Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"Writing with both sharp wit and terrific emotional warmth, Phillips delivers another of her supremely satisfying contemporary romances."

-- ChicagoTribune

Perennial New York Times bestselling author Susan Elizabeth Phillips is easily one of the most beloved authors of women's fiction in America--and with her wonderfully witty What I Did for Love, she works her magic once again. Turning her satirical eye on Hollywoodand the messy love triangles of its major superstars (think Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie), the incomparable Susan delivers a treasure of a romantic comedy that the Detroit Free Press calls "a laugh-out-loud tale," and Publishers Weekly calls a "massively entertaining romp." Read What I Did for Love and discover why Susan Elizabeth Phillips has won more Favorite Book of the Year Awards from the Romance Writers of America than any other author, including Nora Roberts.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

What I Did for Love A Novel Chapter One The jackals swarmed her as she stepped out into the late April afternoon. When Georgie had ducked into the perfume shop on Beverly Boulevard, only three of them had been stalking her, but now there were fifteen--twenty--maybe more--a howling, feral pack loose in L.A., cameras unsheathed, ready to rip the last bit of flesh from her bones. Their strobes blinded her. She told herself she could handle whatever they threw at her. Hadn't she been doing exactly that for the past year? They began to shout their rude questions--too many questions, too fast, too loud, words running together until nothing made sense. One of them shoved something in her hands--a tabloid--and screamed into her ear. "This just hit the stands, Georgie. What do you have to say?" Georgie automatically glanced down, and there on the front page of Flash was a sonogram of a baby. Lance and Jade's baby. The baby that should have been hers. All the blood rushed from her head. The strobes fired, the cameras snapped, and the back of her hand flew to her mouth. After so many months of holding it together, she lost her way, and her eyes flooded with tears. The cameras caught everything--the hand at her mouth, the tears in her eyes. She'd finally given the jackals what they'd spent the past year preying to capture--photographs of funny, thirty-one-year-old Georgie York with her life shattered around her. She dropped the tabloid and turned to flee, but they'd trapped her. She tried to back up, but they were behind her, in front of her, surrounding her with their hot strobes and heartless shouts. Their smell clogged her nostrils--sweat, cigarettes, acrid cologne. Someone stepped on her foot. An elbow caught her in the side. They pressed closer, stealing her air, suffocating her. . . .  Bramwell Shepard watched the nasty scene unfold from the restaurant steps next door. He'd just emerged from lunch when the commotion broke out, and he paused at the top of the steps to take it in. He hadn't seen Georgie York in a couple of years, and then it had only been a glimpse. Now, as he watched the paparazzi attack, the old, bitter feelings returned. His higher position on the steps gave him a vantage point to observe the chaos. Some of the paps held their cameras over their heads; others shoved their lenses in her face. She'd been dealing with the press since she was a kid, but nothing could have prepared her for the pandemonium of this past year. Too bad there were no heroes waiting around to rescue her. Bram had spent eight miserable years rescuing Georgie from thorny situations, but his days of playing gallant Skip Scofield to Georgie's spunky Scooter Brown were long behind him. This time Scooter Brown could save her own ass--or, more likely, wait around for Daddy to do it. The paparazzi hadn't spotted him. He wasn't on their radar screens these days, not that he wouldn't have been if they could ever catch him in the same frame with Georgie. Skip and Scooter had been one of the most successful sitcoms in television history. Eight years on the air, eight years off, but the public hadn't forgotten, especially when it came to America's favorite good girl, Scooter Brown, as played in real life by Georgie York. A better man might have felt sorry for her current predicament, but he'd only worn the hero badge on-screen. His mouth twisted as he looked down at her. How's your spunky, can-do attitude working for you these days, Scooter? Things suddenly took an uglier turn. Two of the paps got into a shoving match, and one of them bumped her hard. She lost her balance and started to fall, and as she fell her head came up, and that's when she spotted him. Through the madness, the wild jockeying and crazy shoving, through the clamor and chaos, she somehow spotted him standing there barely thirty feet away. Her face registered a jolt of shock, not from the fall--she'd somehow caught herself before both knees hit--but from the sight of him. Their eyes locked, the cameras pressed closer, and the plea for help written on her face made her look like a kid again. He stared at her--not moving--simply taking in those gumdrop-green eyes, still hopeful that one more present might be left for her beneath the Christmas tree. Then her eyes clouded, and he saw the exact moment when she realized he wasn't going to help her--that he was the same selfish bastard he'd always been. What the hell did she expect? When had she ever been able to count on him for anything? Her funny girl's face twisted with contempt, and she turned her attention back to fighting off the cameras. He belatedly realized he was missing a golden opportunity, and he started down the steps, but he'd waited too long. She'd already thrown the first punch. It wasn't a good punch, but it did the job, and a couple of the paps stepped in to form a wedge so she could get to her car. She flung herself inside and, moments later, peeled away from the curb. As she plunged erratically into the Friday-afternoon L.A. traffic, the paparazzi raced to their illegally parked black SUVs and took off after her. If the restaurant's valet service hadn't chosen that moment to deliver his Audi, Bram would probably have dismissed the incident, but as he slid behind the wheel, his curiosity got the best of him. Where did a tabloid princess go to lick her wounds when she had no place left to hide? The lunch he'd just sat through had been a bust, and he had nothing better to do with his time, so he decided to fall in behind the paparazzi cavalcade. Although he couldn't see her Prius, he could tell by the way the paps wove through the traffic that Georgie was driving erratically. She cut over toward Sunset. He flipped on the radio, flipped it back off, pondered his current situation. His mind began to toy with an intriguing scenario. What I Did for Love A Novel . Copyright © by Susan Phillips. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from What I Did for Love by Susan Elizabeth Phillips All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Georgie York and Bramwell Shepard have a long history. They were costars for eight years on an extremely popular teen sitcom, Skip and Scooter. Georgie played Scooter, a spunky orphan needing lots of looking after by Bram's boy-next-door character, Skip. But Bram's real-life bad-boy escapades caused the show to be canceled. Eight years later, the only thing they share is mutual dislike. Yet one drug-spiked drink in Vegas and one valid marriage certificate later, Georgie and Bram find themselves hitched, with their own reasons for wanting to make the sham seem real. Georgie is tired of being tabloid fodder thanks to a bad divorce, and Bram needs Georgie's sterling reputation to reignite his career. But will their acting become real in time? Phillips (Glitter Baby) is one of the few authors who can make the impossible seem plausible. Her characters are a combination of wise, innocent, vulnerable, strong, sassy, and sweet, with snappy dialog and personal growth. This quintessentially Phillips book is one all public libraries should want. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/08.]-Stacey Hayman, Rocky River P.L., OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Phillips (It Had to Be You) makes old Hollywood gossip new again in this over-the-top, hot-under-the-sheets rom-com. Sitcom Skip and Scooter co-stars Georgie York, who like her character exudes spunky charm, and Bram Shepard, whose upbringing couldn't be more different from the nice boy he plays, hate each other even before Bram's offscreen sexual escapades lead to the sitcom's cancellation. Flash forward eight years: his career has cratered, and her biggest accomplishment has been briefly marrying hunky star Lance Marks, who abandons her for sex-goddess-turned-international-do-gooder Jade Gentry. So when Bram and Georgie wake up from a Vegas bender and find themselves married to each other, they make the most of it: Georgie aims to undo the damage Lance has done to her heart and her public image, while Bram is gunning for a second chance at life, love and stardom. It's a blast to watch the hate-each-other-yet-made-for-each-other couple as they duck paparazzi or spar before falling into bed. In this massively entertaining romp, redemption is always possible, and even a fake Hollywood couple trapped in a pretend marriage might find true love. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

