Totally and Completely Fine: A Novel - Softcover

Sussman, Elissa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593725174 ISBN 13: 9780593725177

Verlag: Random House Publishing Group, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

From the bestselling author of Funny You Should Ask comes an inspiring romance novel about honoring the past, living in the present, and loving for the future.

In her small Montana hometown, Lauren Parker has assumed a few different roles: teenage hellraiser; sister of superstar Gabe Parker; and most recently, tragically widowed single mother. She’s never cared much about labels or what people thought about her, but dealing with her grief over the loss of her husband Spencer has slowly revealed that she's become adrift in her own life.

Then she meets the devilishly handsome actor Ben Walsh on the set of her brother’s new movie. They have instant chemistry, and Lauren realizes that it has been far too long since someone has really and truly seen her. Her rebellious spirit spurs her to dive headfirst into her desire, but when a sexy encounter becomes something more, Lauren finds herself balancing old roles and new possibilities.

There’s still plenty to contend with: small-town rumors, the complications of Ben’s fame, and her daughter’s unpredictable moods. An unexpected fling seemed simple at the time—so when did everything with Ben get so complicated? And is there enough room in her life for the woman Lauren wants to be? Alternating between Lauren’s past with Spencer and her present with Ben, Totally and Completely Fine illuminates what it means to find a life-changing love and be true to oneself in the process.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Elissa Sussman is the bestselling author of Once More with Feeling, Funny You Should Ask, and three young adult novels. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their many pets.

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Chapter 1

Now

I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! Lena shouted, before running up the stairs and slamming her door.

Over the years, I d compiled a lengthy list of reasons why it truly f***ing sucked to be the widowed mother of a teen girl, but at the top of the list was being unable to turn to Spencer right now and ask: Do you think she means it?

He would have laughed. It would have been exactly the right response. Because I would have been asking him as a joke but also seriously.

He would have put his arms around me, pulled me close so my head could go right to the crook of his neck where it had always fit. He would have kissed my forehead. And then my butt would get a firm, supportive squeeze that was usually more for him than me.

We can always send her back, he would have said. Do you remember where we put the receipt?

And if I had cried a little because even though I knew logically that my teenage daughter was in the throes of the worst hormonal years of her life, and I had done and said far worse to my own mother at that age, it would still f***ing hurt Spencer would have taken my face in his hands and swiped the tears away with his thumbs.

Pizza will solve this, he would have said.

Then he would have dug around in the freezer, humming to himself, probably Blink-182 or some other frat boy nineties song, and eventually exclaimed aha! literally, aha! when he found the ball of dough that he d hidden there.

We d have homemade pizza that night.

Now there was one ball of dough left.

More often than not, I d get the desire to deep clean the whole house, and I d take everything out of the fridge, tossing old lettuce, frosted ice cream, and sad, forgotten leftovers. The dough stayed. Untouched.

We had the recipe. Even if we didn t, making pizza wasn t rocket science.

But there had been a system. One that only Spencer knew. It had been born out of his years working at King Cheese Pizza during high school. He never did the whole tossing it up toward the ceiling and catching it something he d always refer to as a cheap trick but he had a specific way of doing it.

He d offered to teach me. Multiple times.

That s what I have you for, I d say.

It had been clever then. It was just tragic now.

I looked up at Lena s door, forever surprised that there were no cracks in the walls from the force of her repeated slams, and missed my husband so much I wanted to scream.

That was the problem with small towns, though. Nowhere to scream.

I picked up the phone. It wasn t the same it wasn t even close but I knew that when Lena realized I d ordered pizza from King Cheese no less she d come down. We wouldn t say anything about the fight. We d eat and pretend that what had just happened had occurred in an alternate reality.

Because this was all a dream a sick, warped, normal-but-not dream that I knew we were both still expecting to wake from. I didn t take her temper tantrums seriously because part of me truly, stupidly, dangerously believed that it wasn t real. That it wouldn t stick.

Everything was forgotten. Forgiven.

Sometimes, my mother would come over, and I d see her notice the empty pizza box or boxes, depending on how bad the week had gone in the trash. She d say nothing. She wouldn t have to. Everything unsaid she pressed down in the thin, tense line between her lips. But I could see it. The disappointment. The worry.

This wasn t my first time at the grief rodeo.

I knew my therapist would probably have some better sugg

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593725174
• ISBN 13: 9780593725177
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 447
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: DELL; azmaibenben@outlook.com; ; CL MODESTO LAFUENTE 41; Madrid; Madrid; Spanien