Call me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I am on a Susan Elizabeth Phillips binge. The last three books I read to completion have been by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. I think I am now firmly apart of the SEP fan base

Call Me Irresistible is about a young woman, Meg Koranda, who convinces her best friend, Lucy Jorik, to ditch the perfect man, Ted Beaudine at the alter. Lucy complies, and Meg is left ditched without money in the small town of Wynette Texas and forced to work her as a maid to cover a hotel bill she was unable to pay. The town hates her for the canceled wedding, but he manages to move from humiliating situation to humiliating situation with enough grace to earn the respect of the small town.

There were a few other subplots that kept the book moving forward. The town was in need a large construction project, a new golf course, and Ted had to court a business man to convince him to build there. The business man was a older rich man who took an interest in Meg because of her famous parents. The business mans daughter took an interest in Ted. There were some awkward dinner dates with the four of them of which Ted and Meg had to string them along both professionally and personally while Ted and Meg were falling in love. The business man really creeped out Meg for obvious reasons, and Ted ending up having to beat him up in a scene that acted as the climax of the book.

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In the end, Ted falls in love with Meg after a period of casual rebound lovemaking, and they decide to marry. There was a pronounced declaration of love first, of course.

Meg Koranda was the daughter of Jake Koranda and Fleur Savagar from another SEP book, Glitter baby, which I found interesting. Apparently a few of the other side characters had other SEP novels of their own, and were given weight like I should have recognized them.

There were a few parts of the book that really bewildered me. I knew when I picked up the book that Meg and Ted would end up together, but it didn’t play out like for the first 150 pages of the book. I was actually looking forward to seeing how the author was going to pull that out because they were almost mortal enemies through the first act. The answer was unconvincing. They ended up their casual lovemaking arrangement after an accidental kiss that neither character could explain. Its almost like they knew that they had to fall in love, and they decided to start falling in love just because that’s the thing that comes next. It wasn’t natural, and the romance didn’t have any context to it. Ted was awful to her, and Meg was acidic in response. He wasn’t awful in an aloof bad boy way either. He was contradictory and mean spirited.

Another part that lost me was Lucy’s blessing. Right before Meg and Ted hooked up, Meg called Lucy to ask for her permission first. Lucy was forthcoming and in approval. Sure, the book would have been a lot more interesting if Lucy said no, but the plot was already too convoluted and too absent of Lucy to add that dimension to her character.

The whole “Win a Date with Ted” thing I found completely extra and unnecessary.  It didn’t add any scenes in the book, nothing to their journey, and acted as a false climax to an already eventful plot line. Sure it added tension, but all it did was put the tension in the wrong place. You expected Meg and Ted to have a fantastic reunion in San Francisco and fall in love again, and when it doesn’t end up that way, their love story loses all steam. I mean, the “Win a Date with Ted” contest was hinted at throughout almost the entire book. It was foreshadowed like crazy. Then it fell flat. When they actually meet up again in New York City 20-30 pages later, it feels like too little too late.  I know SEP is trying to avoid rom-com cliques but c’mon. If she was going to go that route, she should have taken a red pen through the entire story line.

The plot with Haley breaking into her house and terrorizing her house could have been edited out as well.

The last and most troubling aspect of the book was the conflict in Meg and Teds relationship. Meg found him too robotic, too practical. Her chief complaint was that his lovemaking was too analytical. He was a systematic lover and she found him to be not compulsive enough. She wanted him to be lost in the lovemaking, drunk with her sex. In the end, the lovemaking that satisfied her seemed a little rape-y. I found the narrative of the book didn’t articulate this frustration well, and in the end, sounded immature. She sounded like someone who had the perfect relationship but had to find something to gripe about because, well, she gripes about everything.

Despite my minor complaints, I really enjoyed the book. I love reading about gallent acts of social valor, rough men sticking up for their women, and fabulous country clubs to boot. Sure, the book could streamlined the plot a little, but the reading experience was worth it. Only in books like these can such lazy layabouts land such perfect men.

What I did for Love by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I was looking for something specific  while browsing through my local library romance rack. I wanted something with a wedding about young star crossed millionaires. I didn’t want the book to be about Christmas, and I didn’t want it to be about cowboys. I wanted something about celebrity and glamour. This book fit the bill.

