Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Ain’t She Sweet?

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Susan Elizabeth Phillips

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“Hold it right there. The only agreement we ever had was that you intended to make me as miserable as possible, and I intended to courageously make the best of an intolerable situation like valiant Southern women have always done.”-Sugar Beth Carey

“They’re all mad, everyone of ’em” Said Rupert with conviction.
Georgette Heyer-The Devil’s Cub.

I have read this 2004 book by the great Susan Elizabeth Phillips a few times, and listened to it once before. The book is great. One of her best. It’s a stand alone, but mention of the Daphne the Bunny books from her Chicago Stars series tie it to that universe. Ultimate Chick Lit, it has all the ingredients I look for in that lightly regarded genre and with a delicious southern twang: Funny dialog, plenty of drama, suspense and anticipation, quintessential enemies to lovers, slow burn, true love, redemption, and justice for all. You name it. In Sugar Beth Carey, SEP has created one of her strongest and funniest heroines. And Colin Byrne, apparently inspired by Georgette Heyer’s The Duke of Avon is more than a match for her. But Sugar Beth is no worshipful Leonie sitting at the feet of Heyer’s Justin Alistair.

Sugar Beth is a one of a kind heroine who was truly a pampered mean girl and bully in her youth. In truth, she deserved every bad thing that came (and will come) to her in this book, and she knows it. The reader, however, soon learns she has reaped the consequences of her past foolish and bad acts and come through the flames a changed and better person. But her former friends and the townspeople, when she returns to her small home town of Parrish Mississippi, only know her as the spoiled rich girl who cruelly bullied and humiliated her shy illegitimate step sister. She’s the girl who dumped the popular hometown high school hero for a big time college athlete and left her provincial small town in the dust. She is still the beautiful and flirtatious teen who falsely accused a young teacher of sexual harassment and got him fired and sent home in disgrace. And who didn’t even have the decency to come back for her father’s funeral. I told you she was bad. But while life has not been kind to Sugar Beth, the nerdy step-sister from the wrong side of the tracks is now the heir of all their late father’s wealth and married to Sugar Beth’s former boyfriend. They are the power-couple of the small town and its social leaders. And the young teacher Sugar Beth ruined? He is now a wealthy and famous author who has returned from England to live in Parrish and who has brought it a certain fame and prosperity. And now Sugar Beth is back in town to find a valuable legacy that will hopefully turn her life around and save the future of a vulnerable dependant. And then get back out of the town which holds so many painful memories as soon as possible. Not gonna happen. Let the games begin.

As backstories unfold, and and secrets are revealed, we love and cheer for the very entertaining Sugar Beth while cringing at the person she used to be. But we also sympathize with and admire her sister and nemesis, Winnie Davis. This is a book with no “bad guys.” A really good romance has great side characters and every character in this one is a finely honed gem, and it is funny as heck.

With this listen on Audible, however, I regret to say that the narration by Kate Fleming got on my last nerve. It tainted large chunks of the book for me, including, unforgivably, the romance part. On paper, Colin Byrne is eccentric and affected but ultimately romantic and intriguing. An original in the 21st century, he is apparently based on an archetypal Regency or Georgian aristocratic romantic hero. In the hands of Ms. Fleming, he becomes a pompous and ridiculous ass. She does OK with Sugar Beth and the rest of characters most of the time, but she rarely lets up on the acid sardonic tone, even when it is not called for by the words or the story. Her southern accent is way over the top. I’m a southerner and when a southerner hears a southern accent that is way too southern, it is. Susan Elizabeth Phillips had the good taste and discernment to preface each of her chapters with an appropriate quote from a Georgette Heyer novel. What Kate Fleming did to those quotes was a train wreck of clown cars. She obviously has no knowledge of the characters that spoke the words of the iconic Georgette. Her reading added insult to the injury she inflicted to one of SEP’s best books. I have listened to other books by this author narrated by Kate Fleming aka Anna Fields and her interpretations have been spot on and wonderful. What the Heck happened, and why did no one stop her? The Book is 5 stars. The narration is unforgivable. But I’m not going to punish the book for that.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Simply the Best

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by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

