NATURAL BORN CHARMER is the seventh book in the Chicago Stars series by Susan Elizabeth Phillips and was originally published in 2007. I remember reading this back when it was first published and falling deeply in love with the main characters, Blue and Dean. For this review I wanted to do a reread and remind myself of all the reasons why I gushed about it originally. After finally finishing I remember exactly why this book earned a place on my keeper shelf.
This couple's journey begins on a small back road where Dean sees Blue is walking down the street wearing her beaver costume, sweaty, dirty and ready to do bodily harm to an ex-boyfriend. He gives her a ride, they exchange sarcastic banter and from there a very different type of relationship for each of them is born. They both have complicated histories that have led them down very different paths in life. Dean Robillard is a successful quarterback with the Chicago Stars and Blue Bailey is a broke, down on her luck painter. There isn't much that they have in common, but they are exactly what the other needs.
With no money and no place to go, Blue is kind of stuck with the glitzy, gorgeous football player until she can figure out how to get back on her feet. Dean decides to take her with him to his farm in Tennessee. She only intends to stick around temporarily and he finds the quirky woman amusing enough to keep her around until she decides it's time to leave. I adored each of them equally and loved the study in contradictions the more I got to know them. Dean is wildly rich and famous, but doesn't take himself too seriously. Blue is wickedly smart and has a snappy comeback for everything, but she hides a bruised heart that has problems with trust. Each are flawed in their own ways, but together they just work. This couple had me hooked from their very first meeting right up until the happily ever after.
I could go on and on about how touching and poignant Susan Elizabeth Phillips's love stories are, she really is one of the most gifted contemporary romance authors alive, but I won't. Mainly because the very best thing about her stories aren't just the main romances between the hero and heroine. It's all the different, intricate secondary plotlines that reach out and grab readers when they least expect it. Every type of relationship is represented, from friendship to family. Brothers discover bonds with their little sisters they didn't know they needed, two people who thought they were lost to each other realize they still have crazy, mad love that will never die and even grouchy, bitter old ladies can discover they have a touchstone in a sarcastic young woman. Each of their side stories is incredibly stunning and real. I went through the whole gamut of human emotion while reading. I laughed out loud, felt that heaviness in my chest a few times, cried just a little bit and in the end closed this book with a heart full of happiness.
NATURAL BORN CHARMER is a beautiful tale of love and redemption. I fell in love with these characters all over again and found this to be just as enchanting the second time around. Susan Elizabeth Phillips never fails to deliver the very best in contemporary romance.
Chicago Stars quarterback Dean Robillard is the luckiest man in the world: a bona-fide sports superstar and the pride of the NFL with a profitable side career as a buff billboard model for End Zone underwear. But life in the glory lane has started to pale, and Dean has set off on a cross-country trip to figure out what's gone wrong. When he hits a lonely stretch of Colorado highway, he spies something that will shake up his gilded life in ways he can't imagine. A young woman . . . dressed in a beaver suit.
Blue Bailey is on a mission to murder her ex. Or at least inflict serious damage. As for the beaver suit she's wearing . . . Is it her fault that life keeps throwing her curveballs? Witness the expensive black sports car pulling up next to her on the highway and the Greek god stepping out of it.
Blue's career as a portrait painter is the perfect job for someone who refuses to stay in one place for very long. She needs a ride, and America's most famous football player has an imposing set of wheels. Now, all she has to do is keep him entertained, off guard, and fully clothed before he figures out exactly how desperate she is.
But Dean isn't the brainless jock she imagines, and Blue—despite her petite stature—is just about the toughest woman Dean has ever met. They're soon heading for his summer home where their already complicated lives and inconvenient attraction to each other will become entangled with a charismatic but aging rock star; a beautiful fifty-two-year-old woman trying to make peace with her rock and roll past; an eleven-year-old who desperately needs a family; and a bitter old woman who hates them all.
As the summer progresses, the wandering portrait artist and the charming football star play a high-stakes game, fighting themselves and each other for a chance to have it all.
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