Lady Be Good [Hardcover]

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1999

A British Lady

Lady Emma Wells-Finch, the oh-so-proper headmistressof England's St. Gertrude's School for Girls, is a woman on a mission—she has two weeks to lose her reputation. Arriving in Texas with skirts flying, umbrella pointing, and beautiful mouth issuing orders, she knows only one thing will save her from losing everything she holds dear: complete and utter disgrace!

A Texas Rascal

World-famous playboy-athlete Kenny Traveler has kickedup his boot heels one too many times, and now he's suspended from the sport he loves. Only one thing will restore his career:complete and utter respectability! Unfortunately, he's been blackmailed into chauffeuring bossy, single-minded Lady Emma, and she's hell-bent on visiting honkytonks,chasing down tattoo parlors, and worse.. lots worse.

Love, All-American Style

When a gorgeous man who can't afford another scandal meets a hardheaded woman who's determined to cause one, anything can happen. But love? Oh, dear. That's impossible.That's outrageous. That's... inevitable!

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Lady Emma Wells-Finch is determined to cause a scandal. Nothing big, you understand, just enough to convince her pompous British suitor that she's not an eligible candidate for marriage. She's thinking along the lines of, oh, maybe a discreet tattoo. But when suspended Texas golf pro Kenny Traveler meets her plane at Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport, Emma decides that he's the perfect candidate to destroy her reputation.

Kenny, on the other hand--who desperately wants to be reinstated on the golf tour--is just as determined to keep a low profile and remain squeaky-clean. If Lady Emma weren't a close personal friend of the golf commissioner's wife, he'd never have agreed to squire her around town. Unfortunately for Kenny, his weakness for the British beauty is growing daily, and it seems as though Emma may have feelings for him as well. In a bizarre turn of events, wild man Kenny finds himself trying to keep the prim and proper British lady from causing a scandal the size of which even the lone-star state has never seen, and the results will leave you laughing with delight.

Below the hilarious dialogue that is Susan Elizabeth Phillips's trademark, Kenny, Emma, and the charming array of characters that populate this exceptional contemporary are warm and wonderfully human. Emma saves her Kenny and he saves her right back--never were two people more gloriously deserving of each other. --Lois Faye Dyer --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Flying from England to Texas, Lady Emma Wells-Finch meets world-famous pro golfer Kenny Traveler. She assumes that he's a gigolo and decides that he's just the man to relieve her of her virginity in order to get the stuffy, oafish Duke of Beddington out of her hair. Kenny's need to avoid scandal to save his career conflicts with Emma's need to invent scandal to free her from her English admirer. The results are hilarious. In a secondary plot line that mirrors Lady Emma's predicament with the duke, Kenny's seemingly flighty sister, Torrie?as beautiful as Kenny is handsome?is being forced by her father to marry geek Dexter O'Conner. Dexter and Lady Emma have their work cut out for them, for Kenny and Torrie's respective childhoods have left them scarred and incapable of adult relationships. Some outstanding secondary characters join this foursome, including those from Phillips's earlier Fancy Pants. Her Texas settings and sportsmen as heroes continue to shine, and her playful homage to the peculiarities of wealthy Texas women and small towns is dead-on. Phillips's newest is well written, funny, sexy and altogether satisfying.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: San Val (February 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1417710217
• ISBN-13: 978-1417710218
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (127 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,588,142 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

SUSAN ELIZABETH PHILLIPS is a New York Times, Publisher's Weekly, and USA Today bestseller, whose books are published all over the world.

If you'd like to know more, including info on her newest book, whether any of her books will be made into movies, how to get an autographed book, where she gets her ideas, please visit her web site. You can also see goofy vacation photos. register for her monthly contest, and chat with her on her Message Board. http://www.susanelizabethphillips.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars 2.5 stars, (SPOILERS!!), November 6, 2007

By 

Bronwyn - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Lady Be Good (Mass Market Paperback)

It took me a while to decide what star rating I would give this book. Even detractors of Susan Elizabeth Phillips' books can admit that she is a great writer, and I am no exception. She has the distinction of being the only author that can make me laugh out loud, and create characters that I remember.

