Natural Born Charmer

I have this thing about romance books -- a thing I look for that pretty much decides how much I'm going to like the book as I read it. That thing is what they called the "meet cute" in old movies, i.e. how the two main romantic couple meets. If that first meeting doesn't touch me somehow -- be it, make me laugh, make me interested, send chills down my spine, whatever -- then I pretty much give up on the book going from that point forward.

This book SO did not mess up the "meet cute." My GOD did it not mess it up. Blue's (the main female character) first words to Dean after he's inquired whether he could be of some help to her? "Do you have a gun?" And when he says he doesn't, Blue's response, "Then I have no use for you." Perfect. And show more from Dean's point of view, he sees her walking down the road in a beaver costume....well, most of one anyway. How could it get any better than that? (And of course, I'm paraphrasing the quotes there...I don't remember the exact words used.)

I love these characters, and not just the main ones, either. Every one of the characters that show up in this book are fantastically crafted and flawed and perfect.

I can tell you, I am now a Susan Elizabeth Phillips fan. I don't think I've had this much fun with a book since I read "Agnes and the Hitman" by Jennifer Crusie.

And by the way, Dean's father? Totally Keith Richards in my head. show less

I'm not into slapstick or silly stupid humor. That's why when I read the opening scene I felt a momentary urge to hurl this book (OK, it was a library book, so I wouldn't actually hurl it). Blue Bailey is walking down the road in a beaver costume when Dean Robillard drives by and stops to help her. Reminded me of one of those comedy skits from the old Carol Burnett Show. Turns out this book was not as light as I first thought. It is a romantic comedy but with an underlying edge of dark.

Dean and Blue both have serious abandonment and trust issues. And for good reasons. Dean is a sports superstar as the quarterback of the Chicago Stars. His father was a huge rock star (think Bruce Springsteen or someone like him) who didn't know how to be show more a father and pretty much ignored him. His mother was a drugged out groupie who didn't know how to be a mother but gives him up to be raised by someone who is responsible and grows to love him. He is still seriously angry at both of his parents. His mother has gone straight and is trying to get back into his life but he wants nothing to do with her. Blue's mother was an activist who is out to save the world one cause at a time but really should not have been a mother because she sucked at it. Blue took second place in her mother's life while she was passed from foster home to foster home. Recalling those memories made some heartwrenching scenes. She eventually learned not to become attached to anyone because she would eventually lose them.

Phillips' signature of great dialog and sexy banter was in full swing here. I loved how good Dean and Blue were together and how they had to work through their issues and grow as people before their happy ending is possible. As usual her characters are very well drawn and unique. This is a story about families and forgiveness and trust as well as a great love story. However, I thought Dean should have groveled a bit more at the end when he ... well, I won't spoil it. I liked Match Me If You Can a little more than NBC but it was still very enjoyable. (Grade: A-) show less

Just ignore the cover. The main character is first seen in a beaver suit for crying out loud and believes clothes should be more for comfort than style and I loved her. While she did compromise for him, she remains quite true to herself throughout and in fact he brings out the best in her, like she does with him. The two of them don't have it easy because they both have trust issues but they do create an interesting relationship and friendship.

Would recommend it in a heartbeat. There are some very predictable parts but overall it was a great fun read.

Oh, I'm so sad that it came to an end. This book is on my top 3 of this incredible series, only losing for Nobody's Baby but Mine or Dream a Little Dream, which made me cry a lot. I was a little unsure about this one because Dean didn't make much of an impression on me in the previous book, but here I grew to be crazy about him and I loved every single second of it. Blue is on a whole other level of cuteness and badassness. She is freaking incredible. And it was amazing to see how everybody had their time in the spotlight and nobody was left behind.

May 2, 2013:
Had a hankering to re-read this. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed this the first time around.

March 22, 2007 Review:
This is a wonderful novel about just what makes up a family. Football star Dean Robillard meets Blue when she's down on her luck, and they end up at his new farm where they are tossed in with Dean's estranged mother, his rock star father, his runaway half-sister, and an old woman who appears to hate the world but just wants to belong. I couldn't put it down. Very very well done job by Phillips.

This is the 6th (if I'm counting correctly) book in the series featuring the Chicago Stars football team.

How can you resist a book that starts with a headless beaver walking down the side of the road?

Said beaver is Blue Bailey, who's been abandoned after doing a roadside advertising gig. She's picked up by Chicago Stars quarterback Dean Robillard, and they immediately start to irritate each other. And yet somehow, she ends up accompanying him on the drive to his farm in Tennessee.

Natural Born Charmer could just stick with that much story and be cute and clever and fun. But it goes much further than that. Both Blue and Dean have abandonment issues in their pasts--both had neglectful parents, to say the least, and the reason Blue took a show more job as a beaver is that the boyfriend she went to Colorado to be with left her for someone else, and she's broke because her mother emptied Blue's bank account to fund a rescue.

We meet Dean's parents as well as his young half-sister, and the romantic comedy part of the story becomes the framework for a much deeper tale of families, love, neglect, abandonment, and forgiveness. The characters are all very vivid and larger than life, all complex and neither good nor bad. All of them are struggling with various issues.

Parts of Natural Born Charmer were hard to read because they hit a little close to home, and parts made me angry (like Dean's solution to Blue's inability to trust him), but they all fit the story and the characters, and I finished it feeling emotionally exhausted and satisfied, which is for me the perfect result. show less

This is SEP doing all the things she does best, key among them making me believe that her fully-realized and unique characters really do belong together.

I don't care for sports, celebrity, or show business, but these are all mainstays of SEP's books and over time I've actually come to look forward to the way she uses them. As a bag of tricks, they give her a lot of room to play with character issues like confidence, self-image, strength, identity both as an individual and part of a team, and the maturing of a personal ethic.

SEP's characters are always perfectly motivated. That's plenty tough to pull off, and doing it over and over again has really got to tax a writer's creativity, but once again I closed the book and thought yeah, show more everyone behaved exactly as I would expect them to given the lives they led up to the opening of the story.

And yet there are surprises on every page, and there's the genius. SEP (like Elizabeth George, in a very different genre) has a perfect "ear" for human motivation, but she is especially generous in letting her characters surprise the reader. We all might know that in the successful rock star beats a heart damaged by early rejection. What that person does when challenged, however, is SEP's territory - and since this *is* a romance they always rise above - but in ways that are not obvious to a person trying to work out how the story will play out. show less