A musical tribute to SEP’s Chicago Stars Team - brought to you by La “I love Captain Von Trapp” Lola and Sheridan “Is 16 going on 17″ Sakura Carlotta

(To be sung to: “My Favourite Things” from The Sound of Music)

Dear readers, we thought we’d share with you one of the many ways of how we cope with the ups and downs of life. Though most times we think life always looks better from the bottom of a couple tequila bottles, we do think there is much to be said about singing one’s blues (and troubles) away. So join us (because we know you know this song!) in a rousing tribute, to the glorious men of the Chicago Stars team!

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“Breathing Room” by Susan Elizabeth Philips

Ahhh Italy. Land of evil (yet yummy) carbohydrates, amazing fashion, gorgeous shoes, gelatos, flirty sexy men, fantastic wines and George Clooney (for a few months out of a year). There is nothing Sheridan Sakura Carlotta doesn’t adore about Italy (any country shaped like a shoe is a country to be buried in) If Sheridan didn’t love her ripmybodice girls so much, she’d be ‘I Love Lucy-ing’ down at some vineyard, and getting her skirts dirty with some of the local boys.
 

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“First Lady” by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
In case you’re wondering where Sheridan Sakura Carlotta and Ma’mselle Mimi are, never fear, your trusty ripmybodice girls have not gone to that great pink donut in the sky. Grand Pappy Carlotta has broken out of the nursing home and is on the lam, so SSC and Mimi are doing their own version of “Dog the Bounty Hunter” (but with even fluffier hair and no sideburns) and have set out to retrieve him (Grand Pappy Carlotta, not Dog the Bounty Hunter). So it’s up to La Lola to hold down the ripmybodice fort until they return. This of course means that I have to keep an eye (and so much more) on Juan and Sven all by my lonesome. It’s a dirty job (oooooh) but someone’s got to do it!
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“Natural Born Charmer” by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Sheridan Sakura Carlotta (SSC): *taps swaroski crystal pink gable on table* I call to order our weekly ripmybodice.com board meeting. Order! Order! Or…damnit Lola! Enough with the party poppers and the whistle blowing! Why can’t you sit quietly for 5 minutes like Mimi? *looks at Mimi who is drawing a picture of a grinning severed head* Erm…Mimi?

Ma’mselle Mimi (Mimi): What?! I’m drawing a smiley face because I’m happy! JUAN’S BACK!

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“Match Me If You Can” by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

At last we come to the penultimate book of Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ NFL series and it is about a man who has a special place in my heart, Heath Champion. Now think about it, how utterly fabulous would my name be after we are wed? Think about it! Mrs. Sheridan Sakura Carlotta-Champion. SSCC. Dudes. It’s so incredibly obnoxious, you gotta love it. Oh and that’s not the only reason why Heath is a man after my own heart and why I believe we are soul mates and if only he were true I’d be on the next flight to Chicago the windy city lurking around street corners ready to jump him unless of course in this alternate universe Matthew Farrell is also real then in which case sorry. Priorities. (Hee. Punctuation is my friend).

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“This Heart of Mine” by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Having suffered the trauma of having to review and therefore recall “Dream A Little Dream“, I am back, dear readers, to take another stab at Susan Elizabeth Philip’s NFL series and finally finish it. Well, be one step closer to finishing it at least. Thankfully, Kevin’s book, “This Heart of Mine” restores my faith in Susan Elizabeth Philip and her NFL series. Granted it is still a little…how shall I put this delicately…questionable, it’s a lot better than *motions with head to the other book*.

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“Kiss an Angel” by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Other kids dreamed of running away to join the circus. When I was a wee chicky duck, I dreamed of becoming Barbie’s fashion consultant (that hot pink leather needs a little something more, darling. Too understated. It’s a wonder that Mattel never had a class action suit filed against them for weaning lots of prepubescent little girls on whore fashion.). It was either that, or run away to join Jem and the Holograms.

So what, you might ask, has suddenly made me, um, about a decade later, decide that I want to run away and join the circus? Simply, Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Now, I know that my partner in crime, Sheridan Sakura Carlotta, stands by the Chicago Stars football series by SEP. In fact, she has been known to accost hapless hunks in Chicago, with a football in one hand and a martini in the other, demanding to know if they are members of the NFL. But for me, SEP’s greatest book is ”Kiss an Angel” otherwise known as That Carnie Book.

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“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.

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“Nobody’s Baby but Mine” by Susan Elizabeth Philips

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:

Dear Ms Susan Elizabeth Philips,

Even though there is a 0.01% chance that you will be reading this blog of ours, I just want you to know that I love you. But please, if there is a remote chance that you were thinking of sending us advance reading copies, please don’ change your mind. *small voice* I heart you! I really do. But this…plot I just can’t get over it.

I’m sorry I love you please don’t punish us,
Sheridan Sakura Carlotta.

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“Heaven, Texas” by Susan Elizabeth Philips

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….

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