One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Chicago Stars, Book 4
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 320 Pages, 5246 Locations
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle


A drunk driver nearly killed Gabe Bonner, though he was nowhere near the car that carried his wife and five-year-old son that brutal day. In an instant, his life was seared down to a quagmire of loss, misery, and regret, and he teetered on the brink of self destruction in a booze and drug haze in the backwater in Mexico he'd fled to until his brothers Cal and Ethan showed up and dragged his butt back home to Salvation, N.C. He is just now starting to function, more or less, and his family, one a hotshot ex-football star quarterback, the other a minister, is heartened by Gabe's purchase and renovation of the local abandoned drive-in movie theater, seeing it as a sign that Gabe is finally on the mend.

Neither of them have any idea that he sleeps - if you could call it that - with a loaded gun next to his bed. And not for personal protection.

Rachel Stone was teetering on the brink, as well, though not of self destruction. Virtually penniless, homeless, and struggling to protect and take care of her son Edward, she limped back towards Salvation with nothing but pride and bitter hope. And little left of either of them. Knowing good and well that her short, ill-fated marriage to the swindling televangelist who stole so much from the people of Salvation wasn't going to win her friends, she still had no choice. She was beyond desperate and following a meager trail to the millions of dollars that her crooked husband had bilked, millions that hadn't been recovered after his death. To get that money meant saving the life of her child. To get to that money, she has to get to Salvation.

As her luck, all bad, is still holding, her car dies just outside of a rundown drive-in theater first, and the welcoming committee shaped like one Gabe Bonner wasn't exactly full of goodwill. The imposing man terrorized her son, insulted her, and tossed them both off his property. Except Rachel had nowhere to go, no way to get there, and a son still recovering from the pneumonia that almost killed him and who hadn't had a decent meal in long, hungry days.

With that, the unstoppable force slams into the immovable object and sparks that neither want, need, or can stand flare between them. One is lost and looking for nothing but oblivion, the other is looking for nothing for herself at all, but desperate for everything for her child. Together they may find more than either ever dared dream.

While Dream a Little Dream is considered the fourth book in the Chicago Stars series, this lovely companion to Nobody's Baby But Mine really reads more like a conclusion to and for events and characters introduced or mentioned in that book. It's set, like most of NBBM, in Salvation, N.C., and the only connection to football, the Chicago Stars, or sports in general is through the character of Cal Bonner, who pops up in an ancillary character roll in this book. I loved seeing him and Jane again, as I really enjoyed their book (after a grotesque and horrifying beginning, anyway), but I have to admit, I wasn't very fond of some of his actions in this one. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We learned of Gabe's tragedy in Cal's book, and here we see its effects in all its grim glory. Gabe is barely clinging to life and is none too happy about even that. He's still in abject misery three years after his grievous loss, and all the well-meaning actions of his family aren't doing anything to ease that pain. His character is too darn cussed to be totally sympathetic, and while I felt for his loss, and understood his actions, I don't have a lot of tolerance for self pity, and his character was swimming with it at first.

Then, of course, he met Rachel. I loved her. She was so strong, such an impressive character on every front. Her past was littered with disappointment and distress, but she had such an appealing inner strength and stubborn determination. I admired her and respected her actions and commitment to her son. She went toe to toe with Gabe and didn't take any of his crap, and was like a mama bear when it came to Edward. All in all, and even with a few precious flaws that made her very human, I liked her very much, and found her well rounded and sympathetic.

Seeing Gabe transform as their relationship evolved was my favorite part of this book, and where I felt the story really shined. It wasn't a smooth transition, by any means, but as Gabe's demons slowly withdrew and he got his life back in torturous inches, I became more and more impressed with SEP. Her patient storytelling and adroit ability to handle his journey with understanding of the intricacies of healing after a terrible tragedy speaks highly of her skills as an author and made those aspects of the story very emotionally impacting.

I wasn't at all enamored with Ethan in this book, though. I found his prejudice against Rachel unwillingness to bother even asking before condemning very unpalatable and hypocritical. He's a minister, and supposed to be the "good" one of the Bonner brothers, but in this book I found him charmless, clueless, shallow, and just not very likable. That was a huge disappointment because I really enjoyed his few scenes in the previous book.

