Thanks to Ugly Betty, America is finally ready to read a love story about a couple who isn’t sleek, slick, tucked, pulled, or plastic.

Do we have to be beautiful to be loved? Hobbie—this novel’s darkly romantic hero—has been banished to homely man exile in the North Georgia Mountains, where his enemies are mirrors and bears. Things are not going well for Hobbie. His skin? Pizza Face, super-sized, with extra pepperoni and pitted olives. Job status? Former bank teller. Love life? His common-law wife Kari has gone AWOL at a weight-loss clinic in North Carolina.

But just as it seems Hobbie is doomed to go through life as a sweet, self-pitying “anonymous joke,” he jumps out of his skin and becomes downright heroic.

Can Hobbie rescue Kari from the weight-loss clinic? Can he pull his fractured family together? Plastic surgery—will he or won’t he? Will love endure if Hobbie’s skin clears up, Kari drops pounds, and ugly people become flawless? Readers won’t be able to put the book down until they find out.