1st Read: April 25, 2010
Bobby Tom is egotistical, selfish, privileged, conceited, and insensitive - not exactly what you look for in a hero. But raised with southern values, he's also charming, sweet, charitable and seems like an overall nice guy, but when fashion disaster, average-looks Gracie Snow enters his life, things get a little screwy for both of them.

Needless to say, I loved it. I loved every part of this gut-wrenching, humorous, yet emotional SM relationship between the H/h. They make More...

Heaven, Texas was absolutely wonderful! It's my first book by Phillips and although I got it from the library, I'm definitely putting it on my "To Buy" list, since I know I will want to reread this book several times. So cute and very funny; the interactions between the hero and heroine were priceless and the supporting characters were interesting and added to the story.

When I was preparing to venture into contemporary romance and did "research" (lol) on Rachel Gibson's books, See Jane Score see More...

This book was a bumpy ride. It took a while to get into it but after about 30% things started to really pick up, and it held my interest for a while. It had lots of laughs but lots of eye rolling moments too. The heroine is kind of TSTL but if you suspend reality she becomes funny and cute instead of stupid. The ending was a bit of a kill joy. The reason the heroine was upset at the hero and wanted to leave was really dumb. I wish the author would have thought of something better for her to be p More...

I think I've officially become a Susan E Phillips fanatic! Another great read by her.

This is the second book in her Chicago Stars series. Here we have Texas-born ex-football player Bobby Tom Denton going back home to Telerosa, Texas to start filming a movie. He meets up with Gracie Snow, the quiet reserved polite woman who worked at a Nursing Home and became an assistant to a movie producer in Hollywood. The story pretty much picks up where Gracie is assigned the task of bringing Bobby Tom home More...

A very average Phillips, with some recycled plot points from other books (or maybe it's the other way around since I haven't read them in order of publishing dates). The good old southern boy character is getting a bit stale. The strip-tease in front of friends the first time the heroine meets the hero is also somewhat icky by now. I really didn't like the lead male character, Bobby Tom, just the name made me just want to run the other way, the character is a boy-men, a very cliché Peter Pan typ More...

Another great addition to this series. After reading It had to be you, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this one. I was initially put-off by the larger-than-life Bobby Tom and his OTT ways, but they very shortly became endearing. I absolutely fell in love with Gracie, I thought SEP made her a truly likeable character. I totally related to her at times, which always makes me enjoy a book more. The only little (and it is little) niggle I had was that a bit much was made of Gracie's "transformati More...

This is not my first read in the Chicago Stars series. In the previous book, i could have simply ignored rational thinking and still enjoy the book. Not in this one. In order for me to enjoy this, i would not only need to sacrifice common sense, but also justice, moral highground, and my inclination towards strong-willed, intelligent characters.
I honestly would have added this book to my Made Me Puke shelf if it weren't for the few times that this book made me laugh ( though I wouldn't ever ackn More...

I have a message for Bobby Tom:

I hate your guts and I’m glad you got trashed at the end of the book!!!!

God, I despised this guy… I just wanted to hit him in his big fat head almost all the time. And Gracie being such an idiot o.O deathstare for all of you!!

Buuuuuut, overall it was a great book. I really enjoyed it.

Rating 4,5

Suka dengan karakter" yang ada dibuku ini, serta alur cerita yang menggambarkan tokoh" lain yang ada dibuku ini. Bagaimana cara Gracie yg tidak bertekuk lutut dan mematuhi segala keinginan Bobby Tom yang merasa seluruh wanita didunia tidak ada yang akan menolaknya. Bagaimana kisah Suzy, ibu Bobby Tom menghadapi perasaan jatuh cintanya dgn pria lain sehingga merasa mengkhianati suaminya yang telah meninggal. Dan bagaimana kisah Bobby Tom yang akhirnya harus mengakui bahwa ada wanita yan More...