The Python stopped by the table. “Let’s do a roundup here. Your top client is charged with murder, his mother is crawling on the floor doing cleanup, his sister has been working her ass off in your kitchen when she should have been a guest, and topping it all off, Tyler Capello—a player you have not signed—shows up at your party with his slimy ex-agent who sets your place on fire. Is that about right?” He punched out the words. “Am I missing anything?” The River was never at a loss for words. Until now.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips is an automatic buy for me both for loyalty’s sake and because even her lesser books are always enjoyable on the whole. There are always hours of entertainment to be had. Nevertheless, I opened this book with a bit of trepidation. She has not been as consistent lately. Also I’m a lot pickier about chick lit than I used to be. I’m much less about the romance and the usual tropes these days. But SEP always delivers effortless humor, and is such an engaging writer, that she drew me right in like the premier Rom-Com writer she is. I was happily reading along thinking how similar this was to one of her best books, Match Me if You Can, when I realized that I really didn’t like the main character, Rory. Not a good thing. She was a brat. And to make it worse, SEP seemed to think that just because Rory is  self-aware and acknowledges her brattiness to herself, it somehow excuses her behavior and makes her more likable. Not to me. She does this throughout the book, until she finally actually ratchets down her nonsense and starts to get it together.

Rory has always felt “less than” thanks to her father and stepmother who always put her down and compared her to their perfect son, her half-brother, Clint. He is now a star football player playing for the Chicago Stars and a client of Brett, a sports agent who works for Heath Champion “The Python”, the hero of the aforementioned Match Me if You Can. Clint is infatuated with a beautiful shallow gold digger and is on the outs with both Rory and Brett because they tried to tell him the truth about her. Early in the book (slight spoiler), Ashley is murdered and Clint disappears. This is ample excuse to throw the two leads together to solve the murder, find Clint, and needless to say, fall in lust, then love, as is usual in this genre. While driving together to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I was irritated by Rory and Brett’s totally gratuitous encounter with some survivalist conspiracy theory MAGA types. Although played for laughs, it wasn’t that funny and served no purpose but to give the author the excuse to vent her rage against these people and to espouse her views on true patriotism. Even though I largely agree with her, I just wanted to tell her to settle down. One sided portrayals do more harm than good. I waited in vain for some balance. She included a similar group in an earlier book, but they were well-rounded and had some relevance to the plot.

I didn’t enjoy the banter that SEP is so good at as much as I usually do because most of it was based on Rory’s unnecessarily rude comments and it made me dislike her even more. About halfway through, Clint is found and, Whoops! Strike three. I despised him even more than Rory. I hope SEP does not use Clint as the hero of her next Chicago Stars book because, like his sister Rory, he was a brat.* In his case, he was a petulant spoiled whiny brat. It was disappointing because he was described by all and sundry in the highest possible terms as honest, moral, talented and smart. Wish we had seen that side of him much sooner than we did. As it was, it was too little too late.

Thank Goodness it is about at this time that Rory has an epiphany and starts to behave in a more mature manner.

Sitting here surrounded by gravestones, she saw the truth. She didn’t have the guts to put herself on the line. Big dreams without follow-through was her mode, and the reason was blindingly clear. As long as she didn’t really try, she didn’t have to risk failing.

Throughout most of the book, she refuses to accept any financial help from all of the rich people in her life to pull herself out of her debt and start realizing her dream of making chocolate for a living. She finally realizes that instead of accepting charity, she can accept money as an investment in her business. That bright idea took a lot longer than it should have considering the desperate straits in which she had found herself. We know what a genius she is at her craft thanks to all of the chocolate porn. Unfortunately, about the time Rory and Clint start to get less irritating, our hero, Brett, who I hadn’t had any problems with, turns into a stalker. When Rory confronts him about his feelings towards her, he blows it and won’t admit that he loves her. (Possibly because he doesn’t know he’s in love with her, which is another Chick-Lit trope I am so tired of). Rory rightly tells him to get lost. And he. Will. Not. Leave. Her. Alone.

In the middle of all this Rory’s stepmother appears on the scene and, as I suspected, she is not the evil witch that Rory had made her out to be. I liked her romance with an on-the-spectrum nerdy guy although it was still very trope-y. What about Ashley’s real killer? You may well ask. I won’t say who it was but it was extremely lame. Probably #1 on the list of Things Not to Do in a murder mystery.

