First line: "I had never been hypnotized before. I didn't really believe in it, to be honest. My plan was to lie there and pretend it was working, and try not to laugh."

Ellen is a hypnotherapist trying to find a nice man. In the middle of a nice dinner, Patrick, her very ordinary date says he has something to tell her and then he gets up and heads to the restroom.

 "Whatever it was, she was pretty sure that sunshiny feeling she'd been experiencing all day was about to vanish."

Perhaps he'd lied about being a widower.

He wasn't a surveyor at all; he was a mobster.

Or perhaps he had a terminal disease.

He was on the run from the law.

The Hypnotist's Love Story can be found in the new book section.