Natural Born Charmer is a contemporary romance of the “you are everything I never knew I always wanted” variety with subplots of familial healing thrown in. Given the number of people with fractured or messed up families, I’m not surprised to see this element featured in several of the contemporary romances I’ve read. In addition to the main couple, there is a subplot featuring the hero’s parents who are also messed up and trying to find their way to stability. Natural Born Charmer has the slightly heightened reality common to romances, it’s sweet without being treacly, and cacklingly funny.
Dean Robillard is gorgeous, rich, incredibly well-dressed, and gorgeous some more; to wit, the above mentioned, “You look like an ad for gay porn.” (I’m still laughing.) A professional football player, his golden life looks perfect from the outside, but his broken relationship with his mother, his dissatisfaction, and his current road trip say otherwise. All that changes when he sees a woman in a headless beaver costume stomping down a side road. Blue Bailey (Hush, it’s a totally cool name.) is a feisty mess. A peripatetic artist, she moved from Seattle to Denver just in time to be dumped by the boyfriend she moved there to join. Alone, jobless, and broke, her car has just died and she is stuck. Claiming to be gay to make her feel comfortable, Dean offers to drive Blue first to her apartment, then to Nashville, and eventually to rural Tennessee where he is going to check on the farmhouse he is having renovated. She never leaves.
Blue and Dean are both deliciously sardonic and sarcastic. I found myself throwing my head back and laughing in the way they always describe in these books, but you don’t really believe is true until it happens to you. They also have abandonment issues and not necessarily healthy coping mechanisms, but eventually manage to figure things out. While their personal relationships are improved, they are not perfect, and there is a nice examination of what happens when children are let down by their parents, even if it is for a really good reason.
A great example of the genre, Natural Born Charmer is a very well executed and sweet read. I have already taken out three more Susan Phillips novels from my library to start working through her back catalogue.
Links to my other reviews can be found on The (Shameful) Tally 2014 or my list of books by author.
This sounds absolutely amazing, I need to read it. A Breath of Snow and Ashes just really isn’t working for me right now, and will subsequently be put on hold so I can gorge myself on romance and YA for much of the rest of my vacation, methinks.
Also, I should say this more often. Your vocabulary is a thing of beauty and I am jealous of your witty turns of phrase.
The both of you are inspiring in the writing department.
Seriously, Emmalita/Rochelle, you are the nicest.
I second that!
She really is.
YOU GUYS! I’m already all weepy this morning remembering Free and writing my review.
I am so glad to have both of you as friends. You are lovely, awesome, generous, and amazing.
Thank you, the same to you! I just got to the bit where Amanda reunites with her sister. I cried, on the bus! That whole bit just gets me so much! My review will be up sometime before I go to sleep. I love the summer holidays, when I go all nocturnal.
I feel like I’ve been waiting for Christmas all day. I’m really looking forward to reading your review. I’m not being nice. I’m being pushy.
I’m also adding this to the list. It sounds fun and authentic and that’s a thing I am desiring in romance right now! Lovely review too :D
Because, really, to expand, a good book is only as appealing as the person who is telling you about it makes it sound. And you are a true saleswoman for the ones you like!
Truth. Mrs. Julien is responsible for at least 60% of my book buying habits (the other 40% go to Malin). Between the two of them I spend a few hundred dollars a year at Amazon.
When my kids can’t afford to go to college, I’ll send them over to your house :)
Great review BTW!
Just wait to you see tomorrow’s review. I am trying to tone down my fawning. (I totally had to spell check that.)
Yea! Susan Elizabeth Phillips is one of my favorites! I’m so glad you liked her, especially since you’re not always on the contemporary romance bandwagon!
I really liked it, but I’ve already tried and given up on Match Me If You Can. I’m concerned about the “beautiful people” factor in her books which is, I suppose, the contemporary version of aristocracy.
She tends to tell very similar stories. She does them well, but there’s not a huge amount of variation. There’s some comfort in the familiarity of her stories, but it may not work for you to read one after another. Maybe one or two a year.
That’s okay with me if I like the formula. It’s all about the funny.
Maybe try reading something else first. I really liked Match Me If You Can. It has some very funny moments.