Review: Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I used to think that my favorite women in fiction were written by Nora Roberts. They are strong women who have dignity and the courage to fight for what they want. Well, sorry Ms. Roberts, but there's a new favorite in town: Susan Elizabeth Phillips. SEP (as she is often referred to) doesn't write romances, she writes women's fiction, good women's fiction. As with her peers Jennifer Crusie and Jennifer Weiner, her stories aren't about the "action" between a man and a woman (not that this particular aspect is missing, mind you) but rather the journey that the woman takes to become the woman she wants to be. Meg from Call Me Irresistible is her most compelling leading lady yet in a long list of awesome women.

Meg is daughter of Hollywood elite parents (from SEP's Glitter Baby) and is considered to be a spoiled rich girl. She carries no responsibilities and lives her life jumping from one exotic locale to the next for fun. (Think Nepal, not Monaco.) Her best friend, Lucy, a former president's daughter, is about to marry Ted Beaudine from Wynette, Texas, the local Golden Boy and PGA champ. When Meg arrives in Wynette to stand up at Lucy's wedding she makes a horrible discovery: Lucy is marrying the wrong man! With one look, Meg believes with all her heart that Lucy is not marrying the right man for her. Chaos ensues with Meg left to take all the blame. Now she's stuck in Wynette - a town that hates her - and since her parents have decided to cut her off financially, she's got some serious bucking up to do. The worst part? Ted Beaudine has made it his life's mission to make her miserable...and he looks so good doing it.

I loved Meg. Plucky and full of sass, her life is looking pretty lousy but she doesn't let it drag her down. She's attracted to Ted, yes, but when she looks at him she sees a pretty unhappy man instead of the town hero (and mayor). That makes her want to help but only a little bit since he pretty much hates her. Her family and friends cut her off from any help to make her grow up and grow some resources of her own and she does; she takes menial jobs but makes the most of them and even starts crafting her own jewelry line. The hardest part about living in Wynette for Meg really is maintaining her dignity in the face of those catty women who are just trying to protect what's theirs: Ted.

Ted was a hard read. He's a popular man who always knows the right thing to say or do but he's still an introvert. He doesn't emote, even with Meg, and at the beginning of the book, I thought he was pretty awful. He took his frustration and pain from being jilted out on Meg just like everyone else when it wasn't her fault. Bringing Meg down many pegs made him a bit too happy for my taste. I liked how the reader's understanding of Ted mirrored his own; Ted's self-awareness needed some time to kick in.

SEP's next book sounds like it'll be about Lucy, the runaway bride. I can't wait to see what happened to her after she fled Wynette.

Other reviews:
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2011/01/17/review-call-me-irresistible-by-susan-elizabeth-phillips/
http://www.smexybooks.com/2011/01/review-call-me-irresistible-by-susan.html
http://www.fiendishlybookish.com/recent-reviews-and-news/2011/1/20/new-fiendish-review-call-me-irresistible-by-susan-elizabeth.html

Review: Lady Be Good by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

She's wickedly funny and passionately romantic, and now Susan Elizabeth Phillips has a new contemporary romance, called Lady Be Good. This is the tale of Lady Emma Wells-Finch, who has been as prim and proper as British headmistresses come, and Kenny Traveler, a modern-day cowboy who plays sports rather than riding the range. They run headlong into each other -- Lady Emma's out to get wild, and Kenny has to straighten up -- and together they make sparks.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s books always seem to feature a male sports athlete in the midst of some professional crisis and a woman with an emotional one. It's a tried and true formula that works even if it's pretty predictable but that's okay since SEP infuses her books with good humor, lots of chemistry, and crazy yet entertaining families. Lady Be Good was particularly enjoyable for me as I didn’t want to reach into the book and smack anyone; the last book of hers I read, Heaven, Texas, made me want to knock some sense into the leading man on a regular basis. I liked both “Kinny” (that is the Southern pronunciation of Kenny) and Emma in equal measure and it was fun to witness him testing her naivete and even more fun when she had her revenge on him. Some parts were pretty ridiculous but I always laugh out loud with SEP's books; I do love those authors that consistently make me laugh with their humor and cry with their drama. Lady Be Good is a typical SEP romance and I recommend it to any of her fans.