Lady Be Good
By: Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Published Year: 2009
Publisher: Harper's Collins
Pages: 389
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): Lady Emma Wells-Finch--the oh-so-proper headmistress of England's St. Gertrude's School for Girls--has come to Texas with just two weeks to ruin her reputation, the only way she can save herself from losing everything she holds dear. And when a gorgeous man who can't afford another scandal meets this hardheaded woman who's determined to cause one, anything can happen, even love.
First Impressions
Susan Elizabeth Phillips is one of my auto-read authors. I saw this book on sale at Barnes & Noble and it was one that I hadn’t read, so I picked it up. The cover caught my eye and the combination of that plus the author made this an easy purchase. I don’t even remember if I read the summary before purchasing other than to skim it to make sure I hadn’t read it before.
What I thought
I needed this book! I needed a light, fun book that would put a smile on my face and this was exactly that!
Lady Emma Wells-Finch is a head mistress at an all girls school in England and has come to Texas to do some research and also to find a way out of an unwanted engagement. Kenny Traveler is a pro golfer who has recently been suspended due to poor behavior. When Kenny is asked to help show Emma around Dallas, their personalities don’t initially mix but their chemistry does.
Phillips writes romance novels that remind me of Hallmark movies. Most of her main male characters are sports players and the women have strong personalities as well. My favorite romance novel trope is the hate to love romance. For some reason I am highly entertained by relationships that begin with the two main characters hating/disliking each other and then realizing that they love each other after all.
This book has a similar storyline in that Emma and Kenny aren’t the biggest fans of each other, but they don’t hate each other. In fact, they are immediately attracted to one another and personality wise, they can tolerate each other. Kenny isn’t about strong/bossy women and Emma is as bossy as they come. Emma is a good girl who has never done a bad thing in her life, but she wants to destroy her reputation to get out of a forced engagement. She sees that Kenny might be her best way to do this so she is more open to him than she would be if they met under normal circumstances.
Kenny and Emma are very fun together. One of the most important aspects of a good romance novel is the chemistry between the two main characters. If the characters aren’t good together then the reader won’t really care about their relationship and then as a result, the rest of the book. Kenny and Emma are definitely a pair that I was rooting for! They have enough in their own lives to make them complicated and interesting and not just flat.
Honestly, not too much to say/analyze about this book. The story is perfectly lovely and the writing is solid as with all Susan Elizabeth Phillips novels. If you are a fan of Hallmark movies, I recommend checking this book (or any of Phillips’ books) out. I loved reading it and will probably end up reading it again in the future since I own it!