Ted Beaudine, one of Phillips’s most charming characters (the adolescent heartbreaker from her hilarious debut, Fancy Pants, and the new college graduate from Lady Be Good) is now all grown up and in a heap of romantic trouble all his own—in a perfectly marvelous contemporary romance that fans of Emily Giffin, Kristen Hannah, and Elin Hilderbrand will simply adore.
Comment: This is the 6th installment in the Wynette, Texas series by author Susan Elizabeth Phillips. I've been catching up with this author's work and I have to say I'm always please with her books, even the ones I liked less were still well structured and presented.
This book finally tells us the story of Teddy Beaudine, the child we got to fall in love in book#1 and who has appeared in other books too. Teddy is now well liked by everyone in Wynette and the whole town defends and cares about him.
Teddy is about to marry Lucy Jorik, another character we've met in previous books but she runs away on the wedding day. Being left behind is Meg Koranda, another child of famous people and Lucy's best friend. Everyone blames flighty Meg for steady Lucy's sudden change in behavior but Meg is not at fault. Caught at a very bad moment in her life, Meg stays in Wynette, a place where no one seems to like her, until her situation changes but in the meantime, can she really fight her attraction to Teddy? And can the town that hates her benefit from her help?
Once again, I was very impressed with a story by this author. The writing style is very appealing, the plot catching and one can't help but feel good reading and this was a book I devoured in one day because I couldn't put it down.
The story is very appealing, like I said, and Teddy and Meg make a good couple. The best thing is that their relationship isn't insta-love and insta-sex, there is some development to them as individuals and then as a couple and because it takes time before they get intimate, everything seems more believable and true. I applaud the author's efforts to crate sexual tension and situations where we the characters interact and be adversaries and then slowly convincing themselves they are in love.
Despite this, obviously the book it's not perfection and certain scenes seemed too unlikely or didn't match the type of things in development... I especially can't help noticing that when characters do accept the attraction between them is inevitable, it almost feels like it's the only way for things to progress but obviously not everyone feels the same. Only characters in these books always act like that.
Meg, as the heroine, has most of the scenes concerning her or related to her. As always, the author's trademark of having her heroine down on her luck and without any convincing or quick means to support herself independently happens here too. But of course part of the interest is seeing how the heroine gains respect of others, starts to like herself and being happy in her skin and competences. It's also great to see others starting to warm up to her and the HEA feels even better because of that. Meg is a perfect example of all this.
Teddy, the hero, is quieter and has more depth than it looks like at first. Because of this, I think he feels more distant as a character than other heroes in the past, but I guess his charm is always there. I liked seeing him as grown up.
The best thing, however, is the amazing character relationships we see throughout the book. It's great to see such a cast interact and all the beloved characters be an important - but not central - part of the story. The community sense we get out of this is great and that happens not only because it's a place we would like to know in real life but also because it makes us feel good when people naturally care for one another and defend them against enemies or people who might hurt/harm them somehow.
The family connections was also something interesting in this novel, namely the relationships each main character had with their parents. That gave quite the idea of how both Meg and Teddy behaved but it wasn't as depicted as I imagined. I know it wasn't supposed to be the focus but still.
I liked the book and how it made me feel, how captivating it was and that it made me want to read more and more...
All in all, this is a great book, I had fun reading and now only one is missing for the series to be complete.
Grade: 8/10
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