The book is about a former sitcom actress and recent divorcee Georgie York. She is tore up about how her handsome actor husband, Lance, left her for a more glamorous actress. Bram Shepard costarred with Georgie back in the good ‘ol days but has since been ruined professionally by his own debaucherous nature. Georgie has lingering resentment about how his bad behavior led to the canceling of their show. He also callously played with her emotions in an unforgivable deflowering episode in their youth. One deus ex machine later they find themselves married the morning after a possibly drugging incident in Las Vegas. They decide to stay married because of paparazzi hounding and bad press. They decided one year of marriage would not look suspicious, and Georgie offered to pay Bram for his involvement. Hate and repulsion turn into respect, respect turns into lust, lust leads to sex, and after a second deus ex machine involving a SARS quarantine with ex-husband Lance and new wife, sex, professional development, and standing up to ones ex husband turned into love.

The description of Georgie matched a young Julia Roberts but the incident with her ex husband sounded overly similar to the Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie love triangle. The description of Bram matched Chase from Gossip Girl. The character descriptions relating to famous people felt a bit thin actually.

 I really enjoyed the book. The character description was sufficiently glamorous, and I ate up every word. It wasn’t as glamorous as Adored by Tilly Bagshawe, but the wealth and celebrity were juicy.

The writing was very good. The book flowed with character consistency and descriptive scenes. This wasn’t like the awkward scenes and hand motions evidenced in The Princess Bride. Sure, I had a feeling that the author might have watched the Great Gatsby before writing the quarantine scene, but there is nothing wrong with having modern influences. It was sort of topical, like these characters live in a world much similar to my own.

My only qualm about the writing is that it seemed like the only thing that moved the plot forward were these little improbable setups. It is much easier to make characters confront their problems when they are forced to be in a room together for whatever reason. Sure, this story could not present the conflicted feelings about falling in love with someone you are already married to like Georgie and Bram finding themselves married after a morning after.  I forgave the first time. The second plot device with the quarantine was paper thin.

The sex was descriptive, copious, and non-repetitive. Repetition is a problem these romance novels seem to have. People can only draw on their own experiences for things like this, so it makes sense that people fixate on different part of the experience. Like, in the princess bride, it was so breast centric that every instance of sex was almost the same. That was not a problem here. Sure, there was a lot of opening-her-thighs, but on the most part, it didn’t seem like a copy paste of the previous incident.

There were three weddings in this book. The first occurred off stage ala Britney in Vegas. The second occurred for the press in a Great Gatsby inspired 1920’s cathedral. The third in the final pages was the only “real” marriage with just a friend and a few family members. The third was probably the wedding ceremony implied by the cover. I am glad they included that because after reading the part about the vegas wedding, I felt like I was being deceived by the cover ala The Princess Bride.

Near the middle of the book when the characters start to have sex and regularly share their marriage bed, I realized that they should just stay married. But the characters really wanted to split up, and I had no idea why they would do that. They were in a monogamous relationship where they help eachother with their careers! It couldn’t really get better than that. I suppose that is why people write fiction about these sorts of things, so you can get personally invested in a strange situation. That is also probably a credit to the author, to manipulate my feelings this way.

Overall, I recommend this book if you want to take a break from serious literature and indulge in a delightful confection of a book.

The Princess Bride By Diane Palmer

This book is misleading. When I picked up this book, I made two assumptions. The first was the unlikely chance that this was the book version of the popular movie staring Indigo Montoya.  This is the assumption that all the Barnes and Nobles reviewers had, giving this book a lofty 4 stars. The second assumption was that the book was about a princess. That is also incorrect. 

I also felt mislead by the first sentence

“Tiffany saw him in the distance, riding the big black stallion that already killed one man”

The book was also notably not about the horse, who was never mentioned again.  The book cover was misleading in a less nefarious way. The main character has long black hair, not short, and wore a prim white suit to her wedding, not a dress.

The book WAS, however, about a virgin whose husband married her just to get into her pants.  The ex girlfriend gets in the way a bit.  The male lead was named King, which might explain the title of this book.

Before we really get started picking this book apart, let me say that I can not recommend this book. The story lacks in every way.  It fails in  the juicy romance novel criteria with its lack of juicy sex, romantic love, dream weddings, and unattainable glamour. It also fails in the more expected traditional metrics with its lack of character development, scene description, and story arc.

Most of the drama comes after the sex. After he gets what he wants, they find that they don’t know eachother and feel uncomfortable talking to one another. It is the worst marriage I’ve ever read about. By the time I get to the final stretch in the last few pages, I realize how ridiculously addicted to drama these two characters are, with all their problems stemming from their strange decisions.

