Love or Something Like It: A Novel

· Sold by Random House
Ebook
256
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

A clear-eyed, emotionally honest debut about a thirtysomething woman forced to redefine her entire world after her young marriage falters, Love or Something Like It proves we can grow up at any age.

When Lacey Brennan meets Toby, a sweet and talented comedian, she impulsively moves across the country to be with him in Los Angeles. Lacey is unsure of what she is looking for out west–love? a new career? an escape from her fractured family?–but is reassured when Toby proposes on her thirtieth birthday. “I was thirty and I finally knew what I was doing,” she says.

In California, which Lacey calls “the edge of the earth,” she has the giddy, anticipatory feeling that anything can happen–opportunity looms large, and her life may yet turn out the way she wants it to. But soon in her marriage with Toby, from their awkward honeymoon in Paris to their desperate attempts to build careers, Lacey knows that something is wrong. Toby, unemployed, becomes a permanent fixture on the couch, and things are no better at Lacey’s TV job, where a pit bull stalks her, colleagues tyrannize her, and her boss hits on her. Meanwhile, her twin brother has dropped off the face of the earth, and Lacey begins to wonder whether she and Toby should start a family if she can’t even figure out her own. It is only after Lacey has given up on both L.A. and love that she gets an unexpected shot at happiness.

Rich with wry humor and wisdom, Deirdre Shaw’s novel deftly portrays a relatable, unforgettable character in Lacey Brennan, who, after a five-year quest for love and belonging, finds she must live in the moment in order to understand her past and face her future.

About the author

Deirdre Shaw’s nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Observer, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her fiction was included in the New Short Fiction Series Emerging Voices Group Show in Los Angeles in 2005, and she was awarded a 2004 Hackney Literary Award for National Short Story. Shaw lives with her husband in Los Angeles, where she has also written for television.

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