Dear Oprah, I’d like to wake up now.
“Dream A Little Dream” by Susan Elizabeth Philips
I’m just going to come out and say it. I don’t like Romance novels where the hero or heroine has lost his/her spouse and then fall in love again. I just don’t. It would take a lot to convince me to back down from this stand and to date, only one author has managed to get me to lovelovelove the new Romance. This book? Once and Always by the magical Ms. Judith McNaught. Yeah sorry. This isn’t a review of Once and Always, but “Dream A Little Dream”. And you know what I don’t like even more than Romance novels where a spouse dies and the main character gets together with someone else? Stories where the character wakes up and goes “oh it’s just a dream”. I wished I dreamt up this book. It would have burdened my already fragile psychological state less. If I had dreamed it up, I could just go visit my Romance shrink (aka La Lola), lie on her couch and go: “Dr. La Lola, what does this all mean?” and then we’d discuss the dream and say to ourselves “at least it wasn’t real. Can u imagine if it were?” and then we’d get Juan to fix us some martinis.
From the notebook of Sheridan Sakura Carlotta:
So I love Guilty Pleasures. I am an avid fan of the shark movie (unforgivably denigrated and ridiculed by Sheridan Sakura Carlotta, who fails to see that it is an indispensable footnote to cinematic history), MacDonald’s chocolate fudge sundaes (”extra fudge please you cheapskate git, this is chocolate, not fossil fuel.”) and Diana Palmer novels.
I’m not quite sure how I feel about this book. I love the characters and there are some really brilliant laugh out loud moments that almost had me in tears but the plot…kinda leaves one feeling violated and wondering slightly whether you should be drinking or whether the author was drinking when she thought of the plot. At this point, let me take some time out because I have to say this:
What started La Lola on her legendary trek to Romance Novel Goddess-hood, and the hot fiery kitten she is today? In one word: “Perfect.”
The second book in Susan Elizabeth Philip’s hot, sweaty, NFL men series is “Heaven, Texas” and it is truly the hook that suckered me into the series. I don’t know what it is about the book that makes me want to migrate to the South to find me a nice Southern boy who will wear Stetson hats all day long and “ma’am” me from sunrise to sunset (hee!). Bobby Tom Denton is the hero of the second book in the series, a larger than life blonde and brawny hero in contrast to plain jane Gracie Jones. Bobby Tom is a newly retired NFL superstar (due to a brutal knee injury and thus, very angsty about it) about to begrudgingly embark on his Hollywood career as an action star. Because of his constant mischievous disappearing acts and dodging of important phone calls from the studio (although I must say, Bobby Tom does it with so much charm that you kinda want to just spank him and hope that he does it again instead of getting angry about it), he is saddled with Gracie Jones, the studio mouse/walking fashion victim saddled with the task of getting his gorgeously taut ass to the film set on time. MmMm…ass….
And yet another review of a book by the incomparable Ms Judith McNaught. In this case, it’s “Double Standards” which is yet another tale of gorgeous corporate raiders and the women who love them, oodles of money and corporate espionage. Oh and let’s not forget the hot sex.
When La Lola told me that Ms McNaught had a new book out, I remember feeling like a kid on Christmas morning, like someone had told me that Clive Owen was at my front door looking for me with a bouquet of roses and/or that Daniel Craig was calling on the phone, begging to speak to me. But like all good hopes and lighted dreams, it came crashing down when La Lola had to add “it’s another murder-mystery though”. I screamed. Screamed until the birds flew off the branches of neighboring trees and only stopped when Juan, our lovely Cabana boy came by and took of his shirt. And so, I told myself that I would not read the new book. Nothing was worth the pain of utter disappointment and despair; to read another version of “Someone to Watch Over Me” or “Night Whispers…Whisperers…whatever the hell name that book was called because it really isn’t even worth it for me to go do a fact check at this moment.
I’m a purist. I admit it. I like my Romance heroes to be Alpha male corporate powerhouses, Scottish Lairds, or Roman Generals…you get the general drift. Positions of power. That’s how I like my men. So I’ve been avoiding La Lola’s (aka my Romance Pimp) recommendations of Susan Elizabeth Philip’s NFL sports starts. Seriously? NFL sports stars? I’m not a beefcake fan, nor am I inclined towards any sport of any kind (certainly not American football where their athletes wear so much padding it is impossible to oogle at any sweaty muscular bodies) so I couldn’t see how I would possibly enjoy it. “But this is La Lola” I told myself. “She has not failed you yet. Never mind that she planted the seed of thought in your head to read 
When Sheridan Sakura Carlotta told me that I had to read this book which changed her life when she was a wee teen, what could I say but yes? All I can say is, this explains a lot about her mental state.