A review by librarianinperiwinkle
Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

4.0

Meg Koranda arrives in the small town of Wynette, Texas, just in time to fulfill her role as Maid of Honor in her best friend's wedding. Lucy is marrying Ted Beaudine, the town darling and the Most Perfect Man on Earth. Everyone loves him. Everyone. Even sunbeams seem to follow him around! Meg is the only person who finds him irritating, and who likewise irritates him. What Meg quickly realizes is that the match isn't as ideal as it should be, and Lucy is intimidated by her fiance's perfection. When she voices her reservations, she starts a chain of events no one sees coming, and suddenly she finds herself the most hated person in town. Unfortunately for Meg, she lacks the money to leave, so for once in her unfocused life she is forced to find reserves of resourcefulness and determination she didn't know she had in order to survive and overcome the obstacles and complications now blocking her path.

I put this book on hold based on an interesting blurb I found on a list of this year's Top 10 Romance Novels. (Put out by the publisher? I don't remember which list it was.) I was expecting it to be a good story, based on its presence on that list, but I was not prepared to be so drawn in by the story and the complexity of the character development. Then I discovered it was book #6 in a series with at least 7 volumes so far--happy day! I've gone on to read #7 (even better than #6!), and I plan to go back and read the earlier novels as well. What a delight to find a new-to-me author who writes with such depth, humor, and compassion for the follies and foibles of her characters.

For readers' advisors: character and story doorways. Some sex scenes and swearing.