REVIEW and GIVEAWAY
What We Do For Love
by Anne Pfeffer
What We Do For Love by Anne Pfeffer is currently on tour with Xpresso Book Tours. The tour stops here today for my review, an excerpt, and a giveaway. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.
Description
Thirty-eight-year-old Nicole thinks finding love is like eating carbs. Both are bad for your system. The single mother prefers to focus on a few things that she cherishes - her sixteen-year-old son Justin, her friends, and her art.
When she convinces a major museum to show a piece of her work, and she thinks her career has finally turned a corner, her son brings home a girl, Daniela, to spend the night. Daniela's parents have thrown her out of the house: she is pregnant with Justin's child. Shattered, Nicole feels she has no choice but to take the girl in.
She finds herself falling in love with Daniela, but increasingly troubled by the behavior of the girl’s icy, tormented mom and hard-drinking, hard-fisted dad.
Nicole struggles as fear and deceit enter her formerly peaceful life. Forced to deal with people she doesn't trust or like, fearful for the future of both her son and the grandchild they're expecting, Nicole wonders if she can do what she tells Justin to do: always have faith in yourself and do the right thing.
What We Do For Love is a standalone story written by award-winning author Anne Pfeffer.
Excerpt
Funny how one’s life can make a U-turn.
My life made two. In a single day.
I started that day as a mere potter—yes, a person who hand-makes vases and dinner plates for a living—wearing borrowed clothes and driving to the most important interview of my life. A few hours later came U-turn number one: the board of directors of CCMLA, the Contemporary Crafts Museum of Los Angeles, offered me a place in their upcoming show!
In an instant, I had become an artist. I pondered this fact wonderingly as I drove home that afternoon. I was to provide them with a brand-new, never-before-seen mural in ceramics, an installation piece. My wall would be located at the entrance to the exhibit, the first thing you saw as you walked in. This was my chance, an incredible opportunity.
I was an artist!
It didn’t bother me that desperation clearly underlay the board’s decision. All the better when I saved the day with a great contribution to their show.
I hoped.
Flushed with success, I revved my ancient Toyota, Bernice, up to twenty-two miles per hour. We practically skipped over the potholes as we barreled our way up the Trail of Terror. This was the name my son Justin had given the rutted, one-lane road that wound its way up the side of Laurel Canyon to our house.
Of course, I was a fill-in, hired at the last minute. I’d gotten this job when Miriam Fletcher, a customer of mine who happened to be on the museum board, moaned to me that an artist had dropped out of a show scheduled to open in six weeks. “We’re in such a pickle! We don’t know what to do!” Though her crepey neck revealed a senior citizen, Miriam otherwise projected youth, running long acrylic nails through her cropped, bleached, and spiked hair, her copper earrings swinging.
My cue to pipe up. “I’m sure I could help you.”
Miriam trained her eyes upon me. She had recently ordered customized handmade pieces from me to give to her granddaughters—a miniature tea set for the youngest and a statuette of a mermaid for her older sister.
“You do such beautiful ceramics work, Nicole.”
“What you’ve seen is my commercial work, which I do through my business Clayworks. I create as an artist under my own name.” That is, I hoped to create as an artist under my own name, if I could ever get the proper start.
And now I had. I could hardly wait to tell my son the news.
[Want more? Click below to read a longer excerpt.]
Praise for the Book
“If Lorelai Gilmore of Gilmore Girls was dropped into a thriller, it might resemble this appealing novel.” ~ Kirkus Reviews
“Superbly written. Pfeffer has teamed a solid plot with great dialogue, effective narrative, and some nice romance for a well-rounded work of women’s fiction.” ~ Self-Publishing Review
“Anne Pfeffer’s latest contemporary women’s fiction, What We Do For Love, is an anxiety-ridden nail biter of a novel that has readers rapidly page-turning to find out what the consequences will be of how each character shows - and proves - love of every kind.” ~ Katherine Michael
“The well-developed characters really build up the story line and wonderfully convey the common struggles that many families must face. I would highly recommend this tale to anyone who enjoys a book that realistically conveys the strains, passions, and eccentric moments of life.” ~ cmakin17
“Her characters are always believable and relatable, and leave you feeling optimistic. I'm so tired of novels and TV shows where I can't find a single character I care about. In this book, I loved the whole-heartedness of Nicole, the main character, and really rooted for her. You will too! A must read for moms of all ages.” ~ Holly H. Brookstein
My Review
By Lynda Dickson
Nicole is used to compartmentalizing her life, putting things into boxes in her mind, to be dealt with at an appropriate time. But real life isn’t always that tidy; in fact, it has a way of being extremely messy. Just when she finally gets her opportunity to prove herself as an artist, her son’s girlfriend moves in with them. Then, her sister needs a place to live. So, a household of two suddenly becomes a household of four, and then it grows some more. Will they be able to make it work?
Nicole’s account of her present-day life is interspersed with memories of her own teenage years with her sister, her sister’s boyfriend, and her own brief romance with the man who is now her best friend. The story is a combination of romance, family drama, suspense, and psychological thriller. It highlights the lengths parents will go to for the love of their children, but it also shows what love will make us do for our husband or wife, our friends, our neighbors, and even our pets.
Some heavy moments but, don’t despair, there’s a happily-ever-after.
Warnings: sexual references, alcoholism, domestic violence, teen pregnancy, sex scene.
Some of My Favorite Lines
“I’d learned that personal information from a teenager was like rain in the desert. You waited for it, sometimes for months, and viewed every drop as a gift.”
“I had never understood the concept of multitasking. I put the parts of my life into boxes and handled one at a time. Pick up one box, attend to the matters inside, finish what you can, put the box away. Then move on to the next. And always make sure that each and every box was light enough and small enough to handle alone.”
“You never know how life’s going to go, honey. Things that seem bad turn out okay sometimes.”
About the Author
Hi! I grew up in the desert around Phoenix, Arizona, where I had a bay quarter horse named Dolly. If I wasn’t riding, I was holed up somewhere reading Laura Ingalls Wilder or the Oz books or, later on, Jane Eyre and The Grapes of Wrath. Horses eventually faded as an interest, but I ended up with a lifelong love of books and reading.
After college and eight years of living in cold places like Chicago and New York, I escaped back to the land of sunshine. I now live in California, one mile from the Pacific Ocean, with my dachshund Taco. I have worked in banking and as a pro bono attorney, doing adoptions and guardianships for abandoned children.
As a writer, I’d always been interested in children’s books, since they had meant so much to me as a kid. I’ve found I especially like writing books about teens and twenty-somethings, an age where you make so many decisions about who you are and how you want to spend your life.
Giveaway
Enter the tour-wide giveaway for a chance to win a $20 Amazon gift card.
Links
Amazon (Kindle Unlimited)
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