I enjoyed the interaction between Lady Emma and Kenny, and I thought her managing/bossy ways was a good foil for his 'ambling' about his life. Neither of the forced marraiges posed a problem; SEP did an excellent job of portraying Hugh as a manipulative and domineering man pushing Emma into marraige. Since Emma allowed herself to be pushed into her first'engagement', I didn't bat an eyelash when she and Kenny got hitched in Vegas.

What made me rate the book so low was the ending, where Emma keeps on villianizing poor Kenny. I mean really, Emma. The real villian was Hugh; she did not show one ounce of backbone to him, yet she treated Kenny as if he was a bad man. As with all SEP books, she does not allow the protagonists to have a happy ending till the man has been emasculated in some large, public way. Now this can be needed, (actually I don't think so but that's another review...) but in this story I thought it was overkill. What made this even worse, was that Emma acted as if Kenny grovelling was necessary for them to be together. I am still not clear what he was supposed to be grovelling for. I agreed with Kenny's accusation to Emma that she didn't want to fight for them.

Now like a previous reviewer mentioned, SEP is starting to have too similar heroine- slightly dippy, insecure and a virgin, with no sense of confidence. Till they get with the too gorgeous rich playboy who falls for their dippiness. But then dippy heroine suddenly musters the spine she has been lacking all her dippy life to lash out at the hero. And then he has to do something Big. Like win a superbowl. Or throw away his career and reputation. Ya know simple things like that.

Maybe the heroines want to punish the hero for being so wealthy, good looking, charming and sexually experienced?

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great follow up to Fancy Pants, August 15, 2005

By 

Tracy Vest (Northern California) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lady Be Good (Mass Market Paperback)

Lady Emma wants to become "not so much a lady" so she won't be a viable candidate to be the next Duchess of Beddington. That means tight clothes, tattoos, piercings, and bedding down an available man to take that pesky (but apparently important to royalty) virginity she has been toting around. The Duke of Beddington owns the girl's academy where she is headmistress, and vows to close it if she refuses him.

On a trip to the US to research a book, she decides to drop her inhibitions with suspended sexy golf pro Kenny Traveler, who she mistakes for a tour guide/gigolo. Their discussions of what constitutes his job responsibilities are hysterical. And $30 for a night of passion with a superstar? He is a bargain! And very willing to find out what a "head mistress" does. When she tells Kenny she wants a pretty flower on her shoulder, but wakes up with the flag of Texas and a banner with the name KENNY emblazoned across it, she is a little frazzled, especially after finding out who he really is.

Kenny is attracted to Emma, but can't act on it since he is on suspension for bad boy activities. Soon, he throws caution to the wind as the two embark on an affair. When Emma thinks she is being followed, she does crazy things like flirt with the first available man or goes on interesting shopping sprees. Kenny's response to her late night drug store excursion is priceless.

This story is a follow up to Fancy Pants, which revolves around the relationship of Kenny's mentor Dallie and his reporter wife, Francesca. They make a brief but memorable appearance (as well as fully grown son, Ted, who Emma almost seduces) in this story as well.

Being an SEP novel, you always know how it will end, but as always, getting there is half the fun!

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A book definitely worth reading....., August 12, 2002

By 

M. I. "krushedvelvet" (Old Bridge, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Lady Be Good (Mass Market Paperback)

This is my very first book by Susan Elizabeth Phillips...and I enjoyed every moment!!! Being that I prefer historical romances, the modern day backdrop to this book threw me off at first; I decided to give it a shot anyway...and I'm sooo glad I did!!! This book was so charming...it was full of laughs...and not only were Kenny and Emma wonderful, but the secondary characters were outstanding as well!!! I would definitely recommend this and look forward to purchasing more works by this author.