All in all, despite SEP’s writing talent and humor, I felt like her heart wasn’t really in this one. It had too much in common with Match Me if You Can (quirky feisty girl meets Master of the Universe) With some plot things thrown in and some subtracted to make it just different enough. But Susan Elizabeth Phillips is still on my automatic buy list. Because the good thing about inconsistency is that if an author’s latest book is a disappointment, that means that maybe her next one will be great. But please, Elizabeth, can we just have a heroine with a normal profession next time? How about a teacher or an accountant instead of a matchmaker, opera singer, puppeteer, portrait painter, Genius Physics Professor, Televangelist’s widow, former child star (twice), First Lady of the United States, etc. etc.?

*Unfortunately this is exactly what SEP did. I will still read it, but will be getting this from the library. First time I haven’t been first in line to purchase for 25 years.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

What I Did for Love

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by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

This was a re-read on audible of a book that I had read at least twice, the last time probably around 10 years ago. I was led to this one by the last Susan Elizabeth Phillips book I read, Call Me Irresistible. Georgie York, the heroine of this one, is mentioned there, and the heroine, Meg Koranda of CMI, plays a bit part in this one. It also has a little tie to Natural Born Charmer as April Robillard an important secondary character in that one also has a bit part as Georgie’s stylist. The first part of this book is a thinly disguised re-imagining of the Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Anniston triangle. Georgie has been divorced from Lance for a year or so as the book opens. He left her for glamourous do-gooder, Jade whom he met on a movie set. Georgie, a former child star, now a romantic comedy actress is popular and beloved by virtue of her long-running sitcom, Skip and Scooter, where she grew up on camera in front of the American public. Her co-star was Bramwell Shepherd who took advantage of her schoolgirl crush by nailing her at a party on her 18th birthday. She has hated him ever since for that reason, and the fact that his bad boy behavior (drugs, alcohol, sex tape, bad posse, etc., etc.) finally resulted in the show being canceled. They meet unexpectedly in Las Vegas and thanks to drugged drinks, end up married to their mutual horror. They quickly decide to stay married and act the part of a deliriously happy couple. Georgie, because she can’t stand the thought of being subject to even more pity and compassion for losing a second high-profile husband, and Bram because he’s been persona non grata for years due to his reputation. Being married to America’s sweetheart can’t help but revive his flagging career.

So that’s the setup. Along the way, Lance and Jade make an appearance, and boy, we have no doubt that SEP was definitely Team Jennifer. They are skewered quite thoroughly and hilariously without making them thoroughly despicable. We meet Georgie’s cold controlling father, Bram’s surly but loyal young punk of a housekeeper and cook, Georgie’s nerdy overweight P.A. (also loyal), Georgie’s agent who is under the thumb of her father, and a powerful female head of a major studio who loves Georgie and hates Bram, both for good reason. The reader starts to get hints early on that Bram is a reformed character, but it takes Georgie ( and everyone else) a good bit longer to figure it all out while falling back in love with him for real this time. Bram learns to like and respect Georgie (plus great sex) but doesn’t realize how deep in he really is until it is too late (almost).

I loved the Hollywood setting and the dramatic growth of all the main characters. I loved SEP’s sometimes surprising choices for them. The book did not always take a predictable path. As always, there was plenty of snarky banter, wit, comedy, and some serious issues addressed as well. Georgie was a lovable and admirable heroine, and while Bram was a bit of a mystery and while not exactly a knight in shining armor, we didn’t blame Georgie a bit for falling for him in spite of herself. Originally 4 stars, but I’m bumping it up to 4 1/2. This was a lot of fun and I really liked the Hollywood angle and the high concept.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Call Me Irresistible

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by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Not sure what book I was thinking of when I gave this Susan Elizabeth Phillips novel only 3 stars on Goodreads. Must have been another book. It is not only a 5, but one of my favorites. I listened to this on Audible this time, and it is at least my 3rd go-round with this one. I’ll have to rely on my memory for this review.

Besides being very very funny, I loved the characters. Both the two main characters and the hilarious, maddening, and crazy residents of Wynette Texas. The two main characters are Ted and Meg. Ted is Ted Beaudine, the only son of Francesca and Dallas Beaudine first introduced in Fancy Pants, one of SEP’s first books, and the one that started the Chronicles of Wynette. Meg is Meg Koranda, daughter of Fleur Savagar and Jake Koranda of her third novel and first contemporary, Glitter Baby. If I started talking about Meg and Ted’s parents it would go on and on but suffice it to say that all 4 of them are forces of nature and legendary in the SEP universe. Francesca and Dallie have significant roles in this novel, and the Korandas make a brief but spectacular and welcome cameo appearance. When they appeared on the scene I actually whooped.

