Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Match Me If You Can (2005)
Author: Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Genre: Romance (Contemporary)
Plot Summary:
Annabelle Granger, a 31-year-old underachiever in an overachieving family, has just inherited her grandmother’s matchmaking service. Annabelle sees this as her perfect opportunity for personal success. Marriages By Myrna, a company largely serving seniors, becomes Perfect For You, a company with a more contemporary flair, overnight. Annabelle’s ambition is to make a name for Perfect For You, outside of its left-over senior citizen clientele. Annabelle’s dreams for Perfect For You are embodied in sports agent and self-made man Heath Champion. Power Match, run by Portia Powers, the most well known and prestigious matchmaking service in the city, is on a dubious mission to bring Heath a marriageable woman. An indirect relationship to one of Heath’s clients lands Annabelle a one-shot meeting with Heath. Through a series of mishaps, she shows up disheveled and shaken up, but her tenacity leads Heath to allow her a chance to land a contract with him. Annabelle’s first introduction is her gorgeous friend Gwen who is happily married and early in a pregnancy term, clearly not an eligible choice, but Annabelle needs to dazzle Heath. Annabelle’s scheme works and Heath gives her a contract, in competition with Power Matches, to scour the city for a woman who fits Heath’s stringent criteria. Annabelle takes on the task with gusto and introduces Heath to a score of eligible women. Throughout the course of these introductions, both Heath and Annabelle find that they have an undeniable chemistry. This chemistry is challenged by their own stubbornness, social mores, and the meddling of other characters. Heath finds out that Annabelle knows one of his rivals and coach of the local football team, Phoebe Calebow. Heath wiggles his way onto a weekend trip to the country hosted by Phoebe where Annabelle and Heath end up sharing a cabin. SPOILER: This trip leads to all kind of sexual tension, which finally explodes one night after Annabelle and her girlfriends watch a “porn for women.” Annabelle and Heath finally sleep together. The next morning, to protect her pride, Annabelle tells Heath that she just wanted to sleep with someone, not necessarily him, to get over lingering trauma from a breakup with her ex-finance who got a sex change and became a woman. Heath assures her that it didn’t mean anything to him either. Back in the city, Annabelle’s search for the perfect woman for Heath continues and Perfect For You begins to gain the credibility she desires. Annabelle introduces Delaney--she has the polish Heath desires, and she’s beautiful to boot. Heath knows he should like her and that she would make a great wife, so they see each other for a month before he realizes that he is in love with Annabelle. He proposes to Annabelle in front of her family and Annabelle refuses because Heath is reluctant to say the L-word, a very important component to a proposal for Annabelle. She leaves town in a rush, needing to clear her head, but Heath finds her at the cabin where they first made love. He admits he was insensitive and they reconcile, deciding to wed.
Geographical Setting: Chicago, Illinois
Time Period: Present Day (2005)
Series: Includes appearances by characters from the author's Chicago Stars series, but is not officially part of the series.
Appeal Characteristics:
Match Me If You Can is a whirlwind tour of Annabelle and Heath’s courtship. The story moves fast, keeping the reader intrigued with compelling new character details or new events in every chapter, and there are multiple plot-twists to keep the reader intrigued. The story-line provides a good mix of action and character development, leaving the reader with a good sense for the characters, but also compelled by the action. The characterization is lifelike and well drawn. Annabelle, the protagonist, is a quirky red-head with great spunk and energy that will appeal to readers who enjoy strong contemporary female protagonists. Additionally, there are very intriguing secondary characters, like Portia Powers, and Heath’s assistant Bodie, who both find adequate space in the narrative. Annabelle’s family, though not featured prominently, is well drawn, as are the many women who Heath is introduced to as potential mates. All of these characters combine to make a very lively and full cast. The frame of the story is very urban/upper-class as it is set in the Chicago socialite/professional sports scene. Includes appearances by characters from the author's Chicago Stars series. It will appeal to sports fans for its discussions of players, teams, and pro-sports culture. Overall, Susan Elizabeth Phillips has given us a contemporary romance written with great humor and an eye for characters, action, and dialogue.
