nicely done...a chick book with a nice story that seemed possible and kept my attention. Lady Emma comes to usa and meets Kenny who she thinks is her tour guide. She decides to be naughty so the big-wig at home won't want to marry her and also won't close the school she so loves and teaches at. Hunk meets cutie and love affair starts. ( )

A fun story with a hero and heroine you can fall in love with. As is her norm, this is a funny, tender, sweet, and sexy love story. A keeper you'll read many times. ( )

Texan Kenny Traveler has one goal: to stay out of trouble long enough to be reinstated by the PGA before his winning streak can run out, preferably before the Masters' Tournament. His "penance": to play chaffeur to a friend of the PGA commissioner's wife, the prim and proper Lady Emma Wells-Finch. English Headmistress Emma also has one goal: to keep her school from closing, without having to marry the Duke of Beddington. Her method: to lose her virginity, and with it her acceptability, in a public and scandalous manner. The result: a Mary-Poppins look-a-like who tries to get the self-proclaimed "laziest man alive" to visit every dive while painting the town of Dallas red. The action of the main plot is mirrored in the story of Kenny's sister and her own romantic woes. Despite the landed titles added to the mix, Phillips, a Naperville native, has written a thoroughly contemporary romance filled with humorous plot twists and antics sure to entertain.

Texan Kenny Traveler has one goal: to stay out of trouble long enough to be reinstated by the PGA before his winning streak can run out. His penance: to play chauffeur to a friend of the PGA commissioner's wife, the prim and proper Lady Emma Wells-Finch. English Headmistress Emma also has one goal: to keep her school from closing, without having to marry the Duke of Beddington. Her method: to lose her virginity, and with it her acceptability, in a public and scandalous manner. The result: a Mary-Poppins look-a-like who tries to get the self-proclaimed laziest man alive to visit every dive while painting the town of Dallas red. The action of the main plot is mirrored in the story of Kenny's sister and her own romantic woes. Phillips has written a throughly contemporary romance, with a few regency elements to add to the flavour, filled with humorous plot twists and antics sure to entertain. ( )

Blurb from Amazon

Lady Emma Wells-Finch is determined to cause a scandal. Nothing big, you understand, just enough to convince her pompous British suitor that she's not an eligible candidate for marriage. She's thinking along the lines of, oh, maybe a discreet tattoo. But when suspended Texas golf pro Kenny Traveler meets her plane at Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport, Emma decides that he's the perfect candidate to destroy her reputation.
Kenny, on the other hand--who desperately wants to be reinstated on the golf tour--is just as determined to keep a low profile and remain squeaky-clean. If Lady Emma weren't a close personal friend of the golf commissioner's wife, he'd never have agreed to squire her around town. Unfortunately for Kenny, his weakness for the British beauty is growing daily, and it seems as though Emma may have feelings for him as well. In a bizarre turn of events, wild man Kenny finds himself trying to keep the prim and proper British lady from causing a scandal the size of which even the lone-star state has never seen.

My Review

This is only my second book by SEP and although I didn't enjoy it as much as "Kiss an Angel" it was still one of the better books that I have read this year. Emma and Kenny are both characters that come to life on the page and they were made all the more realistic by having flaws. The chemistry between these two was sizzling almost from the get go and while at first glance they seemed totally wrong for one another by the end of the book I knew they could never be with anyone else.

If all character driven plots were done this well I'm sure I would read a lot more of them. There is no mystery, no suspense, no vampires or werewolves but the book still kept me turning pages well into the night. Just waiting to see what Lady Emma was going to do next while poor Kenny tried to keep his reputation in tact was more than enough suspense for me. Oh and did I mention the book was laugh out loud funny?

SEP is truly a genius at dialogue. I normally don't notice dialogue unless it's really horrendous but both books that I have read by SEP now have had outstanding dialogue that flowed so well with the story and stayed so true to the characters that even without dialogue tags I always knew who was speaking.

There is also a great secondary romance going on in this book and my only complaint is that we didn't get to see more of it.

Rating this book was difficult for me because I'm a touch conflicted about the ending. On one hand this book has one of the best endings* I've read in a long time but on the other hand the events that lead up to this particular ending didn't really feel like they were necessary for the story. It's a bit of a catch 22 the only part of the story I didn't think was 5 stars worthy was the portion leading up to the ending but without that part we wouldn't have had such a fabulous ending. I think I will just split the difference and give it 4 1/2 stars.

All in all if your a fan of contemporary romance I highly recommend this book. ( )