Meg is funny, smart, good-hearted, brave, and something of a screw-up in her own eyes. She has always struggled to measure up to her fabulous parents and her brothers, knew she never could, so has never tried. She spends her glamorous life traveling around the world on her parents’ money, having daring adventures and lots of fun, but she feels like she doesn’t really fit in anywhere. Ted is just the opposite. He is a paragon of perfection. Birds start singing when he appears on the scene, and rays of light seem to follow him around. I have to say that this whimsical trait S.E.P. gives him was genius on her part. (Meg finds it “creepy”.)He is adored and worshipped in Wynette where he solves everyone’s problems and never fails at anything he does.
“He sounds like Jesus. Except rich and sexy.”
“Watch it, Meg. In this town joking about Jesus could get you shot. You’ve never seen so many of the faithful who’re armed.”

Plus he’s a genius and uses his powers for good. And he’s humble. And he’s marrying the perfect woman, Lucy Jorik, of First Lady and daughter of Cornelia Jorik, ex-president of the United States. She’s perfect but we still like her. SEP’s next book, The Great Escape, is Lucy’s story and runs concurrently with this one. Meg, her best friend and maid of honor, senses there is something very wrong behind all this perfection. And when good-girl Lucy ditches Ted at the altar, all eyes turn to Meg. She is blamed by everybody, even Ted and Lucy’s parents. To make matters worse, Meg’s loving parents in a burst of tough love have finally cut her off and she has no money with which to skedaddle out of Wynette and all of the torches and pitchforks gathering at the Wynette Country Inn. The story of how Meg not only survives being destitute, hated, and treated like dirt, but finally starts to fit in, thrive, and find her self-esteem is as entertaining as hell. But strangely, I found Ted’s journey even more fascinating and well-crafted. Meg sees through him almost immediately and understands that behind all that goodness lies a lot of fear. Is there anything behind that emotionally controlled mask?
The answer is yes.
3 stars (???) bumped up to 5.

Rating: 10 out of 5.

When Stars Collide

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by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

**spoilers**

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This one started out lighter and more fun than SEP’s previous book, Dance Away with Me. I was happy about that, even though I don’t mind a little darkness in my women’s fiction. Olivia Shore, a great opera diva, and Thad Owens, a second-string but respected and popular quarterback for the Chicago Stars, are thrown together for a month to promote a prestige watch brand throughout the country. Right away there is a mystery. Why does Olivia seem to hate Thad so much? Why is she so hostile? It turns out someone lied about him to her, and to SEP’s credit the truth is revealed pretty quickly with no “big misunderstanding” trope that is so overused in romances. From then on as they get to know and like each other, their relationship develops into strong attraction and then Love. A few mysteries emerge. Olivia is attacked and Olivia and Thad are briefly kidnapped. It seems they are being continually followed. Olivia keeps getting threatening notes.

We also learn early on that Olivia’s ex-fiancé committed suicide only 2 weeks before their promotional tour began and his sisters made a scene, blaming her, when she attended the funeral. This was a big disconnect for me. This juicy story was never latched on to by the tabloid press that they continually have to deal with, and she is never asked about it on their press tour. Although Olivia’s legendary voice has been affected by the trauma she otherwise never really acts like a woman justifiably ridden with paralyzing guilt. She dumped her fiancé a few days before their wedding causing his suicide. Only 2 weeks ago. I mean, that’s a pretty heavy burden to bear. But she is funny, goes on adventures, fights with Thad, flirts with him and his protégé, has fun, etc.

