Natural Born Charmer...

[fajrdrako]

I finished reading Natural Born Charmer by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. It's been a while since I've read one of her books; I think the last one I actually read was First Lady, which means I have some catching up to do.

I love romantic comedy, and Susan Elizabeth Phillips does it best. Her heroines tend to be smart and sassy; her heroes gorgeous sports stars; the plots play on the contrasts and misunderstandings between them, but they aren't superficial plots.

And this one was more complex than most of them. A series of broken parent/child relationships set up the situation, and, as usual, Phillips soon had me crying. In public. In a good way. The story is about relationships, but also about people doing things they are afraid to do, because it's the only way they can find happiness.

For the sake of reminding myself in future, the characters in this one are:

Dean Robillard - Football star and underwear model, Dean Robillard buys a farm in Tennessee for a place to relax and get away from it all. Without his knowledge, his estranged mother, April Robillard, is fixing the place up for him as a his housekeeper. On the way, he picks up an angry artist in a headless beaver costume.

Blue Bailey is the beaver-girl, an artist, penniless because her famous activist mother has emptied her bank account to pay the ransom of kidnapped girls in South America. Growing up with a series of foster parents she loved but whom she always lost, Blue is feisty fiercely independent, but willing to work for Dean out of desperation.

April Robillard, Dean's mother, was a groupie whose livestyle of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll lovers estranged Dean long ago. April has now gone sober and made a respectable life for herself, but Dean can't forgive and forget; nor can he even bring himself to think about the man who is secretly his father, rock star Jack Patriot.

Riley Patriot is Dean's eleven-year old half-sister, a lonely misfit who idolizes her famous brother, whom she has never met. On the death of her mother, she runs away to Dean's farm, hoping to find the one member of her family who might care for her.

Jack Patriot, aging but talented rock star, follows his daughter Riley to the Tennessee farm and finds not only his runaway child (whom he has no idea what to do with), but his unknown son and his ex-lover April - who are almost as embittered with each other as with him.

Then there's Nora Garrison, the crabby old lady who owns the town, and resents the cold reception she got when she was the young show-girl who married the local millionaire forty years earlier, and who reluctantly becomes the best ally of Riley and Blue.

Comments

[toraks.livejournal.com]

Haven't read it yet, but I love that she makes me cry when I read her books. :-)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I love it that she makes me cry too. And it doesn't even need to be the big scenes. Her characterization is just so good.

[toraks.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the authors I love are the ones with great characterization. That's why I read -- for the characters. My best friends are in books! ;-p

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, and some characters in books are just so delightful. There's nothing better than discovering a new author who does really superb characterization.

[toraks.livejournal.com]

Yeah, in my world, that's discovering a new really good author. Plot, setting, those don't do it for me. I need real characters. Though, plot and setting do have to be at a certain level.

Actually, great characterization and a lot of humor are the things I enjoy most in books. Decent plot is a must as well. The rest can vary quite a lot, but if those don't exist, I'm probably not going to like the author all that much. Though, some science fiction I enjoy is more idea oriented. So I guess there are a few exceptions! ;-)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Character is usually more important to me than plot, though ideally they will go together. At lunchtime I was reading a new mystery (Savage Garden) and a couple of chapters into it, the narrative-heroine hasn't struck any kind of chord with me. Nothing wrong with her, but the characters I like grab me right away or not at all - this clearly isn't a Kinsey Milhone or a Carlotta Carlyle.

I love humour too, and what I love best is a juxtaposition of humour and tragedy. I don't know many authors who can pull it off - Dorothy Dunnett, Guy Gavriel Kay, Lois McMaster Bujold - there are others but it's a rare talent.

I don't read a lot of science fiction these days because it does tend to be idea-based. I'm reading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson and love the ideas and the style, but the characters are just vehicles for both - I'm not reading it with anything like the enjoyment with which I read Natural Born Charmer. The emotional hooks are lacking - even though Stephenson is both amusing and interesting.