#CBR8 Book 100: "First Star I See Tonight" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Piper Dove wants to become the best private detective in Chicago. First, though, she desperately needs to make enough to keep her agency afloat. Her over-protective dad, who didn't think it was appropriate for Piper to follow in his footsteps, left the agency to her greedy step-mum and Piper has spent every penny she had to buy it back, so she can run it herself. She's giving everything on her first job, trailing former quarterback for the Chicago Stars football team, now nightclub owner, Cooper Graham, but no matter what disguises she dons, he seems to be able to spot her instantly. She refuses to blow her cover, and claims to be his stalker, "not full-out barmy, just mildly...unhinged".

Cooper "Coop" Graham retired while at the top of his game, rather than risk injury from the sport he loved. Now he runs the successful Spiral, a hot new nightclub he's hoping he might be able to turn into a chain of clubs. He doesn't understand why this unusual young woman might be following him all the time, and once he discovers that she's a P.I, he naturally wants to know who hired her. Piper staunchly refuses, but tells him to keep a closer eye on his bar staff. Once he realises that she's completely correct and that at least one of his employees is stealing from him, he hires her on to discover if there are other discrepancies among the staff. As she works there, it becomes obvious that someone is out to get Coop, both by sabotaging his nightclub and possibly threatening his life, as well. Piper pretty much takes on the role as his bodyguard, determined to keep him safe, whether he wants it or not.

As Piper moves into one of the apartments over the nightclub (she needs to sublet her own place to make ends meet), and spends pretty much every night working in Spiral to monitor the staff, Coop grows to really like the determined detective. He sets out to seduce her, but quickly realises that he may be falling for her, faster than expected. Piper, raised by her father to be tough as nails, has always been taught that feelings are a weakness. She was raised to be a tomboy, and has never really had anything but casual relationships, as she pulls away before things get too emotional. How can he convince her that they have something worthwhile and keep her from running away, just as it's getting really good?

I read all of Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Chicago Stars books over the summer in 2014 (Cannonball 6, for those paying attention). Some, I enjoyed a lot, like Match Me If You Can and Natural Born Charmer, whilst others I hated vehemently, like This Heart of Mine. This book is supposed to be book 8 in the series, but you really don't need to have read any of the earlier ones, and the connection to the Chicago Stars team is pretty tenuous. For those who have read the other books, there are cameos from former characters, like Phoebe Somerville Calebow from It Had to Be You. Heath and Annabelle from Match Me If You Can make more than one appearance and play a part in getting our couple towards their HEA.

This was a fun book, with some unusual minor storylines. Piper's elderly neighbour, Mrs Berkovitz, insists on hiring Piper for a stake out of the park where she is sure she saw her dead (and buried) husband. Piper is deeply uncomfortable taking the job, but after she spots a guy from a distance that looks a lot like the deceased Mr Berkovitz, she keeps on investigating the case to help her friend. She also befriends Jada, a teenager who lives in the other apartment over Spiral, who is involved in some sort of epic nerfgun battle with people at her new school. Then there's the Pakistani girl she insists that she and Coop rescue from indentured slavery to a Middle Eastern principality, which leads to a road trip to Canada, and later a very uncomfortable yacht trip and a snafu involving Coop's Superbowl ring.

After her mother died in a car accident while Piper was little, she was raised by her father, who paradoxically raised her to be both the son he never had, and tried to toughen her up as much as possible, by scorning any show of emotion as weak and pathetic, but also became deeply overprotective of her. She always wanted to join him in his P.I business, but was only really allowed to work behind a desk. Having finally bought the firm for herself, sadly after it was nearly run into the ground by mismanagement, Piper is nearly destitute, but determined to make the business successful again, so she can achive her lifelong dream. As her father raised her more or less as a boy, Piper is frequently more comfortable around guys, and has never really had any serious long-term relationships, preferring casual hook-ups with no strings attached. She only really gets antsy and nervous once it's quite clear to her that her feelings for Coop are much stronger and deeper than she's used to, and she's convinced they have no future together, as he's far too good for her.