Although well-written with some really delightful passages and snarky sparring, this book never really took off for me until they got to Chicago, the last leg of their tour where Olivia is set to star in Aida. At this point, SEP starts to bring things together. Even more mysteries start to unfold. Why is her good friend and fellow diva Sarah giving her the cold shoulder? Will Olivia be able to pull off her role in Aida with her voice problems (Susan created some real suspense here)? Will Thad and Olivia be able to work out their relationship which has legitimate issues, not phony ones? The final answers are surprising, a little twisty, and totally believable. Susan did not take the obvious easy routes. I found this to be an uninspired 3-star book until a little over halfway through. From there on it was a solid 4 and a smidge stars. So 3 1/2 stars.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

July 7, 2021

Dance Away With Me

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by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

“Just to make sure I understand . . . We’re not only running a clinic here, but you’re now teaching sex education classes in my house?” “Write down any questions you have. It’s important for boys to be as well informed as girls. And I didn’t invite them. They showed up. And before you go into your whole Prince of Darkness routine, you should know that two of those girls are teenage pregnancies waiting to happen.” “That’s not your problem.” She touched Wren’s cheek. “Don’t worry about that bad man, sweetheart. I’ll slip some garlic in your blankie.”

The first sentence of this book, “Tess danced in the rain.” and the subsequent “meet-cute” gets this book off to a very corny start. Luckily, it got much much better. Although SEP’s worst books are still very entertaining and have a lot to admire in them, I was disappointed a little bit in her last 3 novels. This one, I think, pulls her out of the little tiny rut she was in. Some of the reviewers comment that this was a rather dark book. I didn’t find it dark at all. It is not a comedic romp and there was one tragic and horrific happening, true. But there was a lot of humor, snark, and wit as well. All of SEP’s heroes and heroines have issues. Some of them have very serious issues. A few of her early books have a lot of darkness despite the happy endings. Dream a Little Dream anybody?

Tess has come to the small mountain town of Tempest, Tennessee to recover and heal from the death of her young husband. Of course, she finds love and healing both with a difficult sexy artist and a newborn baby. She runs roughshod over the townspeople with all of her big-city judgments. And she eventually finds love and healing with them too. Fair warning: if you believe in abstinence-based sex education and disapprove of birth control for teens, you will find a lot to get offended within this book. Or, heck, you might find yourself questioning your point of view.

A lot of the humor arises from the good citizens of Tempest and Tess’s interaction with them. And there is some really nice character development there as well. The antagonists either change and grow or are handily dispatched. There is an interesting survivalist family we get to know. You can’t say that about most “chick-lit”! I liked the development of the romance: neither too much or too little, for me, anyway. There is an interesting little switch-up at the end. Usually, the heroine gets all twisted up because the hero has never told her he loved her in so many words and she rejects him even though they have a great relationship. This happened in First Star I See Tonight and it annoyed the heck out of me. In this one, it’s the hero who gets all boo-de-hoo-hoo, and I’m pretty sure this was a deliberate wink from the author at romance fans.

It was an excellent comeback for one of my top 5 automatic-buy authors. And the big fat ole happy ending epilogue was truly the icing on the cake. Whether she goes back to her romantic comedies or continues along the more women’s fiction path a la Kristan Higgins, I will be there along for the ride.**4 1/2 stars**

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

June 21, 2020

First Star I See Tonight

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By Susan Elizabeth Phillips

First Star I See Tonight is good fun. The witty dialogue and funny “inner voices” of the main protagonists flow as easily as always from SEP’s brain. The humor is never forced or labored. One can tell she is really a funny person rather than just someone who tries to write humor. In fact, this one is funnier than many of her more recent books. Her characters are likable and quirky without being overly precious about it. I loved glimpses of past characters from preceding novels.

Are you sensing a “but” coming? Well, you would be right. This one does lack those heart-tugging moments that Phillips usually incorporates into her novels. There are no genuine hardships to overcome, or past demons to slay. Piper does have “Daddy issues”, but Daddy is dead, so there is no dramatic confrontation or closure to anticipate. Also, I’ve just about had enough of the hero and heroine having great sex, lots in common, great fun and friendship despite their conflicts, and then the heroine being devastated by figuring out that she is in love. Of course, this is a great calamity, and the poor hero has to spend the last quarter of the book convincing the stubborn girl that they can have a HEA.
But, what can I say? It’s Susan Elizabeth Phillips, It’s a Star’s book, and it’s a solid 4 stars.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

July 7, 2016

Heroes are My Weakness

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by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

