Dear Dwayne, With Love

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.

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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.

A native of Portland, Oregon, Eliza Gordon (a.k.a. Jennifer Sommersby) has lived up and down the West Coast of the United States, but since 2002, home has been a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia. Despite the occasional cougar and bear sightings in her neighborhood, there’s no place she’d rather rest her webbed feet (except maybe Scotland).

When not lost in a writing project, Eliza is a copyeditor, mom, wife, and bibliophile, and the proud parent of one very spoiled tuxedo cat. Eliza writes stories to help you believe in happily ever after; Jennifer Sommersby, her other self, writes young-adult fiction. Both personalities are represented by Daniel Lazar at Writers House.