Author Spotlight Review: First Lady by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Publisher: Avon, Harper Collins

Rowena‘s review of First Lady by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Hero: Mat Jorik
Heroine: Nealy Case
Grade: 4.5 out of 5

The beautiful young widow of the President of the United States thought she was free of the White House, but circumstances have forced her back into the role of the First Lady. Not for long, however, because she’s made up her mind to escape—if only for a few days—so she can live the life of an ordinary person. All she needs is the perfect disguise…and she’s just found it. As an entire nation searches for her, the First Lady teams up with an infuriatingly secretive, quietly seductive stranger and two adorable little orphaned girls in need of a family. And all together they head out across the heartland chasing their own American Dream—on a wild journey, adventure, and glorious rebirth.

I adored this book!

I thought it was too cute for words and I’m totally stoked that I finally got to read it. It’s an oldie but definitely a goodie because reading this book was like taking a enjoyable road trip. I was right there with Mat, Nealy (or Nell), Lucy and Button. I was right in the thick of all of the drama, the laughs and the good times.

SEP certainly delivered a good time with this story. I thought it was such an entertaining story and it reminded me of the stories that started my romance novel addiction. The kind of stories that I would spend the next many YEARS discussing with my friends. You know, those kinds of stories. SEP has a way with words that never fails to draw me deep into the worlds that she’s created for her characters. I love her writing and this story was a great showcase of that.

First Lady Cornelia “Nealy” Case just lost her husband who used to be the President of the United States and she finally thinks she’s going to be turned loose to live the kind of life she’s always wanted to live…a normal one. She doesn’t want to live the life of a First Lady anymore even though she was raised to have political ambitions. Her father was way into politics and she was raised to do her duty and to always do as she was told. She lived her life in the public spotlight so she never really had time to take her hair down and just ..live. So she concocts a plan to escape the White House for as long as she can and have a little fun.

As soon as she escapes from the White House she starts doing the things and eating the things that she’s always wanted to try. She shops at Wal Mart and it’s an adventure for her. Having grown up wearing the finest threads and eating the finest foods, Nealy eats up living the way that normal, everyday Americans live. She eats at little diners off the highway and she is having a blast until the car she bought gets stolen with all the cash she had.

She hooks up with Mat Jorik who is having his own set of issues going on. Mat is stuck with two kids that he doesn’t want because his dead ex wife put his name on both of their birth cetificates when she knew good and well that Mat couldn’t have fathered any of the kids. He’s got one bratty 14 year old with a smart mouth and a baby who loves to spend the day screaming at the top of her lungs and Mat is stuck with them. He wants to drop them off at their grandmother’s house in Iowa so that he can get back to his life. When they pull into the same parking lot as a stranded Nealy, he thinks he’s hit it big since he just agreed to take on a temporary nanny. A nanny who would take the kids and keep them out of his hair.

The story follows Mat, Nell and the kids journey to Iowa. It shows them interacting with one another and getting to know each other. Through out the whole book, you learned a little more about each of them and you felt for them. I think SEP does an exceptional job of making the reader understand why each character is the way that they are. Each character had their own set of problems that they were going through and you cheered them on. You wanted the best for each of them because as the story progressed, they became family to you.

I thought Mat was a fantastic hero. He was bullheaded, he was a pain but he was such a man. He reacted the way that I think normal men act and still he was great. I enjoyed getting to know him and I enjoyed lusting after him behind the wheel of that beat up ol’ mobile home. I enjoyed watching his relationship with both Button and Lucy and I really enjoyed the sexual tension between him and Nell. He messed up and he was a jerk sometimes but that is what made him perfect to me, he was so real to me and I just loved him to pieces.

Nell was another good heroine. She was different in the sense that this is the first romance novel that I’ve read that features a First Lady heroine but I enjoyed getting to know Nell. I understood what motivated her and I admired her for going through with her plan to escape for a while. I enjoyed watching her get a dose of what real life is for normal Americans and I enjoyed watching her get to know and fall in love with the little makeshift family she made on the road. Watching her relationship with all of the members of their little family from Lucy to Mat and even to Button was seriously a delight. I loved that she finally stood up to her father and made him accept the new members of her family and the end of the book just totally got me. I loved it.

Lucy and Button were great additions to the story. I have got to say that I’m a big Lucy fan and I hope to high heaven that she is the one that ends up with Teddy because Lucy had such a big heart. She kept it hidden behinds layers of bratty behavior but I couldn’t blame her one bit for reacting the way that she did throughout this book because she was such a young girl to have to be going through what she was going through. She wanted to make sure that someone would take care of her baby sister because she knew that nobody was going to want her. Awww, her bratty behavior masked the hurt and grief that she went through because her Mother. To find out that the man that your mother told you was such a good man didn’t want to take you and your baby sister in had to have hurt and teenagers feel everything so much more than everyone else, that rejection must have stung so I really enjoyed seeing Lucy develop into the young woman she was at the end of the book. I just really loved her character and I really, really look forward to seeing more of her in future books. Woot!

Button was too cute for words and the bond she formed with “Da” (Mat) was just too adorable for words. I love reading about kids in romance books and I’m glad that I got to know Button. I’m really anxious to see what kind of woman she grows up to be.

Overall, this book was highly enjoyable and though it’s not my favorite SEP book, I still enjoyed the heck out of it. I would recommend this to any SEP fan out there who hasn’t tried this book. Give it a go, you’ll enjoy it. I’m sure of it.

This book is available from Avon. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

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