Coop is originally from Kentucky, and came to Chicago to play football in the elites via Florida. He grew up on a farm, and loves to grow things, even though he lives in a penthouse apartment in Chicago. He has a lovely rooftop garden and grows fruits and vegetables that he happily donates to his friends. Like Piper, Coop lost his mother at a young age and was raised by his father, a Vietnam vet who suffered from PTSD. Unlike Piper, though, Coop never had any trouble connecting to his emotions and has never really been in a serious relationship because he never met the right woman, not because he fears commitment. They are both highly competitive, and can't stand to lose. This creates challenges when they disagree on things, but also means Coop is all the more determined to win Piper over once he acknowledges his love for her.

The final act of the book went a little bit off the rails, and the various threats to Coop and his nightclub were resolved in a way I felt was a bit out of left field. I am also not entirely sure that Coop's solution to Piper's relationship angst would work in real life, but am willing to suspend my disbelief since this is escapist literature, and romance is frequently larger than life. It was a fun, quick read. Not one of Phillips' very best of the ones I've read, but very far from the worst, either.

Judging a book by its cover: Initially, I thought this was a pretty bad cover and I certainly didn't like the chandelier or the little glimpse of curtain and thought they looked a bit tacky. Once I read the book, however, it's clear that the cover is referencing a very particular scene, making clear that it's not just a generic romance cover design, but a conscious choice from the cover designer. It's still not a cover I exactly love, but it's a lot less random than I initially thought.

Crossposted by Cannonball Read.  

#CBR6 Book 88: "Natural Born Charmer" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Dean Robillard seemingly has it all. He's one of the top quarterbacks of the NFL, a profitable modelling contract for men's underwear, good looks, scores of admirers, good friends - yet something is missing. He's driving cross country to the ranch he bought on a whim, when he spots an angry young woman in a beaver costume on the side of the road. Curious and entertained, he gives her a ride, and quickly discovers that Blue Bailey has quite the temper on her. She's also got barely a dollar to her name, having had her bank and savings account cleared out only days earlier. Since she keeps him from being bored, he allows her to stay in the car with him.

When they arrive at Dean's ranch, Blue discovers that she's not the only one with complex family issues. Her mother travels the world righting wrongs and demonstrating against corrupt governments, and how can you hate a woman for clearing out all the money you have saved in the world when she took it to ransom kidnapped orphan girls in Columbia? How can you resent a mother who seems to have time for all manner of other oppressed, but let her daughter go from foster home to foster home until she never allows herself to get attached to anyone? Dean, on the other hand, has a mother who used to be a famous groupie, and an absentee rock star father. He's not interested in contact with either of them, so when he discovers that his remorseful mother is the one who's been pretending to be his new housekeeper, and has lovingly been restoring his new ranch, and his newly motherless half-sister runs away and shows up on his front porch, he's none too happy. He presents Blue as his new fiancee to his estranged family, but Blue doesn't want to play along. She's built nearly impenetrable walls around her heart, and isn't about to be seduced by a gorgeous playboy with a charming demeanour.

While there was quite a lot that I wasn't all that fond of in the early Chicago Stars books, I found Match Me If You Can (where Dean Robillard plays an important supporting role) and this to be rather delightful, probably because they are the ones that reminded me most of the best contemporary romances by Jennifer Crusie. The protagonists have some commitment issues that get in the way of them settling down right away, but it's rarely anything too traumatising. There's a colourful gallery of supporting characters who keep doing zany things, which helps with the screwball feel of the plots. Both Blue and Dean have very understandable trust issues and it would be extremely unrealistic for them to rush into a committed relationship. That the tone of the book is mostly frothy and entertaining rather than dark and depressing is what makes it such an enjoyable read.