First things first. I love the iridescent dust jacket and endpapers. I am glad that the publishers are doing Susan Elizabeth Phillip’s books right. Heroes Are My Weakness is built on the tropes of a Gothic Romance novel. It folds in a little Rebecca, Jane Eyre, Mistress of Mellyn, and probably a good many others. The book is dedicated to Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, and Phyllis Whitney among others. It was fun to figure out the many homages in this book to the various gothics I have read. The Hero (Theo) at first, seems dark and cruel, but of course, we know the mystery of his past will be revealed and it will turn out that he is really a pussycat. I figured out the dark secret pretty quickly thanks to my familiarity with Rebecca. Annie, the Heroine, is all SEP: too quirky to live, and aided by, as in This Heart of Mine, some imaginary friends. In this case, not characters in a children’s book series, but puppets. I am glad to say the Puppets are actually fairly entertaining, and not annoying like Daphne and Benny in THOM. The typical Phillips humor is alive and well, much of it in the humorous way she plays on the clichés in a Gothic Novel. She could have wrapped it up a little sooner; the last few chapters kind of dragged a bit, but I guess she just couldn’t resist inserting just one more scene common in many Gothics. I did love the setting on “Peregrine Island.” It wasn’t too hard to figure out that it was based on Monhegan Island, Maine. All in all, an entertaining read; Not her best, but well worth the time. I give it 3.5 stars, bumped up to 4 out of love and gratitude to the author for the many laughs and entertainment over the years. **3 1/2 stars out of 5**

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

September 2, 2014

The Great Escape

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by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

This is not her best, but it’s still pretty good. I didn’t find “Panda” or Lucy as compelling as Ted and Meg, but it was still written very well with her stock-in-trade wit and humor. The side stories of Mike and Bree were great. The character of Mike, the flashy real-estate developer, especially, was a real hoot. A very unusual “type” for a romantic hero. Usually characters like this are figures of fun and contempt. I was brought to tears during the last 1/4 of the book when Toby and Bree are finally reconciled, and how it was done. I would like to see more of these non-stereotypical heroes in romances. The story did flag at times, but Gosh, no book or author is 100% perfect 100% of the time; But SEP surely comes close, this book included. I laughed and I cried. Most romance authors have one or two good books in them, but by their 5th or 6th, it’s like their voice disappears and you wonder who is writing the books now. Not so with Susan Elizabeth Phillips. **3 stars out of 5**

Rating: 3 out of 5.

July 27, 2012

Match Me if You Can

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by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I think that it’s safe to say that this book represents SEP, as much as any other, at the height of her powers. When she got in the groove of writing contemporary chick-lit, she tended towards more angst and dark overtones. They were still funny, with feisty heroines and Alpha-male heroes, and very romantic with sometimes hard-won happy endings. She got a little lighter and a lot funnier, but her heroes tended to be a bit rapey and women found themselves (or put themselves) in demeaning and cringe-y situations. I’m sure they were not unusual for their time, but in this more enlightened age, they can be quite uncomfortable to re-read.

Match Me If You Can hits a sweet spot. Both the hero and heroine are appealing and hilarious, and the plot is fresh and unusual, but not contrived. The hero had a sad childhood which has affected his ability to be emotionally open and accept love, but the reader doesn’t have to wallow in darkness. The heroine is sweet and kind but a force of nature as well. She also has a difficult to deal with overachieving family who seems not to approve of or appreciate her or anything she does. More on that later. There is a secondary romance that is unexpected and funny. It is a true romantic comedy.

Throughout the novel, one of the recurring themes is Annabel’s formidable and critical family. The reader learns to really resent them and hope they get their comeuppance and to see Annabel for the shining star she is. When Annabel brings Heath, the hero, who is impressive in all of the ways her family holds dear, to her 31st birthday party as her date, we wait in anticipation for them to be properly chastised courtesy of Heath and for the scales to fall from their eyes. Instead, something totally unexpected happens in a well-played twist. Brava, Susan E. Phillips.

For those who love closure, like me, there is a nice epilogue, in which absolutely everyone is assured of a happy fulfilled life forever and ever. The only thing missing, unfortunately, is a final resolution and understanding between Annabel and her family. Although we know everything became fine between them, it would have made a delicious scene or two, and I missed it.

Anna Fields, as the narrator, is one of the best. Her acting with all of the characters was spot on, although she does tend to exaggerate men’s and children’s voices a little bit more than necessary. **5 stars out of 5**

Rating: 5 out of 5.

May 11, 2021