Read-alikes: Match Me If You Can involves many of the same chracters as Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ Chicago Stars series, a series that focuses on a couple different characters from the sports/socialite scene in Chicago in every book. Fans of Phillips’ characterization, setting, and themes of sports and wealthy socialites would enjoy the first book in this series, It Had To Be You, a novel that focuses on Stars owner Phoebe Somerville and her reluctant romance with future husband Dan Calebow. Fans should also be on the lookout for the latest book in the series, Natural Born Charmer, a tale of opposites attract that focuses on Stars quarterback Dean Robillard and his soul-searching cross-country trip that leads him to love. Many fans suggest that Susan Elizabeth Phillip’s signatures are her witty dialogue, fast pacing, humor, and lightness. Bet Me by Jennifer Cruise is a title that shares a lot of these stylistic appeals and focuses on the union of reluctant and unlikely lovers who find love in spite of a feeling that the world is against them. Be My Baby by Susan Anderson is a novel about the daughter of a hotel empire and her unlikely attraction to a New Orleans police officer who is supposed to be her body guard. Fans of Phillip’s opposites-attract narrative will enjoy Anderson’s book. See Jane Score by Rachel Gibson is another title where sports are a major theme and a smart and sassy heroine artfully navigates her way through the gritty sports world. Gibson’s book follows a “plain Jane” reporter who interviews a hockey player and in the process they find an unusual mutual attraction. Truth or Dare by Jane Ann Krentz is a romantic-suspense that employs Phillips' style, humor, and wit. Fans of Phillips' writing style who want a change of setting would enjoy Krentz’s paranormal suspense about the marriage of a psychic and a private investigator.
Red Flags: In-depth description of sexual situations, discussion of pornography and gender identity issues.
Nobody's Baby But Mine (1997)
Author: Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Genre: Romance (Contemporary)
Plot Summary:
Brilliant physics professor Dr. Jane Darlington is getting a bit desperate. At 34 years old, she feels her chance to have a baby is slipping away. Years of romantic failure have led her to the decision to become a single parent, but there is a further problem. She wants a father who is of below average intelligence so that her own child will not have to suffer the unhappy childhood she experienced as a child genius, and she wants that father to be unaware he has a child. A chance encounter with a neighbor's daughter, a waitress at a local sports bar, brings Carl Bonner to her attention. The star quarterback of the Chicago Stars, Carl exudes health and energy, while his good-old-boy television personality seems suitably lacking in brains. Jane agrees to a wild scheme to present herself as Carl's 'birthday present' from the guys on the team and ends up pregnant without Carl's knowledge, just as she'd wanted. But it turns out Carl is not the country bumpkin that she'd ima
gined, and when he finds out about the situation, he angrily insists not only on full involvement in the child's life, but also that, to avoid scandal, they marry until the baby is born. Boxed in by her own misdeeds, Jane knows she has to agree to his demands, even though giving in has never been easy for her. The two move to Carl's North Carolina hometown to avoid the media pressure and the sparks begin to fly. What had begun as a temporary marriage of expediency quickly becomes much more as the two headstrong and feisty characters battle all the while their mutual, passionate attraction grows. SPOILER: Jane's subtly rendered relationships with Carl's family members prove the key in finally bringing the couple together.
Geographical Setting: Chicago, Illinois and Salvation, North Carolina
Time Period: Present day
Series: Chicago Stars series, book 3
Appeal Characteristics:
The most obvious appeal of this novel is its light and humorous tone. There is plenty of witty dialogue between the two strong and intelligent main characters, and the situations they end up in can be quite amusing. Though the story is fast-paced and full of action, the major characters are fairly well-developed. The characters' thoughts and feelings and the emotional conflict of the story compliment its humor, rather than being drowned out by the laughs. Another significant appeal of the novel is the fact that the two main characters are struggling and far from perfect, so readers can relate to them even though the hero is a professional football star and the heroine is a famous scientist.
Read-alikes: Readers who enjoyed Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Rita Award winning Nobody's Baby But Mine will certainly be interested in the six other books in the Chicago Stars series. The first in this series of interrelated humorous stories of strong women and the men of the team, It Had To Be You, tells of the clash and eventual passion between the owner's daughter and the team's coach. Family Man (1992) by Jane Ann Krentz tells the story of a similarly take-charge heroine's efforts to save the family business in a fast-paced and humorous novel. Jennifer Crusie's Bet Me (2004), gives the reader an unlikley romance commenced under dubious circumstances, as well as the funny and witty dialogue Phillips is so good with. Two other good choices for readers interested in funny romances involving sports would be Rachel Gibson's See Jane Score (2003) and Deidre Martin's Body Check (2003), both of which tell of the battle between strong women and hockey stars and the resulting romantic passion.
Red Flags: Strong sexual content; some profanity
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