The subplot of the romance between Ethan and Kristy didn't work for me, either, in part because of how I felt about Ethan as a character, and in part because it was so heavily laden with religion and many mentions of God. I get that he's a minister, and I get that Kristy is devoutly religious, so I suppose it makes sense for the characters, and I even appreciate that it was quite clear that these two characters were living their faith, not proselytizing to readers, it's just not something I like reading and it lessened my enjoyment of the book. The faith healing aspects with Rachel did nothing for me, either, and when combined with that scene of her in Emily's room, I found myself feeling annoyed by all the God/faith/religion messages.

Still, there was a lot of charm in this book, and I loved that SEP took the time to round out the Bonner brothers' story before going back to the Chicago Stars. I wish Gabe's (and Cal and Ethan's) parents had more of a presence in this book, and I was so sorry to see that Annie had passed, but it was truly lovely returning to Salvation and spending time with characters that felt like old friends.

Genre: Contemporary Romance, Sports Romance
Series: Chicago Stars, Book 3
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 384 Pages, 4946 Locations
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle


At thirty-four, Dr. Jane Darlington is a brilliant physicist with the sort of genius that has always set her apart from contemporaries, inspiring envy and discomfort. She's buried so deep in her work, she's accepted that, but it does limit her social options. On her thirty-fourth birthday, though, those limitations are felt keenly and she wants nothing more than a baby. Her intellect hampers her options and she's determined not to subject her child to the same hellish childhood she had, ostracized and segregated by the very mind that has brought her such professional success. She needs a man with limited intellect to balance out her genes.

Enter thirty-six year old Chicago Stars Quarterback Cal Bonner. A man in the twilight of his career and clinging to football with everything he has, Cal comes off on camera like a slow-witted good ole boy, his accent and his predilection for the word "ain't" convincing Jane that he is a worthy potential father for her child. Driven by desperation, she goes against everything she believes is right and takes a wild chance when it falls in her lap, using Cal in the most heinous of ways. She gets pregnant, but when Cal finds out, rage burns through him, and he demands...and gets...a much deserved retribution.

Now living a farce of a marriage, sequestered in the mountains of North Carolina, Jane's future is double damned when she finds out that the illustrious QB isn't the dumb yokel she thought he was. He is, in fact, a highly intelligent summa cum laude graduate of a prestigious university with a degree in biology. Now her baby is going to be doomed to be a freak like she was. To make matters worse, Jane starts to have feelings for the man who has every reason to loathe her for her actions until the end of time, no matter how much Cal seems to have softened towards her in the months that she's been hidden away with him.

Never let it be said that two highly intelligent people can't also be such total idiots.

In all fairness, I was monstrously leery about this book before I even started it. I love the Chicago Stars series, but the premise of this book really bothered me. I was unsurprised by the fact that I loathed every aspect of the first 25% of it. Jane's behavior was utterly contemptible and grotesque, and definitely something I consider a heinous cross between rape and theft. And that's not even mentioning the idiocy of someone of Jane's education being so flagrantly ignorant of basic reproductive concepts on genetics and their relation to intelligence. Then there was her distasteful desperation to have a child and her willingness to prostitute herself to do so. Ick. Ick. Ick. There was nothing remotely redeemable about her character or actions for the first few chapters of the book.

Cal was slightly less reprehensible, but he was a man with a habit of dating girls young enough to be his daughter, and had a willingness, however it came about, to have unprotected sex with a woman he had reason to believe was a prostitute. Ewww. I'm not even going to mention the grossly over-the-top stereotyping of football players and the disgusting behavior of jock groupies. Gah! There was so much that completely repulsed and offended me about the first five chapters of this book!

Oh, sure, it was well written, but the concept and characters just didn't work for me at all.

Then came Chapter Six. And what started out as one of the most offensive books I've read lately swiftly and irrevocably morphed into one of the most entertaining. I'm actually a little agog at how quickly I became enchanted with the story after such a rocky start, and found myself, much like Cal, completely falling for Jane right around the time she found out how smart Cal was, and totally loving them together from the moment that the marshmallows went missing! Uh...that'll make sense when you read the book.