If you're new to Susan Elizabeth Phillips, I would, having now read all of her Chicago Stars books, recommend that you stick to the later ones in the series, and most important of all, that you stay FAR away from book 5: This Heart of Mine. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 86: "Match Me If You Can" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Page count: 416 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Annabelle has taken over her dead grandmother's matchmaking service, and is determined that this is the business she will actually manage to make successful. Her mother wants her to become an accountant (her successful older brother could get her a job in his firm), but Annabelle is having none of it. Of course, making a living as a successful matchmaker is difficult when most of her current clients are her grandmother's old clients, mainly pensioners, who insist on getting the same prices as they did twenty years ago. If Annabelle could just get Heath Champion, Chicago's most sought-after bachelor as her client, and actually find him the woman of his dreams, she's convinced that her business will be a success.

Heath Champion, sports agent extraordinaire, popularly nicknamed "The Python" in business circles, is indeed ready to find himself a wife. Because he is busy wheeling and dealing and hand holding top athletes all over the country, he's already hired Portia Powers from the top matchmaking firm in Chicago to find him promising candidates. So when a flustered redhead in a wrinkly yellow suit shows up at his office, late for her appointment, to try to convince him to use her services instead, he's inclined to tell her to get lost. She is the close friend of his top client's wife, though, and amuses him with her tenacity. He agrees to let Annabelle set him up for one date, and if he likes the woman, he'll sign with her agency too.

Portia and Annabelle become rivals in trying to find Heath's perfect woman. Their job is made more difficult in that Heath usually only sets aside twenty minutes for each candidate, and after a few meetings, insists that Annabelle sit in on all the meetings to make conversation flow more smoothly. Portia is furious that a badly dressed, flighty amateur seems to be moving in on her turf, and to make matters worse, Heath's menacing thug of a driver is trying to blackmail her into dating him.

I'm not spoiling it for anyone when it's obvious from early on that Annabelle is Heath's perfect match and he just needs to put down his mobile phone and get out of the office for long enough to realise it. With an utterly miserable childhood, I'm not surprised that he wants a stable and idyllic family life for his future (isn't this the case for at least half of all heroes in Romancelandia, be they historical or contemporary)? He goes about finding his dream woman in a very cavalier way, though, and as Annabelle is the only woman he spends any time with for more than about twenty minutes to an hour for most of the book, I'm not surprised she's the one he falls for.

To be fair, Annabelle is awesome, and I can absolutely see why she'd want to make her own way rather than settle into her family's expectations for her. She's clearly kind and sees the best potential in people, and still hurting from her broken engagement - because her fiancee didn't tell her until fairly late in the game that he actually wanted to become a woman. That's going to make you wary about new dating experiences. She finds Heath exasperating, but is one of the few people who dares tell him to his face that he's being horrible, and tackles every challenge her failing matchmaking business throws at her with a sense of humour and a determination to succeed.

The secondary romance between Portia and Bodie (who's not really just Heath's driver, but his best friend) is also fun and Portia has to change her snobbish perception a lot, not to mention change her own priorities to make things work out in the end. It's due to her own romantic journey that Portia in the end figures out exactly how to get Heath the woman he most needs in his life, and helps him to grow truly worthy of the lovely Annabelle. Cause yeah, Heath is quite a lot of a d*ck for a lot of the book, and while he has good looks and wealth going for him, he also has a deplorable personality and is a workaholic. It takes him a long time to come up to prove that he's worthy of her, but he gets there in the end.

This book would also have been more enjoyable if I hadn't read and loathed This Heart of Mine. The Tuckers and the Calebows are frequently appearing and important supporting characters in this one, as Molly and Annabelle went to college together and Heath is trying to move heaven and earth to get into Phoebe Calebow's good graces, after screwing up a business deal with her years ago. It's hard to fully enjoy a book when you hate several supporting characters. If you haven't read other books in the series, though, and you like a romance with some quality banter, this is not a bad one to pick up.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 85: "This Heart of Mine" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Page count: 420 pages
Rating: 1 star

Warning! This review will contain spoilers for the book, because it's impossible for me to convey all my vitriol without going into plot specifics. 

