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Breathing Room

Breathing Room

List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Just....nice
Review: Susan Elizabeth Phillips is a great writer. Not just, good but great. She can do more with a sentence to create a picture than a lot of writers can do with a whole book. Her descriptions of Tuscany made me immediately want to book a trip there. Her descriptions of Ren's wonderful food concoctions made my mouth water. And of course, the story of Isabel and Ren is lovely.

With Isabel we get the familiar SEP character arc of a woman who reaches rock bottom only to come back out on top both personally and through her romance with the hero. And in Ren we get one of her wonderfully drawn alpha heroes. I love the fact that he is an actor who always plays the villain in movies.

And of course, Nobody writes secondary characters as well as SEP does. Ren ex-wife's romantic foibles make a great foil for the romance of Ren and Isabel and is just as engrossing. You didn't feel as if the secondary plot was taking you away from the primary one because it was just as interesting. But I've always found this true of her stories.

So why is this only a 3 star? Well, it lacked a certain emotional depth that I know this writer is capable of. I can't help but think of The fabulous 5-star "Nobody's Baby But Mine." It is a laugh out loud funny romantic comedy and is quite frothy, but it also has some really wonderful layers that Breathing Room seems to lack.

Breathing Room is a very good read, but I don't think it is SEP's best.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not her best by far
Review: Books by SEP are the only books I actually buy. I have all of them and do occasionally reread them. I was disappointed in this book because I feel SEP has so much more to offer her fans than this book. I did read it, but it didn't touch my heart and funny bone like so many of her others.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of her best from one of the best
Review: I've been wondering how to review this book without relating to it personally. OK, I just can't. I read this book two weeks after someone I loved very much died. Susan's most current book was full of life -- it had wonderful characters, humor, romance, spirituality and fantastic, intelligent dialogue. It lightened my sad heart.

The charmingly flawed, bigger than life yet all too human, funny characters of Isobel and Ren involved me in their Tuscany world. They made me laugh, cry and reflect on marriage. I was bereft when this book ended. My new friends were gone! WAH! Until I immediately reread my favorite chapters. And then reread my other SEP favorites -- Heaven Texas; Kiss an Angel; Nobody's Baby But Mine...I could go on.

I would give this particular book 10 stars. SEP is one of my very favorite authors. Breathing Room is the best of her books to date.

BUT read ALL of Susan Elizabeth Phillip's books. Your heart will thank you.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Breath of Fresh Air
Review: I'd never read anything by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, but I caught the blurb for this in the bookclub magazine. I checked it out at the library and was pleasantly surprised. Not only is Dr. Isabel Favor quirky and interesting, she's very, very realistic. And, even as stuffy as she is, she's a lot of fun. And Lorenzo Gage...well, he's a gorgeous actor with a lot of issues of his own, what more needs to be said? It's not just 400 pages of fluff, and I honestly appreciate that.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not her best
Review: Some of SEP's books are spectacular -- Nobody's Baby But Mine, Just Imagine...etc. but in reading this one, I almost felt like I was dragging my feet to finish it. I thought the heroine character was too insecure -- seems she forgave his actions too easily. The secondary characters were more interesting. I
was disappointed in this one.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: just ok....
Review: Usually I love SEP books -- Nobody's Baby But Mine, Just Imagine... etc. but I just couldn't get into this one... it felt a bit superficial compared to her others, as I felt I didn't know the characters that well... I was rather disappointed.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: more publishers' greed
Review: Before you buy this book be aware that it is only 384 pages of large print [in the regular edition] with large spaces between the lines and large margins. It will make a nice sized ... paperback, but a $[more expensive] hardbound book? no way

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Read
Review: This was the first book I read by susan Elizabeth Phillips. I couldn't put it down (and I'm not an avid reader, either). The characters were well developed and I just wanted to continue reading about their daily lives. It was a steamy, as well as, thought provoking novel. I plan to read more of her work.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Mines Territory She's Done Better but still Entertains
Review: Phillips covered the whole movie star scene much better in her classic, "Honey Moon." She also had a movie star play out scenes with his lover in "Glitter Baby." She's had the heroine stopped by the police before so the hero can buy some time with her in "Heaven, Texas." She's done all this but she still writes an entertaining romance novel and "Breathing Room" is a solid "B" book. Where she should have pulled out all the stops was with the comedic possibilities of her baseline idea of a Self Help Shrink known the world over through her books romanced by the world's leading villainous actor. Instead, she plays it a little too straight and gets mired down in some subplots involving his ex-wife and their setting in Italy, both of which I could have done without. Lorenzo Gage, the hero, however, is on a par with Phillips' best heroes, Bobby Tom, Cal, Kevin, Dan, Eric, et al, and she hit an "A" with him.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great Summer Read
Review: It gets you from the get go! I didn't want to put it down. This is my first time reading one of her books. I plan to read all of them.


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