I almost can't believe it, but SEP managed to not only completely win me over with one of the most humorous and perfectly fit couples I've had the pleasure to read lately, but she also impressed me with the way that the comedic aspects were blended in with some valid and realistic serious issues, such as the crumbling marriage of Cal's parents and the trouble Cal was having with the idea of his career coming to an end. And as for Jane and Cal, two characters I loathed almost from the start, I found myself understanding and sympathizing with them on more than just a surface level.

Honestly, if it wasn't for those first five chapters, this book would have been the most enjoyable contemporary romance I've ever read. Even with those first five chapters, I loved the rest of the book so much that it's my favorite of the series so far, even though I rated it to include my impressions of the first part.

There was just something that worked for me about Jane, Cal, and Cal's family, about how the characters evolved, how the relationships evolved, how issues arose and were dealt with, even about how some issues were mentioned but stayed out of the purview of this book, like the loss of Cal's brother's family. It all came together to feel like a very genuine, heartfelt story that had little or nothing to do with football and more to do with families and love and values. Shocking, really, after such a repugnant beginning. Now I'm ready and raring to go with the next in the series, my faith in SEP restored.

Genre: Light/Comedic Romance
Series: Chicago Stars, Book 2
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 384 Pages, 5553 Locations
Formats: Paperback, Kindle


Desperate for a major life change, former retirement home director and current Hollywood studio production assistant...though barely, Gracie Snow is struggling to gain a foothold in the industry, so when her boss tasks her with catching up with forcibly retired Chicago Stars wide receiver Bobby Tom Denton to drag his butt to Texas, she gamely takes on the task. She had no idea that the former football player would be so darn stubborn, not to mention a slew of other less pleasant adjectives. Sticking to him like glue as he meanders his way around the country turns out to be one of the hardest things she's ever done. When she does finally get him to Telarosa, Texas to start filming the action adventure movie he's contracted to star in, she's fired. Thanks to Bobby Tom, the production is seriously behind schedule and Gracie's job depended on her getting the man to Texas far earlier than she finally did.

Bobby Tom isn't entirely without scruples. He may not want to do this acting thing, despite signing the contract, but he sure wasn't going to let the mousy but determined Gracie suffer for his own stubbornness. That would be ungentlemanly. So he sets her up as his assistant, tricking her into believing she's still working for the production company but paying her salary out of his own pocket. After all, he was obscenely rich and had a lot of pity for the dowdy woman with the great undies and killer legs.

She's determined and independent, and intent on being the only person in Bobby Tom's life who takes nothing from him. He's oblivious to anything but his own wants and needs, nursing the pain of his lost career, until he realizes just how many of those wants and needs Gracie satisfies. If the ugly duckling who became a swan finds out just how much of her life has become dependent on Bobby Tom, however, her principles may crush her spirit...and the man may just break her heart.

This second book in the Chicago Stars series definitely had its moments. While Gracie's character took some warming up to (the frumpy thirty-year-old ingenue routine was tedious), and I struggled at various points throughout the book with Bobby Tom's selfish, superficial nature and entitlement issues, there were many points along their way that worked nicely for me. I wish we'd had more moments like the third-wheel date, because that was a riot, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching B.T. slowly start to fall for Gracie, even though he was utterly oblivious to it. Most of the middle of the book charmed me, and I think Susan Elizabeth Phillips did a great job with the relationship evolution. I was particularly pleased that Gracie never did take any guff from B.T. (until, unfortunately, the end), instead showing a witty sort of grit as she pays him back when he went too far over the line. Despite the annoyingly prim demeanor at the beginning, she did display quite a bit of backbone in places and grew on me because of that.

Unfortunately, I had some significant problems with the last 15% of the book. I had thought, as I was reading, that Gracie had grown in confidence and her self esteem was evolving after her makeover, given how well she dealt with her emotions and all of Bobby Tom's hijinks through most of the book. Then she finds out about the Big Betrayal and she's back to being a total frump, a shattered shell, with no backbone or self esteem. I was confused by her reaction and intensely disappointed by her lack of growth and the apparent ease in which she was stripped of any feelings of worth, all of which seemed grossly against character. Not to mention, Phillips missed several opportunities to make a more substantive statement about the value of a woman's self esteem over superficiality.