Molly Sommerville (who we first met as a frankly horrid teenager in It Had to Be You) is now all grown up and making a living as a children's book author, writing illustrated books about Daphne the Bunny, a rabbit who appears to wear designer clothes and going on adventures based on events in Molly's own life. While Molly inherited a multi-million dollar fortune from her horrible father, the former owner of the Chicago Stars, she gave it all away to a charitable foundation some years back (this is the only likable thing she does in the WHOLE book). Every few years, Molly appears to feel bored and acts out in crazy ways. She tends to change her hair drastically before each such crazy act.

Molly has had an unrequited crush on Kevin Tucker, the star quarterback of the Chicago Stars, for years. He lives a life of dating foreign fashion models and doing extreme sports and barely knows she exists. There's a badger in Molly's twee little books based on him. Then one weekend, Kevin and Molly find themselves in the same house in the country, and Molly seems to think that it would be a good idea to get undressed and get into bed with man she's been in love with, while he's asleep. He, thinking he is dreaming, has sex with her, and wakes up, appalled that his boss' younger sister is naked in bed with him, and took advantage of him. Molly has the audacity to be disappointed that the sleep sex she initiated wasn't great. Kevin points out that she basically RAPED him, and they go their separate ways.

Of course Molly gets pregnant, and when Phoebe, her overprotective sister, and Dan, her brother-in-law discover it, they don't rest until they've figured out who the baby daddy is. Now, Kevin is worried he'll be seen as a victim (and also doesn't want to piss off his boss), so says nothing about the RAPE. Molly, because she's a terrible human being, refuses to come clean about her horrible nocturnal sexual assault, and the two are forced to marry. Molly miscarries shortly thereafter, because I guess karma's a bitch. I want to stress here, to any reader of my reviews who may be offended, that I would never wish a miscarriage on any woman in real life, but Molly is a fictional character, and a reprehensible one at that. I wanted nothing but bad things for her. Losing the baby she gained from RAPE only seems like cosmic justice.

When Kevin discovers that his shotgun wedding bride is languishing away, all depressed because she lost their baby, he takes her along to the holiday cabins his parents owned, because he thinks it'll do her good to get away and he needs to sell the place. Having spent every single summer there as a child, surrounded by middle aged people, Kevin has no fond memories of the holiday camp, and can't wait to unload it on someone else. Molly, however, decides that the place looks like the real life version of her children's book universe, and does everything in her power to make Kevin see how "exciting" it is there, mainly by getting herself into dangerous situations, so he has to rescue her.

Even having been warned by Mrs. Julien's review that this was a terrible book, I forced myself to keep reading it, hoping against all hope that maybe Molly would show some sort of redemptive qualities. But no, she's awful all the way through. I felt really bad, because Kevin is such a good guy, and I loved him as a supporting character in Nobody's Baby But Mine. He deserved so much better than an emotionally manipulative, spoiled shrew of a wife. When she climbed into bed with him, I was uncomfortable. By the time she has the nerve to express disappointment that the sex she had with a SLEEPING man who she took advantage of wasn't as great as she'd hoped, I wanted to throw my e-reader across the room in disgust. I didn't really like Molly in her first appearance in the series, but here I outright hated her.

Not only did I hate Molly, but because Phoebe and Dan from It Had to Be You are supporting characters in this, and behave absolutely atrociously to Kevin all the way through, I now retroactively dislike their book a lot more too. The end of book, when Phoebe basically forces Kevin to choose between his career or staying married to the woman who sexually assaulted him and that the Calebows forced him to marry, in order to orchestrate some sort of elaborate grand gesture had me swearing loudly. Which reminds me, another reason this book pissed me off. Instead of swearing, Molly says "Slytherin" every time she's upset. Of her many deplorable qualities, it was probably one of the least bad, but it was still incredibly annoying.

