Sandy M’s review of Natural Born Charmer (Chicago Stars, Book 7) by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Contemporary Romance Audiobook published by HarperAudio on 6 Feb 07

I’m glad I listened to the audio of this book instead of sitting down and reading it. The characters are simply wonderful, so full of depth, and hearing them coming to life was so much better than anything I could have come up with in my head. The humor and the emotion of those characters deserved to be spoken, to be appreciated. In putting this review together, I found out the woman who narrated the book, Anna Fields (her real name was Kate Fleming) has passed away since her perfectly read narration. What a loss for those of us who enjoy audiobooks. She was one of the best.

The humor starts in right away, all at the expense of Blue Bailey, who is down on her luck at this point in time. She’s wearing a beaver suit, carrying her head, trying to earn some money after being dumped by her boyfriend who she moved across the country to be with, and then the most handsomest of men pulls up alongside her and offers her a lift. The ensuing scene between Dean and Blue bantering back and forth as they coast down the road is definitely laugh-out-loud funny. Not knowing Blue’s name initially, Dean calls her “the Beav” throughout their conversation, and it’s all inflection of voice with a little laughter thrown in that makes it one of the best scenes of the book. Blue ends up sticking with Dean on his trip to Tennessee to take a look at some property he owns. There’s attraction right away between them, but they both deny it; Dean only wanting to get in Blue’s pants, needing nothing more, or so he thinks.

Dean is estranged from both his parents, his father is rock ‘n roll star Jack Patriot, who turned his back on Dean before his birth, and his mother is a now-sober ex-groupie of Jack’s. He’s happy without them in his life, but when he gets to his destination he finds it’s been his mother who’s been remodeling his house, something that rockets Dean’s temper sky high, even though April is now a productive citizen and only wants to make up for the years she wasn’t a mother at all to Dean. He’s having none of it. But suddenly he has a houseful of family to deal with. First his mother, and now his eleven-year-old sister has made her way into his life, which also brings his father along, and Dean is not anywhere close to being able to deal with all of them. All he wants is to have Blue to himself to find a way past her irrational behavior — she’s attracted to him but she won’t admit it and he loves a good challenge. Blue doesn’t even realize she’s thrown the gauntlet down to this competitive man who turns her to jelly with just a touch.

Blue has her own family problems. Her mother is one of those people who takes up causes for others while leaving her daughter behind and cleaning out her bank account to pay for the release of a young girl being held by fanatics in another country. Blue has no choice but to tag along with Dean. Even though he never introduces himself as a football star, Blue knows who he is and also knows that anything that develops between them would be a disaster, so she holds him at bay as much as possible. She goes along with his schemes where his family is concerned, but she eventually winds up loving them as much as she loves Dean. She knows, however, he’ll never return her feelings. She’s only a challenge to him and the day is coming when she’ll have to leave him.

I enjoyed the majority of this book. The interactions between Dean and his family, the slow rehashing of their lives and the eventual forgiveness for all of them is well done. However, I don’t think Dean deserved Blue’s forgiveness for his treatment of her when his football buddies and their girlfriends, including one who thinks she’s Dean’s girl, come for a visit. He should have shown more care for Blue’s feelings when he didn’t correct their misconceptions about her place in his life. He’s come to terms with his feelings for Blue by this time, so it just didn’t feel right when he acted as he did. I really liked the scenes with his young sister. She’s a catalyst for the repair of a lot of hurt in their family. The intricacies of these characters’ lives is laid bare for them to come to grips with their mistakes, forgive, and move on with one another as a family should and it’s done with wit, laughter, and raw emotion.

Grade: B+

Summary:

     Chicago Stars quarterback Dean Robillard is the luckiest man in the world. But life in the glory lane has started to pale, and Dean has set off on a 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. As for the beaver suit she’s wearing . . . Is it her fault that life keeps throwing her curve balls? Witness the expensive black sports car pulling up next to her on the highway and the Greek god stepping out of it.

     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.

Listen to an excerpt.