by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, 401 pagesGeorgie York hasn't been able to catch a break in forever. Eight years ago, her popular family-oriented sit-com Skip and Scooter was cancelled due to her co-star's reckless train wreck of a personal life, and Georgie's starred in nothing but a string of romantic comedy flops since. A year ago, her popular action-star husband left her for another actress, lied to the press that it was because she didn't want children when in reality she desperately does, and is now expecting a baby with his beautiful, globe-trotting, humanitarian cause-obsessed new wife. The paparazzi will not leave Georgie alone and the effort of always putting on her chipper, can-do Scooter face for the public is wearing her down and taking its toll. When she finally tries to give herself a vacation by sneaking off to Vegas with some friends, things only go from bad to worse, as who should she get stuck with but the hated (and hateful) Bram Shephard, the Skip to her Scooter, the reprobate who ruined both their careers, broke her heart, and just woke up beside her...as her new husband...?!
Phillips again writes a romance with some meat on it. These characters have a complicated, detailed back history and an equally complicated present, and watching them get over the former in order to deal with and move beyond the latter is interesting and entertaining. The dialogue is fun, the drama believable, and the characters likeable (once the reader gets over some of that complicated back history, too). The resolution is hokey and too perfect, but I find that to be a common issue with the genre and it works fine here. The echoes of real-life celebrity gossip (Branjelina, Jennifer Aniston, Charlie Sheen) just make the book that much funnier and more "realistic", however over-the-top the personalities and the plot, perhaps because we can all relate to the gossip pages (if not the lives of the ones fueling them). I still have my grumbles and eye-rolls, but the story nevertheless kept my non-romance reader interest from first page to last.
A friend of mine LOVES SEP and is always recommending her books. I read It Had to Be You and I really enjoyed it. I need to read some of her more recent stuff. She has a lot of humor in her books which I like.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't sure where to start with the romances, so I asked Jen H for some ideas and she suggested SEP. The humor is one of the things I liked about the two I've read, as well. It makes the over-the-topness of the plots seem less out of place and humanizes her characters and situations. If somebody can make me laugh, they automatically earn points. :)
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