The only reason this book is getting a full one star is because I liked the secondary romance between Kevin's birth mother and a famous artist. I wish poor Kevin had sold the holiday cottages (having always hated camping I was firmly on his side about his super boring childhood summers), drowned Molly and run off with someone worthy of him. At least now Lisa Kleypas no longer needs to worry about being responsible for the worst romance I've read this year. I cannot imagine anything I'll read this year that I'll hate more than this book. I honestly don't know if Susan Elizabeth Phillips was trying to do some form of clever reversal of the "heroine falls in love with her rapist" trope that so frequently occurred in Old School romances. If that was her intention, she failed. Badly. Do yourself a favour and avoid this book like the plague.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 84: "Dream A Little Dream" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Page count: 400 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Rachel Stone's car breaks down on the edges of Salvation, North Carolina, the one place on the planet where the most people hate her. Rachel's former husband, the Reverend Snopes was a hugely popular tele-evangelist who conned people all over the country out of their life savings, making Rachel his scape goat when he got caught. He died in a plane crash fleeing the country, but Rachel knows there are five million still left unaccounted for, and as she currently has about eleven dollars to her name and a five-year-old to support, she was hoping to sneak back into town to search their old house for any clues to where the money might be hidden.

Gabe Bonner is a broken man. His wife and little boy were killed by a drunk driver some years back, and he wasn't living in Salvation when the Snopes lived there. Hence he doesn't know who Rachel is at first. He has no sympathy when her car breaks down next to the drive in he's trying to restore, though, and wants her off his property. Her boy, Edward, is tiny, sickly and cowardly, but still a painful reminder of the child Gabe lost. Rachel is stubborn, feisty and far too skinny, yet Gabe finds his body responding to her for the first time since his wife died. All the more reason that he wants the Stones to go far away. Instead, he finds himself persuaded to hire Rachel to help him with the restoration work, and puts her up in his dead grandmother's house.

Rachel doesn't really care that most of the townsfolk hate her guts. She understands why they feel so betrayed, and that nothing she can say or do is going to change their minds. She was young and impressionable when she met the Reverend Snopes, and couldn't believe her luck when he selected her as his wife. Once married, she quickly lost her illusions and her faith when she discovered what he was really like. Because of Edward, her little boy, she couldn't leave him, worried that she'd lose in a custody battle. Now she's a cynical and pragmatic woman, willing to do anything to keep her boy safe and well-fed, even if she has to steal and cheat.

Deeply depressed after losing his wife and kid, Gabe has given up his career as a vet, but returned to his home town of Salvation to be closer to his remaining family. Everyone treats him with kid gloves, only Rachel bothers to call him on his anti-social behaviour. She understands his grief and depression, but refuses to let him destroy himself with pity and self loathing. Both wounded, Rachel and Gabe are drawn to each other and try to fight their attraction. It's quite clear to Rachel that Gabe still mourns his family deeply, and he seems to be the only one who doesn't like her little boy. What future could she have, in a town that hates her, with a man still stuck in the past?

As premises go, I actually thought Dream a Little Dream had the best premise of all the books in the Chicago Stars series. It's also one of the few books that doesn't directly in some way involve football players. Gabe is the brother of Cal Bonner (from Nobody's Baby But Mine). He's got tons of emotional baggage, just like Rachel. Even when he knows he's being unreasonable, he can't stop himself from comparing little Edward (who keeps insisting that people call him Chip) with his dead son, and the sickly, anxious child keeps falling short in his estimation. He sleeps with a gun under his pillow, sometimes deeply tempted to end it all. He's restoring the drive in mainly to have something to do, but until Rachel comes along, it's quite clear that he's only going through the motions.

I really liked Rachel, who never wanted the flashy lifestyle that being Mrs. Snopes brought. She hated being dressed up, displayed and forced to watch her husband's scams, but couldn't leave for fear of losing her beloved child. She doesn't want the missing money for herself, but to secure a future for Edward, and has nearly starved herself sick by the time she gets to Salvation in order to make sure he has enough to eat. She suffers the insults, abuse and even death threats from the venomous townsfolk, but also makes a friend in Kristy, the church secretary.

