Call Me Irresistible

By: Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Narrated by: Shannon Cochran

Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

R.S.V.P. to the most riotous wedding of the year....

Lucy Jorik is the daughter of a former president of the United States.

Meg Koranda is the offspring of legends.

One of them is about to marry Mr. Irresistible - Ted Beaudine - the favorite son of Wynette, Texas. The other is not happy about it and is determined to save her friend from a mess of heartache.

But even though Meg knows that breaking up her best friend's wedding is the right thing to do, no one else seems to agree. Faster than Lucy can say "I don't", Meg becomes the most hated woman in town - a town she's stuck in with a dead car, an empty wallet, and a very angry bridegroom.

Broke, stranded, and without her famous parents at her back, Meg is sure she can survive on her own wits. What's the worst that can happen? Lose her heart to the one and only Mr. Irresistible? Not likely. Not likely at all.

Call Me Irresistible is the book Susan Elizabeth Phillips's readers and listeners have long awaited. Ted, better known as "little Teddy", the nine-year-old heartbreak kid from Phillips's first best seller, Fancy Pants, and as "young Teddy", the hunky new college graduate in Lady Be Good, is all grown up now - along with Lucy from First Lady and Meg from What I Did for Love. They're ready to take center stage in a saucy, funny, and highly addictive tale fans will love.

©2011 Susan Elizabeth Phillips (P)2011 HarperCollins Publishers

She did it again

She has written another of my favorites. This one brings most of the books together. I have loved all of her books, and can't say enough good things about them.

Loved It!!

It was a great story that kept me entertained through the whole book, Just never new what to expect. I could not turn off my ipod , Loved how the woman in the story was consistently unsettling the man and vice versa. I would recommend it to anyone!!!

4 ½ stars. Very enjoyable.

I didn’t want to stop reading. Fun escape.

REVIEWER’S OPINION:
The author used a similar plot in several books. Heroine is down on her luck, in an unfriendly place, abandoned by family/friends, has no money. The locals bully, despise and/or humiliate her. She suffers, discovers things about herself, becomes responsible/successful, and finds love. If a reader complains that they’ve read this before, I say “Who cares. It’s a fun story and she does it well.”

The first time I read this I was uncomfortable seeing favorite characters from earlier books being mean to Meg. But the second time I read this that didn’t bother me at all - maybe because I knew they would all like her in the end. And the same thing with Ted’s feelings. The first time I read the book, I wanted more of his point of view. But the second time I read it, I was fine with what happened. This book is better the second time.

PRIOR BOOKS:
I suggest reading the author’s books in the following order for the character flow.

5 stars. Glitter Baby. Fleur is a beautiful model living a glamorous life, then has nothing, and then brings herself back to the world, developing brains, strength and relationships along the way. She marries famous actor/playwright Jake. Meg is their daughter who is now 30 and the heroine in this book. Meg’s best friend is Lucy.

5 stars. Fancy Pants. Francesca is a rich English girl, whose mother dies leaving her penniless and stranded in the U.S. She gets a job as a cleaning lady for a small town radio station. She marries famous golfer Dallas. Ted is their son, the hero in this book.

5 stars. Lady Be Good. Emma is headmistress of a girls’ boarding school in England. She visits the U.S. for two weeks and meets Kenny, a famous bad boy golfer. They marry and live in Wynette, Texas. They are friends with Francesca, Dallas, and Ted.

5 stars. First Lady. Cornelia is wife of the U.S. President who dies in office. She meets and marries Matt Jorik a journalist. They adopt orphan Lucy. Cornelia later becomes President. Lucy is now 31 and is engaged to marry Ted in this book. Meg is Lucy’s best friend.

4 stars. The Great Escape Lucy Jorik leaves Ted at the altar and runs away. She sees a stranger on a motorcycle Patrick Shade “Panda.” She asks him for a ride. Read this right after First Lady since Lucy has a significant role in both books.

