Series: Wynette Texas

Review: The Great Escape by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Posted August 14, 2012 by Rowena in Reviews | 2 Comments

Review: The Great Escape by Susan Elizabeth PhillipsReviewer: Rowena
The Great Escape (Wynette, Texas, #7) by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Series: Wynette Texas #7
Also in this series: Call Me Irresistible (Wynette, Texas #6)
Publisher: Harper Collins, William Morrow
Publication Date: July 10th 2012
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 437
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
three-stars
Series Rating: three-stars

Where do you run to when your life has fallen apart?

Lucy Jorik is a champ at never embarrassing the family she adores—not surprising since her mother is one of the most famous women in the world. But now Lucy has done just that. And on her wedding day, no less, to the most perfect man she's ever known.

Instead of saying "I do" to Mr. Irresistible, Lucy flees the church in an ill-fitting blue choir robe and hitches a ride on the back of a beat-up motorcycle plastered with offensive bumper stickers. She's flying into the unknown with a rough-looking, bad-tempered stranger who couldn't be more foreign to her privileged existence.

While the world searches for her, Lucy must search for herself, and she quickly realizes that her customary good manners are no defense against a man who's raised rudeness to an art form. Lucy needs to toughen up—and fast.

Her great escape takes her to his rambling beach house on a Great Lakes island. Here, she hopes to find a new direction . . . and unlock the secrets of this man who knows so much about her but reveals nothing about himself. As the hot summer days unfold amid scented breezes and sudden storms, she'll also encounter a beautiful, troubled beekeeper; a frightened young boy; a modern-day evil queen; and a passion that could change her life forever.

In this dazzling follow-up to her New York Times bestseller Call Me Irresistible, Susan Elizabeth Phillips tells the funny, touching, enchanting story of a young woman searching for her destiny . . . and of a damaged man who doesn't believe in second chances.

I’ve been pretty antsy for this book for a while now. Probably since Ted and Meg’s story that came out last year. I used to be all about Ted and Lucy but then SEP broke them up and hooked Ted up with Meg and I got over Ted and Lucy then when this book came out, my first thought was, “Finally!”. This is Lucy’s book, y’all!

This book has all of the staples of being an SEP read. The hero being a total dick to the heroine, the heroine hates the hero and the feeling is mutual and over the course of the story, that changes. This book takes place the minute that Lucy runs from the Church on her wedding day to Teddy. In Meg’s book, we get what happened on Ted’s side of things and in this book, we get to see what the heck happened to Lucy.

Lucy jumps on the back of Mysterious Man’s motorcycle and off they ride into the sunset. Lucy can’t stick around, she needs to leave more than she needs her next breath so off she goes with the stranger that’s been poking around Wynette for the past little while. She’s holding on for dear life and once they make their first stop, the stranger who’s name is Panda. Yes, you read that right. He tells her to call him Panda. Anyway, Panda gives her a hard time about jilting Teddy at the altar and that becomes the norm for them as they put miles between them and Wynette.

Seeing Lucy and Panda grow closer and closer as the story wove on was at times funny but at other times annoying. The fought a lot and then when the other characters came into play, it only added to the madness that was already Lucy’s life. There’s the fat camp lady, Toby and his guardian and then Mike. There’s plenty of things going on that will keep you from getting bored but I wasn’t a fan of a lot of things in this book. I wasn’t a fan of the way that Panda treated Lucy in the beginning and I wasn’t a fan of Lucy’s get up when she shows up at Panda’s lake house. Now, you’d think that I hated the book as a whole but I didn’t. SEP works her magic in a way that the characters got on your hot damn nerves throughout the entire book but if you stuck with it, she repaid you for your loyalty but making everything better in the end.

This book is filled with colorful characters and many a laughs. SEP writes a story that will make you glad that you finished even though you wanted to strangle each and every single one of her characters just moments before. It’s a good book and yeah, you should still read it.

Grade: 3 out of 5

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

three-stars


Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Review: Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Posted January 9, 2012 by Holly in Reviews | 2 Comments

Review: Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth PhillipsReviewer: Holly
Call Me Irresistible (Wynette, Texas #6) by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Series: America's Lady #3, Wynette Texas #6
Also in this series: The Great Escape (Wynette, Texas, #7)
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication Date: January 18th 2011
Pages: 385
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
three-half-stars

R.S.V.P. to the most riotous wedding of the year . . .

Lucy Jorik is the daughter of a former president of the United States.

Meg Koranda is the offspring of legends.

One of them is about to marry Mr. Irresistible—Ted Beaudine—the favorite son of Wynette, Texas. The other is not happy about it and is determined to save her friend from a mess of heartache.

But even though Meg knows that breaking up her best friend's wedding is the right thing to do, no one else seems to agree. Faster than Lucy can say "I don't," Meg becomes the most hated woman in town—a town she's stuck in with a dead car, an empty wallet, and a very angry bridegroom. Broke, stranded, and without her famous parents at her back, Meg is sure she can survive on her own wits. What's the worst that can happen? Lose her heart to the one and only Mr. Irresistible? Not likely. Not likely at all.

Meg Koranda is the spoiled daughter of Hollywood’s most darling couple. In a family of overachievers, she’s definitely the black sheep. She’s spent her life wandering the planet, living off her daddy’s money and generally doing nothing. But then her parents cut her off, and she has no idea how to take care of herself. In the midst of this, she travels to small Texas town, Wynette, to see her best friend get married. As soon as she hits town it’s glaringly obvious that Lucy and Ted are all wrong for each other.

And she isn’t the only one having doubts. Lucy isn’t sure she should be marrying Ted, either. So a few words from Meg are all it takes to convince her not to go through with it. Lucy disappears for parts unknown, and Meg is left taking the blame for everything that happened. No one believes it was truly Lucy’s fault, they put the blame squarely on Meg. And wouldn’t you know it, just when she really needs to get out of town, she can’t. She’s dead broke. So much so, she can’t even afford to pay her hotel bill for her time in Wynette.

Now she’s stranded in a town where everyone hates her, without a penny to her name and no one to call for help. But maybe she can make it on her own..if she only she can  manage to stay away from Ted Beaudine. Because despite the fact that he was just engaged to her best friend, she’s crazy attracted to him.

There was a lot about this book that I enjoyed. SEP never fails to engage my emotions or pull me into her stories. I was entertained and exhilarated. But I was also disappointed. A lot about the actions of both main characters didn’t make sense, in context of the story and out of it. Plus, SEP really loves to humiliate her heroines, and that can be frustrating. I didn’t understand why the entire town blamed Meg, and I especially didn’t like how the women in town treated her. Each of them was scorned by the town when they first arrived, so you’d think they’d learn and try to do better. Instead, the same thing repeats each book.

As always, SEP has written an engaging tale. Sadly I didn’t love it as much as some of her others.

3.5 out of 5

three-half-stars


Tagged: , , , , , , ,