Natural Born Charmer [Hardcover]

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 6, 2007

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.

Natural Born Charmer is for everyone who's ever thought about leaving their old life in the dust and never looking back. Susan Elizabeth Phillips takes us home again . . . and shows us where love truly lives.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this latest installment in Phillips's romance series starring the Chicago Stars football players (This Heart of Mine; Nobody's Baby but Mine), the bestselling novelist delivers a love story wrought with delicious sexual tension and charged banter. When debonair starting quarterback Dean Robillard, on a soul-searching road trip after a serious shoulder injury, happens across Blue Bailey, walking alongside the road wearing a beaver costume, he stops to help her. Blue is far from a Barbie-esque football groupie, but broke and stranded, she needs both a ride and a job, and the football all-star (driving a sexy Aston Martin) poses an interesting opportunity. As the two travel from Colorado to Dean's new farmhouse in east Tennessee, Blue resists his advances, and both athlete and vagabond struggle with deeply rooted trust and familial issues that are soon exacerbated by the unexpected presence of Dean's mother at the farm. While the verbal sparring in this textbook case of opposites attracting feels stagy at first, the rough edges come together in an alluring way. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

After her ex-boyfriend Monty insists that she is the only person he ever loved, Blue Bailey packs up everything she has (which isn't much) and moves from Seattle to Colorado to be with him. But once Blue arrives, she discovers Monty has found love again with a younger, blonder new girlfriend. With few job options and practically no money, Blue thought she might be stuck in Colorado for a long time, until Dean Robillard drives through on his way to Tennessee. The last person Blue wants to ask for a favor is a way-too-gorgeous-for-his-own-good stranger who annoys her to no end. And who turns out to be the quarterback for the Chicago Stars. But Dean is Blue's only ticket out, even if it means she is stuck with him all the way to Tennessee. RITA Award-winner Phillips creates yet another classic romance in her loosely connected Chicago Stars series with this splendidly satisfying tale of love, family, and redemption. Generously seasoned with plenty of tart humor and snappy dialogue, and graced with a delightfully amusing pair of protagonists trying desperately not to fall in love, Natural Born Charmer is simply irresistible. John Charles
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow (February 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060734574
• ISBN-13: 978-0060734572
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (139 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #867,118 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

51 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable contemporary romance, February 7, 2007

By 

Jane Litte "Jane at DearAuthor.Com" (US) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Natural Born Charmer (Hardcover)

I liked smart mouthed heroines and I understood Blue's motivations. She understood herself well enough to know that falling for Dean Roubillard would be disastrous. She uses everything that she can think of to ward him off, to turn away his natural born charm. Her best weapon is her brain and her mouth.

Yet, for all her knowing, like many romance heroines, she fails to see that her being a challenge is the best way to attract him. Dean knows women and he is pretty sure that Blue is attracted to him, after all he's rich, famous and gorgeous. That's enough to make any girl's heart rate rise. On the other hand, he's a little disconcerted that she doesn't fall easily into his hands. As a super competitive person, Dean becomes challenged. Soon everything between Dean and Blue becomes a contest. Who can give the most witty retort. Who can confuse the other the most. Who can be the most frustrating.

The story would have been good just watching Blue and Dean spar, but this more than a love story, its a story about families and their capacity to love, betray, hurt and forgive. It's about second chances and who deserves them. What you have to do in order to deserve them? Does a mother who spent her time high and floating from one man to another in search of a better hit deserve forgiveness and a chance at a relationship with her son. Does a father who wanted nothing to do with his son except when the son becomes famous deserve the same? The problem that this book has is that because of the mostly lighthearted overtones, the chance to explore the deeper themes of love and betrayal is missed. Those parts are glossed over. They maybe be glossed over because neither Dean nor Blue really want to explore their past, but their methods of coping can't continue to work if they are to grow as characters.

Where I felt really cheated was that the patterned behavior of abandonment learned by Dean is re-enacted against Blue, Dean doesn't really come to see the truth of his own actions. In fact, I thought there was a point of great betrayal by Dean to Blue that is simply explained away with a sentence or two. There needed to be groveling. Lots of it and publicly done. The lack of the good grovel after the humiliating event coupled with the superficiality of some themes cast a minor pall over the end pushing the grade of this book down to a B.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One True Note, February 9, 2007

By 

Sandra Sadler (Dallas, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Natural Born Charmer (Hardcover)

SEP has done it again. In Blue Bailey, she's created another terrific female character you'll never forget and hate to let go, like Phoebe and Sugar Beth and Isobel. Someone touched on the darker themes in this book and SEP doesn't shy away from these: abandonment, drug abuse, etc. But as an author, SEP always writes with a non-judgmental approach to her characters and through her talent, she peels away layers until she finds that one true note that explains her characters' motivation. And suddenly you understand. SEP writes comedy with human drama mixed in and although she touches on these darker themes, she doesn't allow them to steal the story. It takes a deft touch to handle these themes the way she does because the stories could so easily become humorless. As usual, there's the great dialogue, the funny one-liners, the peerless descriptions that make SEP one of a kind, and the love for her flawed characters that sparkles on every page. I wish we could clone Susan, or just compel her to write faster.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Wait for the paperback., March 15, 2007

By 

C. Dippel (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Natural Born Charmer (Hardcover)

I'd like to preface this review by saying that SEP used to be one of my favorite authors. I loved Kiss an Angel, IHTBY, Heaven, Texas, Dream a Little Dream, Nobody's Baby But Mine, and Lady Be Good, but it seems that ever since she went mainstream with hardcovers, that her books have become predictable and formulaic and NBC is no exception. Beautiful and brilliant but troubled jock with too much money falls in love with a quirky, poor woman who also has family issues. For some reason, her earlier Chicago Stars books had some elements of realism, but I feel like she's lost her touch in writing relatable characters and plausible story lines. The plot was too far fetched and didn't focus enough on the two main characters. The book lacks the steam that once made SEP famous. I think the book is less of a romance and more of a mainstream family story since the subplots really took over the book.

While it had some great lines and some great scenes, it's not worth the money.