I was also horrified by the fact that Gracie mother had these sterling words for her daughter since the tender age of six: "You come from a long line of homely women, Gracie Snow. Accept the fact that you'll never be pretty and you'll be a lot happier." I'm sorry, but that's such an egregious case of emotional child abuse that even I felt a little heartbroken when I read it. I'm terribly disappointed that Phillips didn't give that mentality or the damage it inflicted the attention it deserved, like she did with Phoebe's father's lack of affection and emotional abuse in the first book in the series, It Had To Be You. Given the significant issues of body image and self esteem among women - even back when this book was originally published in 1995 - it would have been a far better book had those things been addressed.

The subplot of the relationship between Bobby Tom's mother Suzy and Way Sawyer needed much more development, because as it was written, I found parts of it to be creepy. The woman starts out feeling like a whore (and is treated like one, honestly), then feels like she betrayed her deceased husband, yet then, suddenly, she's in love with Way. I completely understood and sympathized with Way in those sections, and I've always loved the "bad boy turned business mogul" theme, but Suzy's actions and reactions were a total turn-off. Maybe if the evolution of their relationship had been featured a bit more, or readers had seen more of the actual development, I would have felt less conflicted and squicked out.

Of Bobby Tom, I have mixed feelings. I usually favor flawed characters, as flaws provide such delicious depth. B.T. was certainly flawed. I'm just not sure I could forgive how those flaws materialized so late in the book and never felt like he was fully redeemed as a character. Maybe had there been a scene where he was ostracized for what he did in public...or if he acknowledged what a total reprehensible thing it was to more than just Gracie, I'd feel more sympathetic. Also, I can't go from a heroine fearing physical harm from a hero to being all happy-happy-joy-joy minutes later. I don't downshift that fast. Phillips seemed to be making some connection between the repercussions of B.T's childhood discipline and his relationship with Gracie, but I may have been too obtuse to get it.

The football quiz conclusion was ridiculous and didn't match the tone of the previous events. I felt it was a misplaced and heavy-handed attempt to put the book back on lighter footing for the obligatory happy ending. Perhaps if there had been an epilogue, giving readers a bit of a time buffer before introducing it, it would have been more successful, but as it was, it fell flat for me. In fact, so much of the goings on in the last two chapters of this book bothered me that I was left feeling like Heaven, Texas missed a lot of opportunities to be a thoroughly entertaining romance, regardless of how much I enjoyed sections of it.

Genre: Light/Comedic Romance
Series: Chicago Stars, Book 1
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Length: 384 Pages, 5499 Locations
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, It Had to Be You


A surprise amendment to her father's will leaves Manhattan bombshell Phoebe Somerville ownership of the Chicago Stars football team. She thought she's long been disinherited and was thrilled by the will, seeing it as proof that her father did love her after all...until the vicious, controlling codicil gives her one season to win the AFC Championship and demands she stop being such an unrelieved screw up. If she fails, the team will be handed off to her slimy bastard of a cousin, a man who, as a boy, made Phoebe's life miserable. Refusing to give in to her father's manipulations, even in death, she blows off the whole idea and heads off on vacation, submerging herself in the artistic world to which she had fled when her father had betrayed her in the worst way years ago.

Finding the head coach of the Stars in her living room a few days after her return, however, wasn't something she had anticipated. Dan Calebow makes her nervous and strips her of her vaunted control. He's large, intimidating, and forbidding, and something about him does weird things to her stomach. His condescending derision, on the other hand, does something else entirely to her temper.

She's the biggest bimbo that he's ever met, but Phoebe Somerville sure was a looker. Pity that she was so useless as an owner and was technically his boss. He had players with unsigned contracts and a team to coach, he didn't have time to play her games. He needed her back in Chicago immediately. Once there, he could set her up as a brainless figurehead and get on doing the job he loved.

Problem was, Phoebe's anything but brainless, and the bimbo act is a shield she uses to protect herself. After years of insecurity with men, and a childhood of trauma and neglect, she has honed herself into being exactly what she needs to be to get what she wants. It isn't until she returns to Chicago and starts to take up the reins of the team that she realizes she wants to be the one thing her father never thought she could be. A smashing success. If that means she has to kick the patootie of one supercilious head coach, well...surely they make helmets or something for that.

