Warning: Spoilers possible for several SEP books.

I think that Susan Elizabeth Phillips writes the best secondary characters. The best. What makes her secondary characters so great is that they don’t take away from the primary characters. Oftentimes, I’ll read a book where the secondary characters outshine the primary ones. That’s not a good thing. When secondary characters are done right, all they do is make the story better.

Torie and Dex in Lady Be Good: Torie is Kenny Traveler’s sister. After several failed marriages, her dad decides to blackmail her into a political marriage. While that particular part didn’t go over very well for me, the whole relationship really worked. Dex was a total geek. I loved that he didn’t try to be someone he was not. He also manipulated Torie without being malicious. Their first time in the bedroom was hilariously funny, yet sweet at the same time (reminiscent of Yank and Paige in Hot Shot).

Suzy and Sawyer in Heaven, Texas: This one annoyed me at first. Mostly b/c Suzy Denton was so helpless without her husband, who had been gone for years. Reading more, you see that she’s more in sort of a mid-life crisis and her feelings for Sawyer throw her for a loop. I do wish she would have stood up to Bobby Tom a little more, but other than that I really liked how SEP threw in a couple that shows you can be happy no matter what age you are.

Lynn and Jim Bonner in Nobody’s Baby But Mine: This is one of my favorites of SEP’s secondary characters. Lynn and Jim Bonner have been married for years. After he got her pregnant, Jim did the right thing and married her. He ended up becoming a small town doctor instead of the big-time researcher he wanted to be. They come to a crossroad in their marriage and Lynn finally makes a stand to be the person she wants to be, not the person that Jim wants her to be.

Those are just a few of the secondary characters that have stuck with me. What are some of your favorite SEP secondary characters? Or even some non-SEP?