Kristy is one half of the book's secondary romance. Cal and Gabe's youngest brother, the angelic-looking Reverend Ethan Bonner is Kristy's boss, and she's loved him since she was a teenager, while he barely notices that she exists, even as she organises pretty much all aspects of his personal and professional life. Her friendship with Rachel gives her increased confidence, she decides to get a make-over and quits her job. When the meek and pliable Kristy suddenly starts wearing short skirts and flirting with some of the other guys in town, Ethan starts to see her in a completely different light, and realises that perhaps the happiness he's been looking for has been under his nose all along.

Partially because both protagonists were so damaged and had so much to work through, this book really worked for me. There is also a rather silly subplot involving Rachel possibly having faith healing abilities, but I didn't think it was focused on in any great deal and the main story here are two people slowly getting over their dark pasts and finding happiness with one another. Edward is a cool kid, happily not even vaguely plot-moppety and it upset me that Gabe took so long to treat him nicely. In tone, this is absolutely the darkest of the Chicago Stars books, but its' probably also one of the reasons I liked it so much.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 83: "Nobody's Baby But Mine" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Professor Jane Darlington has a genius level IQ, is a master physicist and desperately wants a baby. However, Jane's super smarts made her feel like a freak growing up, and she doesn't want any child of hers to experience the same thing. Plus she's currently single, and not really looking for a relationship. She does need to find herself a baby daddy, though, and preferably one who's a bit stupid, in the hopes that this will produce her a child with a thoroughly average intelligence.

Through some truly convoluted and complicated means, Jane sets her sights on Calvin "Cal" Bonner, the Chicago Stars quarterback, and manages to get herself pregnant. Cal, who's really very clever, wasn't planning on settling down, and normally doesn't date anyone over the age of twenty-two, is furious when he discovers that some brainy spinster is having his baby. No child of his, unwanted or not, is going to be born out of wedlock. So he forces Jane to marry him and takes her with him to his home town, so the press won't realise the that the playboy quarterback and the physics genius aren't actually madly in love. Since he's planning to divorce her after the baby is born, he doesn't want his family getting attached to her, and orders her to act horrible to them.

Seriously, the premise for this book is absolutely bonkers. The way in which Jane gets her first (and second) date with Cal and manages to get herself pregnant requires serious suspense of disbelief. Then there's the forced marriage, and Cal's desperate refusal to acknowledge that he's growing older and his career is nearing its end, so he dates women about half his age and refuses to even consider what he'll do once he retires from football. The argument they have when Jane discovers that Cal actually graduated top of his class in biology from a prestigious college and isn't just some hick jock, while Cal has discovered that Jane is a shocking 34 years old (when he believed her to be 28), is hilarious. Generally, the two have a lot of very amusing squabbles.

Jane is deeply uncomfortable with having to be rude to everyone in town, and Cal's family in particular. Cal drove me up the wall with his stupid refusal to grow up. His jealousy of Kevin, the younger quarterback who's hoping to take his place, was lots of fun. The secondary romance in this book is that of Cal's parents, who have grown apart (his mum even moves back home to her mother for a time) and need to reconnect. Cal's grandmother is awesome and realises the truth of Jane and Cal's feelings for one another long before they do.

I can see why this book is so popular among romance readers. It is eighteenth on the All About Romance Top 100 list, the absolutely highest ranked of all of Susan E. Phillips' books. The premise for the book is absolutely ridiculous, but once you get past the convoluted way in which the couple are thrown together, watching them bicker and gradually fall in love with each other was tons of fun. Some might find the extended Bonner family annoying, I generally liked them, which increased my enjoyment of the book.

#CBR6 Book 79: "Heaven, Texas" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

The ridiculously named Bobby Tom Denton was Chicago Stars' famous quarterback until he sustained a career ending knee injury. Now he's unsure of what he's going to do with his life, and deeply frustrated about it. When the tenacious and bossy Gracie Snow turns up on his doorstep and announces she's going to escort him to his hometown Telarosa (formerly Heaven) in Texas to start shooting the action movie he agreed to star in. Gracie's spent most of her life living a sheltered existence, working in a retirement home, and is now determined to make her new job as a production assistant a success. If she can't get Denton to Texas on time, she'll be fired.

