I loved Sugar Beth and found myself hating Winnie and the other members of the club. Those women were like lemmings! Gah!

Oh, yeah, I wish someone had taken all of them out, one by one. I reaaalllly had to grit my teeth during the scenes where Ryan was trying to win Winnie back, though. I mean, seriously, his sin was what, exactly? Oh, and how Sugar Beth has to grovel to her in front of Gigi — grrr — okay need to think happy thoughts. Like how brilliant it was to have Sugar Beth and Colin play out Colin’s old revenge scheme; what a delicious way to exorcise the past for them and naturally build in all that sexual tension. One of my favorite scenes was when he storms into the bookstore with the lasagna (“followed by the faint smell of brimstone” or some such thing). I adored the scenes where he let loose with his anger, because IMO it was a great way to show his vulnerabilities without compromising either his masculinity or his emotional defensiveness. I love those books where the sexual tension is expressed palpably through the characters’ verbal interactions. I even enjoyed Gordon, especially the way Colin so casually adopts him.

One thing I didn’t care for so much was the constant way that motherhood was equated with womanhood.

This theme, in one form or another, winds its way through every SEP book I’ve read, and sometimes it ruins the book for me (as it did with this one). In IHTBY, Phoebe also “reclaims her womanhood” when she climbs atop Dan for sex, another equation that didn’t sit all that well with me, probably because I’m on the lookout for it in SEPs books now (okay, so at least she was on top, but still). And it’s tough because in so many ways SEP is a wonderful writer and comedianne, and her heroines are strong, sassy women. If she just didn’t make every single one of them fulfill their “destiny” through motherhood (oh, how I despised Nobody’s Baby But Mine), I’d feel much better about more of her books.

The two SEP books I like the most are Dream a Little Dream and Ain’t She Sweet. DALD won me over because of Rachel, especially the fact that she doesn’t ever feel sorry for herself. And for once, a hero who is supposed to be emotionally dark really is, IMO. I also really liked that Rachel didn’t have to “redeem” herself for anything to be “worthy” of love. And the Ethan/Kristie plot was a nice counterpoint to Rachel and Gabe’s darker dance. I usually don’t like religious characters in Romance (too preachy too often), Philips made Ethan’s piety work for me because it seemed realistic and authentic. And I loved that scene where he flips his lid because Kristie has a condom in her purse and she’s dancing with another guy at the Mountaineer! IMO Phillips is masterful at writing a bossy hero who would easily be a bully if it weren’t for the counter-influence of a strong woman (although some of her heroes are bullies, IMO, including Cal in NBBM).

As for Ain’t She Sweet, I didn’t think I would like this book as much as I did, but I really, really loved both Sugar Beth and Colin. I wish Sugar Beth didn’t need to do so much penance, and I desperately wanted someone to punch Winnie’s self-righteous lights out, but the relationship between Colin and Sugar Beth was compelling enough to get me past those other things. And again, I loved the dark edges in Colin’s personality, the way SEP was willing to make a really unpleasant man a Romance hero. If Phillips hadn’t worked so hard to make Sugar Beth suffer so much for her “redemption” (does her soul really have to be “creamy white” to make her a person worthy of love???), and if she had delivered Winnie a big old piece of Humble Pie, I think this would have been an almost flawless read for me. The bantering alone between Colin and Sugar Beth made this book for me.

Oh, and I also really liked Fancy Pants, but I haven’t read that in a long while so I don’t know how it would measure up now. At the time I read it, though, I liked the more epic sense of the relationship and the ups and downs of the characters lives.

I agree with you wholeheartedly though that this is one author to be really thankful for…and that she’s still writing too!