Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

[fajrdrako]

Susan Elizabeth Phillips has been my favourite romance novelist for years now, and I think with every novel I love her more. I love her stories for the same reasons I love Dorothy Dunnett and Lois McMaster Bujold: I love the way her characters screw up and sort out their lives.

Call Me Irresistible is another story about Wynette, Texas, and golfers... But it could be just about anywhere and it could be any recreational sort. It's about Meg Koranda, whose best friend Lucy was about to marry Ted Baudine. But - influenced by Meg - Lucy leaves Ted at the altar. So then Meg is stuck in Wynette without a penny to her name, where everyone hates her, even the town hero and saint, Ted Baudine. But she gets reluctantly pulled into the lives of Ted's friends and family... And for all she's in denial, into the orbit of Ted himself. The theme is ultimately about self-control (good and bad) and issues of self-esteem.

So, as the really great romances are, it's as much about people finding themselves as finding each other.