More used to leggy, promiscuous models than prim, mousy virgins, Bobby Tom is fascinated with Gracie, but not really all that interested in following her orders. When he finally does arrive on the film set, more than half a day late, he discovers that his selfishness has dire consequences for Gracie, however. She's fired, and devastated. He demands they hire her back, as his personal assistant, agreeing to pay her salary. As Gracie has already shown that she refuses to take any kind of charity from Denton, and is appalled by how many people who seem to be blithely taking advantage of him and sponging off him, the producer agrees to pretend she is still paid by the film studio.

It seems like every single person in Telarosa and the surrounding area has some eligible woman they want to introduce to the former quarterback, now future action star. Bobby Tom is sick of all the attention and declares that Gracie is his fiancee. To make this a convincing charade, he also gets his widowed mother to give her a makeover. Of course, as soon as she starts dressing her age, applying some makeup and has a decent haircut, Bobby Tom Denton is not the only man in Telarosa to notice Gracie Snow. What is he going to do if she decides that she has enough of him bossing her around, and takes off with someone else?

Mrs. Julien skipped this book because she just couldn't deal with a hero named Bobby Tom. I agree that the name is truly ridiculous, but the book is pretty much a funny romp. As seems to be the case in a lot of Phillips' books, there is also a secondary plot running through the book, involving an older couple, in this case Denton's widowed mother and the richest man in town, who is hated by nearly everyone and keeps threatening to shut down his tech company, which would be the final nail in Telarosa's coffin. He's been in love with her since they were both in high school, but never thought he could have her, and proceeds to blackmail her into dating him, in a manner that I frankly found quite despicable, but he is also filled with very believable remorse afterwards, and grew on me as a character.

Bobby Tom is quite ridiculous and I frankly don't understand why Gracie put up with him for so long before putting her dainty foot down and telling him what's what. He's used to being an adored playboy and having had his career drastically cut short, never took the time to consider what he wanted to do once football was no longer an option. Emotionally immature but sexually experienced, he seems to think that giving Gracie a makeover and seducing her is doing her a great favour, never really stopping to take in how much she's improved his life since he met her. While he's self-centred, he's also nothing but courteous, kind and far too generous with everyone around him, even when they are taking advantage of him both financially and emotionally. He doesn't seem to think that he should ever say no to anyone, and cannot for the life of him understand why Gracie won't take the expensive gifts he wants to give her, or insists on paying rent to stay in the spare room above his garage.

Gracie is awesome and my favourite part of the whole book. She's the reason I'm giving the book 4 rather than 3.5 stars. Having devoted herself to helping others in her mother's care home until said mother retired to Florida, she is finally trying to create a new life and identity for herself. Used to surrounding herself with pensioners, she's a bit overwhelmed when she starts making friends her own age and really blossoms when she starts settling in Telarosa. She sees Bobby Tom for who he is, both his good and bad qualities, and hates that everyone around him seems to take him and his tremendous wealth for granted. Since Bobby Tom barely has anything for her to do as his assistant, she makes herself indispensable on the film set, doing everything from running the catering truck to babysitting, as required. She's determined not to let Denton see how head over heels in love with him she is, knowing that they are from such vastly different worlds that she doesn't have a chance of him loving her back.

With the exception of the beginning of Denton's mother's romance, which was a bit creepy, and a minor subplot involving an old girlfriend of Bobby Tom's and the jealous town sheriff, her fiancee, which just didn't work for me at all, this was a very fun, and quite often silly romp. I can see why it's still on the Top 100 list over at All About Romance. Plus, I can now say that I've read a romance where the hero was called Bobby Tom. Never thought that was going to happen.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 77: "It Had to Be You" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Phoebe Sommerville is a bundle of daddy issues and sexual hangups, masquerading as a drop-dead gorgeous blonde bombshell. Clever, sensitive and oh so very vulnerable, Phoebe learned long ago that the best way to keep men at a distance and getting her own way is by pretending to be a sexy airhead. Estranged from her horrible father since she was 18, having done as much as she could to shock him, Phoebe is shocked to realise that even after his death, he is trying to manipulate her. His will stipulates that she has inherited his successful NFL team, the Chicago Stars, and has to stay in Chicago and run it until some big pre-Super Bowl championship (I know NOTHING about American football. Football to me, a Norwegian, is soccer. I finished this book more than two weeks ago and can't be bothered to go back and find the relevant name). If the Chicago Stars win this championship, she will keep the team (and rob her douche-wad cousin out of the inheritance he was sure he was going to get). If they lose, she will at least get enough money to start the gallery she's always dreamed of owning. To add to her complications, Phoebe also becomes the guardian of Molly, her fifteen year younger sister, who hates her because she believes their father loved only the eldest, and was the sort of stand-up guy to really leave his daughters with crushed self esteem.