STORY BRIEF:
Ted is close to perfect, handsome, genius IQ, everyone in town loves him. They made him mayor without asking him. Most females fall in love with him. He is engaged to marry Lucy, daughter of the former U.S. President.

Meg has never had a job, dropped out of college, and travels the world for fun. Her famous parents recently cut her off financially, hoping she will become responsible. Meg travels to Wynette, Texas, to be Lucy’s maid of honor. Meg raises some questions which cause Lucy to realize she is not in love. Lucy abandons Ted at the altar and wants Meg to do the explaining. Everyone in town blames Meg, thinking she talked Lucy out of the wedding. Lucy left town, and no one knows where she is. As Meg is checking out of the hotel, she realizes her credit cards have been cancelled. She doesn’t have enough money to pay the hotel. She has over borrowed from everyone she knows, and there is no one she can call. The police chief threatens to put her in jail if she can’t pay her hotel bill. Ted suggests she work it off as a hotel maid, which she does. She is sleeping in her car and has no money for food.

Spencer owns a plumbing company. He is looking for a location to open a factory and visits Wynette. The town desperately needs jobs, and everyone in town hopes he will choose Wynette for the factory. Spencer wants to be Meg’s lover and sugar daddy. She does not feel the same and tries to avoid him. Most people in town dislike Meg and have been mean to her, but they want her to be nice to Spencer to get his factory.

AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR:
Shannon Cochran was pretty good doing this book. But she was awful doing “The Great Escape” (TGE). In TGE she used a weird chipmunk type of voice for many characters. In the beginning of this book CMI she used that weird voice twice: once for Matt Jorik and once for Dallie Beaudine. But after that the narrator didn’t use the weird voice much. I was ok with most of the rest of the book.

DATA:
Narrative mode: 3rd person. Story length: 385 pages. Swearing language: moderate, including religious swear words. Sexual language: none. Number of sex scenes: 10. Setting: current day mostly Wynette, Texas, with some California and New York. Copyright: 2011. Genre: contemporary romance.

Nice to spend time with old friends

I thought this was a sweet story. It was nice to go back to the characters that were so wonderful in the earlier books. I missed hearing their familiar voices through Anna Fields but thought Shannon Cochran did a very nice job. Narrators like Anna Fields are hard to come by, she was one of the greats. Although, as some other reviewers wrote, the story line was familiar it was still a good story. The right balance of humor and romance. It made me want to listen to the other titles again.

Amazing.. Of Course!

LOVED IT.. And expected nothing less.. She's an amazing author and one who always lives up to your expectations!! I've read everything of hers, so I enjoyed how some of my favorite characters came together.. Hope the next one comes out a lot sooner than this one took. I'm hooked.. again!

good book

it took me a while to decide to listen to this book. Had since it first came out. It was good.
It did not have any one else's point of view except Meg until the very last when we had Ted's point of view
which is different from any other Phillips book . Usualy it is the two main characters and another secondary set.
But it was good. Nice -- I liked having all the old characters from the earlier books

Leisa

Really liked this book. The main character appears to be totally disfunctional, but as you go through you realise that she is the only one who is not disfunctional.

Great

Really enjoyed having lots of the characters from other novels come together! Now I'd like a Lucy novel!!!

performance was narrator ruined the book

Is there anything you would change about this book?

new narrator

Who was your favorite character and why?

it was really hard because the character voices were so bad

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Shannon Cochran?

Kate Flemming

Do you think Call Me Irresistible needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

she was terrible with the voices of the characters

Any additional comments?

Kate Fleming would be a great reader

Best SEP book!

Call Me Irresistible is in my top 3 books of all time, I don't even know how many times I have re-listened or re-read this book. I have yet to dislike any of SEP's books and am hoping for an additional epilogue or glimpse of Meg and Ted in one of her next books. I am very particular about the narrator for audiobooks, since they can really ruin the story. Shannon Cochran knocks it out of the park, and will definitely look for her narration for audiobooks in the future.