DEAR DWAYNE, WITH LOVE by: Eliza Gordon

Title: DEAR DWAYNE, WITH LOVE

Author: Eliza Gordon

Pub. Date: January 23, 2018

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Pages: 380

Formats: Paperback, eBook, audiobook

Find it: Amazon, Audible, B&N, TBD, Goodreads

Wannabe actress Dani Steele’s résumé resembles a cautionary tale on how not to be famous. She’s pushing thirty and stuck in a dead-end insurance job, and her relationship status is holding at uncommitted. With unbearably perfect sisters and a mother who won’t let her forget it, Dani has two go-tos for consolation: maple scones and a blog in which she pours her heart out to her celebrity idol. He’s the man her father never was, no boyfriend will ever be—and not so impossible a dream as one might think. When Dani learns that he’s planning a fund-raising event where the winning amateur athlete gets a walk-on in his new film, she decides to trade pastries and self-doubt for running shoes and a sexy British trainer with adorable knees.

But when Dani’s plot takes an unexpected twist, she realizes that her happy ending might have to be improvised—and that proving herself to her idol isn’t half as important as proving something to herself.

* * *

This is a work of fiction. While Dwayne Johnson p/k/a The Rock is a real person, events relating to him in the book are a product of the author’s imagination. Mr. Johnson is not affiliated with this book, and has not endorsed it or participated in any manner in connection with this book.

Danielle Steele with an E has just received word from her agent that The Rock is coming to town to do a charity fundraiser in which the winner of the Tough Mudder-style obstacle course race will win a walk-on role in a feature film with him. Since Dani is NUTS for The Rock, she’s signed up for the race and is now attempting to buy activewear without breaking into a nervous sweat:

I cannot believe I’m actually walking into a sporting-goods store. On purpose.

At least now I feel less guilty about lying to Trevor that I had plans tonight. Because I do have plans. Here I am. Enacting my Very Important Plans.

“Welcome to Dick’s. Can I help you find something today?”

My inner fourth grader just giggled. It did. I’m immature and stupid when I’m nervous.

“Yeah.” I clear my throat, smile at the nice-looking young girl standing before me whose name tag I swear reads Susie loves Dick’s and almost giggle again, “I need some shoes. And some clothes to wear to exercise in. Like pants and maybe a sports bra and some shirts I can sweat in. I actually don’t even know what I need. I just know I can’t wear jeans to do exercising.”

She flashes that I-work-on-commission-follow-me-into-my-lair grin. She can’t be more than eighteen. “So, what kind of ‘exercising’ are you going to be doing?”

She air-quoted. Why did she air-quote?

Do I tell her what I’m really doing? What if she laughs at me?

“Um, well, I’m thinking I might join a gym? You know, running, lifting weights, treadmill, that sort of thing.” I sound like a total moron.

“Awesome, okay, well, maybe we should start with proper footwear.”

Good. Yes. Let’s do that.

I follow her to the Great Wall of Shoes. Dear lord, why do exercising humans need so many different kinds of shoes?

After forty-five awkward minutes and several pointed comments about how I’m actually really lucky because my options are so much greater since “not very many women wear a shoe size 10 or 11,” Susie talks me into two pairs: a zero-drop shoe for the gym (“It will help you keep your balance, like being barefoot, when you’re squatting and deadlifting”—I have no idea what either of those things involve, but I’m guessing one might be for pooping and the other might be for carrying a corpse), and for cardio activities, a higher-profile shoe with good arch and ankle support “because your ankles look a little puffy.”

Oh, sweet Susie, you’re so cute. Just wait until life catches up to your nubile form and you have to sit for a million hours processing medical claims for people who make bad life choices. Then tell me how not puffy your ankles are.

Susie then introduces me to the wild world of activewear, pointing to a circular rack of leggings. “We have everything you might need to start your gym adventure. This line here,” she picks up a pair of blue-and-pink capri-style pants that look like they would fit a Keebler Elf, “comes in different levels of fit. You can get ’em loose, semifitted, fitted, or even compression, which are super tight.” She leans closer. “Some women like the compression because it really sucks everything in. My mom calls it her sausage casing.”

Wow, probably not the best sales approach, Susie.

Eliza Gordon has excellent taste in books, shoes, movies, and friends, and questionable sanity in the realm of love. Best leave that one alone.

In real life, she’s an editor, mom, wife, and bibliophile and proud parent of one very spoiled tuxedo cat. Eliza writes stories to help you believe in the Happily Ever After; Jennifer Sommersby, her other self, writes YA and is repped by Daniel Lazar at Writers House.