Sparks fly and quips are traded with witty alacrity in this sports romance romp, the first of the Chicago Stars series. With a rather astounding level of character definition and tragic backstory that tugs at the heartstrings, this is a light romance with deep, dark undertones and was doubly satisfying for it. I loved Phoebe. More than that, I admired her. She's a survivor, and while her survival instincts may be dressed up in inappropriate gold lame at times, or wrapped up like a bow on her poodle's topknot, they're exceptionally adept at keeping her afloat. She has a truly tender and kind heart, and her intelligence is keen, especially when she truly starts using it.

Dan was a little harder to peg. He's drawn to Phoebe, but doesn't see much beyond her bodacious bod at first, and there was a sex scene towards the beginning of the book (not with Phoebe) that I found deeply disturbing until his partner was identified. Even after that scene I found his relationship with his ex to be a bit distasteful, and the manner in which he so clinically decides to marry a woman just because she's good with kids didn't enamor him to me, either. I did eventually warm up to him, and he does show a far wider range of emotion and intellect through the book, but it was a bit of a rough start for me with him.

The push-pull between him and Phoebe, though, was straight up, classic, awesome romance fun wrapped around a very complex consortium of character issues and insecurities. I have to give Susan Eliabeth Phillips credit, she created fully realized and very human characters on all levels, including secondary and ancillary characters, that filled up and filled out this book superbly, giving it much more depth and a far more meaty plot than I was anticipating.

There were a few spots that seemed a bit formulaic (it's an HEA romance, though, it wasn't like I wasn't expecting that) and the major relationship conflicts could be seen coming from across the stadium and were, in my opinion, the least elegant aspects of the storyline, but nothing was a major detractor. In fact, it was one of the most satisfying and comprehensive contemporary romances I've read lately.

I was particularly pleased with the subplot about the evolution of the relationship Phoebe has with her half sister, and the nifty ways Dan factored into that. I was also pleasantly surprised with how SEP addressed Phoebe's rape at the age of eighteen, and how realistically that assault was integrated into Phoebe's psyche and personality. The moment that Phoebe shared that trauma with Dan was a very good moment for me in the book, for a lot of reasons that are hard to explain, but touch on my appreciation for honest relationship conversation and trust. And I loved absolutely everything about Dan's actions and reactions to the whole of his knowledge of that rape from that point to the very end.

I did have a few issues with the book. I could have done without the crazy stalker subplot, I feel it did too little to expand or assist in adding insight into Dan's past and it seemed too hokey a plot device at the end to be a credible threat. Snippets throughout the book shined a glaring spotlight on its 1994 original publishing date (O.J. Simpson being mentioned as a sports correspondent, not a defendant was particularly telling). Dan's ex-wife served little purpose beyond being an excuse for a very emotional scene between Dan and Phoebe...and for the total gross out factor of that initial sex scene.

On the other hand, I was highly impressed with the taut play-by-play of the AFC Championship game. It was very well written - informative, tense, emotional, but not so detailed as to make your eyes cross. Admittedly, I'm a rabid football fan, and I have been since childhood. I know football. I even follow my team's off-season personnel and contract stories religiously. It was pretty much guaranteed that I wasn't going to be bored or disinterested with the level of the sports detail in this book. That being said, I'd like to think that I'm objective enough to assure those who aren't football fans that there wasn't a ton of it in the book, and certainly nothing I would consider a major detractor for those who don't like the sport.

It Had to Be You is, at its core, the story of two damaged and emotionally fragile people finding each other in the least likely of places, and realizing that despite appearances and regardless of propriety, they're perfect for each other. And in getting there, it was the Superbowl of delicious, deep, thrilling, emotional journeys, ripe with fully realized and sympathetic characters that resonate with a sense of genuine triumph.