5 Stars for Bobby Tom!

I loved this character!! He was all sorts of crazy but I ate it up. I can imagine that some readers would be put off by him but I thought he was a refreshing change. I also gave the author credit for not making him too much of an over-the-top character who was annoying. I still loved him through everything, even when I wanted to hurt him and not in a John Mellencamp sort of way. ;)

The story started to slip right at the end and it became a little too much for me but the las More...

My first exposure to SEP was Heaven, Texas and, therefore, it has a special place in my heart. This is not just another bad-boy football superstar with a diabolic gleam meets 30 year-old wallflower story. These characters had depth. (view spoiler)[I actually had to call my best friend - who doesn't read romance books, but loves football - and tell her about the scene where Gracie discovers Bobby Tom reviewing the video of his career-ending injury over and over again. I fell in love with him before that, but th (hide spoiler)] More...

Il cowboy color lavanda. Mi ricorderò così di Bobby Tom Denton. Il personaggio peggio vestito di tutta la storia del romance. Dico sul serio, credo di non aver mai incontrato un personaggio maschile così trash e con un gusto nel vestire così pessimo. Avrò incubi a suon di stivali da cowboy viola, camicie con stampa a palme, e l'immagine raccapricciante di un uomo in vestaglia di velour, cappello da cowboy, stivali da cowboy e sigaro.
Ma nonostante questo - e il nome anti sesso Bobby Tom - mi ha More...

Ehh. I've read so much better by her. It was okay.

For my personal notes to remember whether I've read it: Ugly duckling is assigned to be assistant to glamorous retired NFL QB as he is making his first Hollywood movie, shot in little town in TX. Everybody wants something from him except her. The far more interesting romance is his mother's (after his father's untimely death, she is wooed by the town's "bad boy" from her era who has made good and bought the town's one large business). Awesome sex More...

Well, in one sentence this is a story about an over-sized baby. Yes everyone, you read correctly AN OVER-SIZED BABY. Even though Bobby Tom is legally considered as an adult when he's over thirty years old, the guy has the mind of a kid. The way he thinks, the way he acts and the way he talks set me on edge throughout the whole book. This is kind of a summary about Bobby Tom. Let's look at Gracie now. Well she seems level-headed enough but put Bobby Tom in her sight and she loses it. I didn't get More...

3 stars

This second book in the Chicago Stars series definitely had its moments. While Gracie's character took some warming up to (the frumpy thirty-year-old ingenue routine was tedious), and I struggled at various points throughout the book with Bobby Tom's selfish, superficial nature and entitlement issues, there were many points along their way that worked nicely for me. I wish we'd had more moments like the third wheel date, because that was a riot, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching B.T. slow More...

I've been rereading SEP's books this past month and falling back in love with her novels, as well as catching up on some new ones which I enjoyed immensely.

However, "Heaven, Texas" is NOT one of those books. The romance starts off distastefully with Bobby Tom Denton living the life of a rich, shallow, sexist NFL player who treats women like disposable 'sex' objects. Fine, usually this serves as a starting point for the 'hero' who will display inner worth and grow along the way. Instead, Bobby To More...

I liked this book but I just couldn't get over how jerky the hero was. I have never read a book with a more self-absorbed and superficial hero... I lost track of the number of times my mouth hung open in absolute shock at the sheer extent of his humongous ego. In a way I can't blame him because of how famous he was and how women threw themselves at his feet, but could he have perhaps become aware of being a complete jerk a little sooner in the book and a little more realistically?

Just because t More...

This is a very likable book. Gracie's a woman you love from page one and probably itch to 'fix' immediately too once they mentioned her ill fitting clothes and wacky of a hair but what her character has is spunk and a lovely outlook at life and you cant help but squeak with glee when she has that transformation. But what's special about her are all on the inside. It's good that Ms Phillips doesnt rub it too much of how angelic she is but you know enough that Gracie's a good woman, down to earth More...

Gracie ha deciso di chiudere per sempre i conti con il passato e di iniziare una nuova vita. La "nuova vita" le si offre nella forma di un nuovo contratto di lavoro, stipulato a Hollywood. Gracie diviene, così, un'assistente di produzione, ma i problemi, a quanto pare, possono seguirla ovunque: il suo problema hollywoodiano si chiama Bobby Tom Denton, ex giocatore di football, che non ha alcuna intenzione di recitare nel suo primo film. A Gracie spetta il compito di convincerlo a tornare sulla s More...

By Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Grade: B+
Quick, fun, engaging read – and not anything more.
Desperate for a major life change, former retirement home director and current Hollywood studio production assistant…though barely, Gracie Snow is struggling to gain a foothold in the industry, so when her boss tasks her with catching up with forcibly retired Chicago Stars wide receiver Bobby Tom Denton to drag his butt to Texas, she gamely takes on the task. She had no idea that the former football player wo More...

The character interactions in this book are amazing. Funny and clever I just loved them. The opening scenario with Gracie being mistaken for a stripper is admitedly a little cheesy, but Phillips write it really well and the story begins with a great pace. I would say that some of the scenarios in this book seem a little bit cheesier/fake than other works, but the dialogue is very witty and I love the descriptions of characters actions.
Gracie as a character is a bit naive, but she gets over that More...

Bobby Tom must be one of the coolest names I've ever encountered. B.T. Doesn't make the cut as well, but Bobby Tom makes up for it.

The basics of the story are that Gracie needs money and she's a 'plain' girl that's lived in a retirement home all her life. (We all know that plain means nothing with the right clothes, make-up, or man. Even ugly can step up to pretty— with the right man.) She meets Bobby Tom when she's supposed to get him out to Telarosa for a movie— a movie he signed up for.

I find More...

A very homely girl who hasn't been anything but ordinary all her life, Gracie, feels way out of her league when she is assigned to personally bring retired quarterback, Bobby Tom, to his filming site in Texas. Along the way, the two but heads and Gracie seems to be the only one able to see past his charming smile to the truths of what Bobby Tom really is. Likewise, Gracie's undying stubbornness and her ability to see right through him is a breath of fresh air to Bobby Tom, who's spent his life s More...

Again, Toni ( Lovethembooks ) got me to read this, which took some arm-twisting because I'm not a romance reader. I give it 5 stars mainly because it was the first of Susan Elizabeth Peters' books that I ever read, and I'm totally hooked on them now. I've read every one. She writes good, escapist romance, but it's not the stupid, mind-numbing kind that used to make me resolve not to read another romance novel again for at least a year. She even manages not to indulge too heavily (if only it were More...

This books starts off great. Gracie is an engaging and interesting heroine. She's smart and despite spending a little too much time dwelling on her "dowdiness", I was rooting for her. Bobby Tom is a typical SEP hero: Handsome, guarded, and outwardly cocky.

Side characters are kept to a minimum during the first half of the book which is probably why I like the first 50% of the book better than the last 50% of the book when they begin to overwhelm. I can handle only so many quirky small town folk More...

I am a long-time fan of Phillip's writing style, she writes fun, breezy stories with likable characters and engrossing plots both for her main and secondary characters. In these Chicago Stars stories we're usually presented with the dominant, gorgeous, filthy-rich, misogynistic hero and the sassy, smart, not wealthy, but not money-hungry, and caring heroine. Each of the characters will have emotional issues stemming from problem with their parents. This formula didn't manage to work for me with More...

~* 3.5 Stars *~
Desperate for a major life change, former retirement home director and current Hollywood studio production assistant...though barely, Gracie Snow is struggling to gain a foothold in the industry, so when her boss tasks her with catching up with forcibly retired Chicago Stars wide receiver Bobby Tom Denton to drag his butt to Texas, she gamely takes on the task. She had no idea that the former football player would be so darn stubborn, not to mention a slew of other less pleasant a More...

Gracie's assignment as a production assistant is to go fetch Bobby Tom, retired football player, and get him to the movie set in time to start filming. He doesn't cooperate, and she goes to extreme lengths to stay with him until he finally shows up in Texas, at which point she gets fired for not getting him there sooner.

Gracie is a frumpy, 30-year-old virgin who was told she was homely once and took it to heart. Bobby Tom likes busty bombshells in quantity. On their crazy trip across the countr More...