Phoebe decides that dear old dad, the team and the terms of the will can screw it. She tries to befriend her sister, with little success. Dan Calebow, former star quarterback and the new coach for the Chicago Stars is not going to let some bimbo keep his team from achieving their chance at victory, though. His extreme masculinity is everything that Phoebe finds most attractive, but also terrifying. She agrees to do her share in the running of the team, but forces Dan to keep on the geeky Ron McDermitt as general manager. As they start working together to get the Stars to their championship, Dan starts to realise that Phoebe is not the ditz she appears. Having a wealth of insecurities and hangups of his own, due to women not treating him right, Dan now wants to find the perfect little homemaker who can bear his children. It very much complicates things when he keep his thoughts or hands off Phoebe.

It Had to Be You is the first of seven books in Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Chicago Stars' series. As Phillips has no fewer than eight books on All About Romance's Top 100 Romances (last compiled a few months ago),  and seven of those books are this series, I pretty much had to see what all the fuss was about, and I believe in starting at the beginning. This book was written in 1994, and it's quite clear that contemporary romance (and romance in general) has come a long way since this book was written. Even so, it's clearly beloved by many, as it's 19 on the top 100 list. I found a number of things problematic with the book, though.

I really couldn't stand Phoebe's father (which is probably as it should be). I also hate when rape is used as a character-building plot device. One of the things that caused Phoebe to run away, was that she was raped when she was seventeen, and her father refused to believe her. This led to her ending up in Paris and getting even more disillusioned about sex as she tried to get over her shame, before discovering that she could dress and act provocatively, but constantly reject the men around her, thus keeping herself safe. Her best friend is gay. Her scandalous and elderly artist lover was gay, although few know that.

Dan's ex-wife is a congresswoman who's bossy and into all sorts of kinky stuff and never wanted kids. Even after their divorce, they keep meeting for random hook-ups, because Dan can't really say no to her. He had an abusive father and a weak-willed mother and is determined to give his own kids the love, stability and idyllic home life he himself never achieved. He believes he's found the perfect candidate to be his baby mama, a timid, quiet nursery school teacher, who he obviously wouldn't dream of even touching inappropriately before marriage. He's convinced Phoebe doesn't have a maternal bone in her body, never getting close enough to her to realise that a stable, harmonious family life is what she has dreamed of her entire life. He has no problems using her to get rid of his pent-up sexual tension, but is surprised at how innocent and inexperienced she seems in the bedroom.

Molly, Phoebe's younger sister, is a brat. I didn't like her much, but again, douchy daddy did a number on her, so her trust issues are probably justified. Unfortunately, she's not really fleshed out much as a character and barely rises above annoying plot moppet level. Some of the other supporting characters are delightful, though. I loved Ron, the geeky general manager, who Dan is forced to realise does a really good job even though he's not a jock, and Viktor, Phoebe's gay BFF.

In my experience, current contemporary romances don't have quite as much unnecessary drama as this book does. There are some truly preposterous obstacles in the way of Dan and Phoebe's HEA, both external and emotional. The final act of the book is, as my partner in romance reviewing, Mrs. Julien points out, ridonkulous. I rolled my eyes more than a little bit. I suspect I would have liked the book a whole lot more if I'd read it when it came out.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.