounds at the hospital, the place where both of us work, the place where you currently serve on the very committee that’s deciding whether I become chief of surgery.”
He takes the coffee out of my hand, sips it, then hands it back to me, like this is a flask we’re sharing. My stomach flips because it’s a bold move, and intimate.
“Well, we can’t talk at the hospital. Yesterday made that clear.”
“Oh, you mean when you pretended to be a patient and got naked in my exam room? And we’ve had multiple conversations in the hospital.”
“First, I was not naked, and I’ll admit—I shouldn’t have ambushed you like that. But the conversations we have had at the hospital . . . Well, I wanted more, and I think you do too, but for some reason you avoid me like an infectious disease.”
“You’re a smart guy, Mr. Thompson. You wouldn’t be in your position if you weren’t. So I think you know why I avoid you, why we should avoid each other.”
He sighs. “Then why did you come here? Why did you say yes to coffee?”
I open my mouth, and I hate that no words come out, so I close it, take a sip of the coffee, then hand it back to him. “You’re right, I shouldn’t be here.”
I turn to leave, but he stops me with a gentle yet firm grip on my forearm, one that I feel through my coat and across my skin. One that tightens my breasts and sends a jolt to my brain, damaging a tiny fragment of my resolve.
I face him.
“I find myself thinking about you all the time,” he says. “I’ve never been this attracted to anyone in my life. I know you’re right. But then, these little what-ifs keep popping up in my mind. What if we went out? Determined if this was just lust or maybe—”
“Mr. Thompson—”
“Please call me Isaac.”
I shake my head. “Maybe what? Maybe, if circumstances were very different, but as it stands right now, there is no way. None. People would accuse me of getting the chief position because we were dating. If it didn’t work out, you might vote against me out of spite.”
“I wouldn’t do that. I’ve done my homework. I already know you’d make a great chief. What could theoretically happen between us wouldn’t change my professional opinion of you. You’re talented, hardworking. Deserving. And you have my word.”
“How do I know your word means anything?” I start to pace. “But even if that was true, I have to be very careful. I take risks every single day. It’s a part of my job. It’s why I’ve been successful, but this can’t be one of them.”
His face turns serious, eliciting a crackling sensation all over my body. “Can you really look me in the eye and tell me you feel nothing?”
I turn my head, breaking our eye contact. “What I feel doesn’t matter.”
My chest aches. I want to give in, more than he knows. Because he’s right. I feel something here, even though I’ve tried to deny it. And if he had any other job, I’d say yes in a heartbeat.
I swallow the lump in my throat as he steps nearer.
“One date,” he whispers, so close to my ear that I feel his breath against the side of my face.
A shiver scurries across my skin, like the gentle caress from the wings on those fairies that made his suit.
“One date,” he says again. “Maybe we’ll hate each other, and we can put this behind us.”
“What if we find out we do have something? Then it’s torture because we can’t do anything about it.” A cloud wisp slowly moves across the sky. The breeze catches the edge of my hair, a soft reminder that everything between us is already in motion.
He shrugs. “If we have something . . . then we figure out how to overcome the barriers. Love makes room.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means—go on one date with me, a real one, where we really get to know each other, and then we figure everything else out once we know what we’re dealing with.”
“And if we don’t have something, you won’t let it influence your vote for chief.”
“I’m a businessman. Like you said, I wouldn’t be where I am now if I let my heart get in the way of my head. I know how to separate the two.”
“And if we did work out . . .”
“A bridge we cross when we come to it.”
When.
I think back to all my other relationships, all my failed relationships. I picture saying yes to Isaac, and then I picture our relationship after a few months of bliss, dissolving like all the others.
Something’s wrong with my dating life, and until I figure out what it is, why all my relationships end when I never see the end coming, then I can’t take this kind of risk. There’s too much at stake.
I shake my head. “I can’t,” I whisper. Because I’ve worked too hard to open myself up to this kind of vulnerability.
He doesn’t get it. He can’t. He’s a White man. Everyone would excuse him. But my character would be called into question if anyone got whiff of even one date. This coffee meetup was already too risky.
He steps in front of me then. Our eyes collide like storm clouds, lightning striking between them. My chest rises and falls faster. My temperature spikes. My whole body aches to lean in, to kiss his lips that are as lush as Harriet’s greenery.
“It doesn’t have to be a date,” he says, almost pleading. Gone is his corporate charm. He’s laying himself out there. There’s raw desire in his eyes, and it’s not just sexual. That’s the worst part of all. “We can go out, as friends,” he adds. “Cordelia.” He says my name like he’s memorizing it. Like he wants to write it into his bones. “Just one night. Just one damn night where we pretend none of it matters. To see.”
His fingers twitch at his sides like he wants to reach for me but isn’t sure he should. I want him to. Just once.
And then my phone chimes. I don’t know who it is, but it reminds me that I have work to do—rounds, then surgery.
I step back before my body can betray me. Before he can ruin me.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “As much as I want to, I can’t.” And before the earnestness on his face causes me to do something I know I’ll regret, I turn and head back toward the elevator.
He doesn’t follow, and my disappointment that he doesn’t is only further proof that walking away is the right choice.
I slide onto the elevator, and the doors close. The silence pounds against my eardrums.
I did the right thing, I tell myself. Because didn’t I? My brain is fully on board, but that stupid organ in my chest has ears of its own, and it keeps hearing Isaac’s words: Love makes room.
I tear my gaze from the closed elevator doors and check my phone.
Delenn: Everything’s all set for tonight.
God bless my best friend. Her study feels like a breath of fresh air. That’s what I need to focus on. Not Isaac. Not what I’m walking away from but what I’m walking toward. Her study is a risk I’m willing to take because somehow it feels safer than him.
Me: I’m ready.
I choose focus. I choose control. I choose the version of me that doesn’t break.
Excerpt. ©Melissa R. Collings. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
Giveaway: One copy of my new book, THE LOVE OPERATION by Melissa R. Collings, open to US and Canada only.
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Meet the Author:
Melissa R. Collings is an award-winning author and former spine surgery PA who traded the OR for the page. A biracial writer fascinated by life’s contradictions, she writes stories with scalpel-sharp emotional and psychological depth, reflecting complex relationships, rich representation, and the role of identity in shaping who we are. Her novels stay with you long after the last page, balancing light and dark, laughter and heartbreak.
When she is not writing, you can find Melissa chasing her two kids in Nashville, studying preventative health, or losing herself in a painting. Her imagination never fails to stir up trouble, and she lives by one philosophy: Nothing is impossible, and everything’s better with glitter―except surgical wounds.
Visit www.melissacollings.com and subscribe to Melissa’s newsletter for behind-the-scenes bookish fun, medical moments, and reader extras. You can also connect on Facebook (@MelissaRCollingsAuthor), Instagram (@melissarcollings), or TikTok (@melissarcollings).
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