After a successful run as America's favorite sitcom heroine, Georgie finds that her future as a film star is going nowhere fast. If a career in a downward spiral isn't bad enough, Georgie's Hollywood heartthrob husband, Lance Marks, has dumped her for sultry, sexy Jade Gentry, and  Georgie has also just learned that the happy couple is expecting. Georgie's life hits an even lower level of hellish humiliation when her attempts to repair her public image lead her to Las Vegas. There, fueled by one too many drinks, Georgie wakes up married to Bram Shephard, her former sitcom costar and her first great love. Desperate to keep from becoming tabloid fodder, Georgie works out an agreement with Bram that will keep them together for at least six months or until one of them kills the other. Best-selling, RITA Award winner Phillips delivers another delectable contemporary romance rich with her signature elements: flawless writing tempered with sharp wit, superbly crafted secondary characters, and sizzling chemistry between a charmingly resourceful heroine and an irresistibly roguish hero. What I Did for Love is another guaranteed winner from one of the romance genre's leading stars.--Charles, John Copyright 2008 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Two Hollywood actors who hate each other but accidentally get married discover they love each other after all. To call this connect-the-dots, love/hate contemporary romance by Phillips (Natural Born Charmer, 2007, etc.) formulaic would be to state the obvious. Its heroine is Georgie York, who found teenage fame co-starring in the hit TV show Skip and Scooter until her gorgeous-but-loathsome bad-boy co-star Bram Shepard caused the show to fall apart. Now 31, Georgie, aka "America's Sweetheart," is still licking her wounds after her action-adventure-superstar husband Lance left her for Jade Gentry, the beautiful actress who also devotes herself to humanitarian causes (Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie anyone?). On a trip to Las Vegas intended to cheer her up, Georgie gets drunk and wakes up with Bram and a marriage license (coincidentally, a similar thing happened on Friends to Aniston's character Rachel, who woke up in Las Vegas married to Ross). For the sake of her image and career, she can't afford to be seen divorcing again so soon, so the couple decides to stay married for a year. In fact, Bram has cleaned up his act but is using the marriage to boost his image in order to get a film project off the ground. Despite ex-husbands, controlling fathers and mutinous staff, the couple's proximity leads to attraction, which leads to great sex, which leads to the revelations that scurrilous Bram is really a multitalented gentleman; that pathetic Georgie is independent and irresistible; and that all their professional and personal dreams will come true. Stretched to more than 400 pages, this chilly fairy tale is for devotees of the genre only. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.