The sex itself was vague and unsatisfying. There was only one instance of penetrative sex in the whole book, and it was the awkward breaking of ones virginity. This single instance of sex led to pregnancy. All of the sexual tension brought on in the book had a lot to do with breast manipulation, which I found stiff, and just plain not sexy.

There was a wedding involved, but it didn’t take on the satisfying characteristics that you normally get out of romance novels. It was like a lame wedding I could put together last minute, not the fantasy feeding dream that  we read about to have in our lives when we can never attain them.

The most glamorous part of the book was their trip to Jamaica. They were rich enough to afford two impromptu return tickets home after one day. That is definitely a luxury I could not afford. When I go on vacation, I have to stick to my itinerary. I am that poor.

The lack of character development was disappointing, but not distracting. I could have known more about tiffany’s motivations, and what part of her selfish pathos might have to do with her dead mother. They mentioned something about King’s past in the beginning, something about how his mother brutally took advantage of or killed his father to explain why he wanted to remain a lifelong bachelor. Unfortunately, this potentially interesting character tidbit was not addressed again when he decided that he actually did want to get married. If I met a person like that in real life, I would be completely put off by how much introspection said person lacks. Sure, the book isn’t about King and his pathos, but helping explain his worldview is what makes me care about what happens to him.

The story arc disappointed me because they decided to bring up huge drama in the last 3 pages. Maybe it wasn’t that huge to the author, but rather just a last string to tie up, but it felt like they dropped a bomb and decided not to explore it. The book ended abruptly after a major life decision was made, and it got all tied up in a neat little bow.

I usually feel like reading is the act of getting to know someone you never met. While I can’t assume that the author bared her soul with this work, I can say that I feel like I met her. She told me a story. I explored the depths of her mind and found not much to speak of. Maybe that is too harsh. Maybe she just didn’t do a very good job.

Princess in Love by Julianne MacLean

I picked up “princess in love” at the local library because it was in the romance section and it had a princess on the cover. I’ve been reading Game of Thrones for a whole year and I just needed a quickie to get it out of my system.

I don’t think I need to defend romance novels here. Romance novels are the workhorse of the publishing industry. Romance novels are, from a pure numbers standpoint, porn for women. Every trade-in bookstore eventually devolves into a used romance novel store, and I think those business owners are fine with that.

There are good romance novels out there. This is not one of them. Sure there is a busty princess on the cover, but that is as steamy as this gets.

I normally describe the plot somewhere in the first three paragraphs. I can’t really say there is a plot. I mean, stuff happens, but I think it takes more than that to make a plot. Rose and Leopold have some kind of previous romance. Maybe that was described in the previous book? Well, anyway, Leopold can’t let it go and decides to keep on messing with Rose’s head even though she has a chance at a happy healthy relationship with the future king of Austria. When Rose realizes how manipulative Leopold is, she goes ahead and marries the Austrian. When the Austrian dies, Rose runs back to Leopold because she wasn’t doing anything else I guess.

There is only one instance of sex in the whole book. Everyone had all of their clothes on.

I am going to have a hard time giving this book a fair shake because I did not enjoy it. Sure it was easy to read and I finished the book, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel like I wasted my time.

The characterizations are poor. Leopold goes from a spoiled heir indifferent about his father’s political beliefs into a raging emotional maniac. He ignores everyone around him until the crucial moment when he gets in everyone’s business. I don’t know what to expect from him. He is not one person with a rational train of thought and motivations. That is more than I can say about Rose, though. Rose doesn’t have a personality at all, not even an inconsistent one. Stuff just happens to her.

The best character was Leopold’s Mother. She had about two lines and Leopold thought of her three times. Each of these vignettes mentioned that she liked flowers. That’s one thing I can hang my hat on for crying out loud.

Don’t expect any descriptions of scenery, clothing, pomp, or circumstance. I mean, its not like it’s a historical fiction about a royalty or anything.

The last thing that bothered me about this novel was the pacing. It runs uncomfortably hot and stiff for 2/3rds of the book. When something mildly interesting happens to the Austrian prince, the book wraps up like a cafeteria burrito.  Its like the author hit her page limit or something.  Seriously.  The Austrian prince drama occurs, then, fast forward 10 years to when Rose as a child and a dead husband and she is ready to see Leopold again. That’s the last chapter of the book.

Don’t read this book. It won’t deliver.