Genre: Light/Comedic Romance
Series: Chicago Stars, Book 6
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 416 Pages, 6126 Locations
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle


She may be the black sheep of her uber-successful family, but Annabelle Granger marches to the beat of her own drum. She's taken over her grandmother's matchmaking business, renamed it Perfect for You, and is determined to make it successful. As part of the quest to do so, she's gotten one of her best friends to set up a meeting with one of the most eligible bachelors in town, rich, gorgeous sports agent, Heath Champion. Annabelle may not have the first clue why Heath would need to go to a matchmaker to find a wife, but he's contracted with a rival agency and Annabelle is convinced she can get him to become a client of hers if she just meets him.

And things go exactly as planned...sorta. Well, okay, not really. Champion is an arrogant, overly entitled workaholic jerk and his demands are ridiculously unreasonable. Still, he's made a small concession and Annabelle sets her sights on making the most of the opportunity he's granted.

He's also sexy as hell...not that she's given that any thought.

Heath Champion has risen from poverty and survived an abusive father to become a self-made and highly educated man. He's an excellent agent and he dedicates his life to his clients. Now that he's approaching thirty-five he figures it's time he finds a suitable wife, but with his schedule he hardly has time. So he does the most practical thing he can think of; he hires a matchmaking firm to do it for him. Limiting his introductory meetings to twenty minutes, the ladies of Chicago are brought to him one by one between phone calls and business dealings, and it's going moderately well, he thinks. Until Annabelle walks into his office, late, looking bedraggled, and spouting off about her own matchmaking abilities. Two working to find him a wife has to be - at least marginally - better than one, no matter how little faith he has in Annabelle's dubious skills. Something about her, though, challenges him, and her absolute lack of suitable subservience to him is appealing in its own right.

And she's sexy as hell...not that he's given that any thought.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips has a fantastic romp in Match Me If You Can. Heath and Annabelle are great lead characters, and their dialogue is sassy, sarcastic, and so very much fun. The chemistry between them, first as friends, then as lovers, is some of the best in the genre, and Phillips is particularly good at the slow but realistic development of the relationship between them. Each character has personal issues and a few inner demons that add some depth and angst to the story and provides opportunity for personal development, and the arc of the story is fleshed out nicely with a strong supporting case of secondary and ancillary characters.

While it could be said that the concept of the story borders on the silly, and the actions of both Annabelle and Heath sometimes tread the line between fantastic and farce, for a light read that's pure humorous enjoyment, this book has made it to the big game and delivered more than just nifty commercials.

I wish I'd been as pleased with the minor plot thread of the relationship between Bodie and Portia, but I had a hard time with that one. It just didn't work for me. Maybe if it had been given a bit more room to grow and the characters afforded more development I would have been able to buy into it more than I did. Instead, I found Portia to be largely irredeemable until close to the very end and there wasn't enough provided for me to find her sympathetic through most of the book. I liked Bodie well enough, but again, would have preferred to have seen a bit more of him to get a better handle on him as a character. There were some deep issues motivating Portia, and some juicy details about Bodie's past. I think they could have supported their own story much better in a longer format.

I wasn't totally sold on the conclusion of Match Me If You Can, either. The story was moving right along and getting to the meat of the central conflict between Heath and Annabelle, and things just went a little wonky. The inevitable blow up occurred a little abruptly and was resolved a little quickly for my taste given the depth of the issues each character has at the time. I appreciated the epilogue quite a bit, though, and the nifty way the book was wrapped up.

From strictly a story perspective, I wouldn't say Match Me If You Can is perfect, but it was solidly good and a lot of pure, fun entertainment. I know it's the sixth book of the Chicago Stars series, but it worked well as a stand alone. I haven't read the first five books, so I can speak with authority (albeit a subjective one) on that. I can also say I enjoyed this one so much that I went back to the beginning and purchased It Had to Be You so I could start the Chicago Stars series from the beginning.

Phillips has a smooth, pleasant writing style and creates likable characters, putting them into sizzling situations (though sometimes that sizzle comes from the hotheadedness of her characters), much to a reader's supreme enjoyment. I'm looking forward to spending much more time in the Chicago Stars world. Similarities exist between this series and Kate Angell's Richmond Rogues series - though that one is centered around baseball. I'll be interested in seeing how those similarities - and differences, too - evidence themselves as I progress with this series. I've enjoyed the Rogues series so far, and things are looking just as good, if not better, in Phillips' Chicago Stars series.