This Heart of Mine

By: Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

Molly Somerville knows she has a reputation for trouble. She did give away her $15-million inheritance, but, hey, nobody's perfect. Yes, Molly's happy about almost everything...except her long-term crush on the daredevil quarterback for the Chicago Stars. That awful, gorgeous Kevin Tucker, a man who can't even remember her name!

One night, Molly's penchant for running into trouble runs her right into Kevin himself, turning her world upside down. Heartbreak follows, and just when she's certain things can't get worse, Kevin forces his way back into her life. She and Kevin battle their attraction while trying to cope with an aging sexpot actress and a pair of teenage newlyweds.

Their careers and lives are in crisis, yet they can't seem to stay away from each other. Sometimes falling in love hurts; sometimes it makes you mad as hell. And sometimes, if you're very lucky, it can heal in a most special and unexpected way.

©2001 Susan Elizabeth Phillips (P)2001 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"Pure up-to-the-minute entertainment." (Publishers Weekly)
"Susan Elizabeth Phillips writes a story that wraps around your heart and doesn't let go." (Oakland Press)

5 stars

I usually do not choose to read contemporary romance but SEP was when Diana Gabaldon recommended ‘Natural Born Charmers’ I thought I would given this author a try.

This by far was one of my favorite Chicago Stars books – the other being No Baby But Mine. I loved the 2 main characters in this book .. they have great chemistry together .. SEP makes you cry and laugh all in this one books.

Anna Field's narration is superb and her death is a great lose. There were several recording issues – lines being repeated.

I have since listen to ALL the Chicago Stars books – have enjoyed them all but they do tend to follow a similar story line.

I love Molly

This is not my typical genre but sometimes, you just need an escape... this is one of my favorites! Molly is probably favorite romantic heroines of all time. Honest, cute and sassy!! I've read/listened to several of Phillips books and this was the best of those. The narrator is top notch!

Pure Escapism

I always rate a book by how much I miss the characters when I've finished reading it - SEP books always exceed my expectations and I miss her characters terribly at the end of a story! I LOVE how she doesn't reserve passion for "the young" - it is so refreshing! In this story I often laughed out loud - quite embarrassing when walking alone!

Another winner by SEP

I love SEP books. Anytime I don't know what I want to listen to, I will pull up a SEP novel and listen to it, regardless of whether or not I have heard it before. The female characters are always fascinating. Molly, in this book, is no exception. I was reluctant to get this book at first because I read in the "blurbs" that Molly had given away her inheritance (which was millions) and did not know if I could tolerate someone that stupid, but as it turns out, Molly is sometimes rash but she is not stupid. This is the fifth book in the Chicago Stars series. Molly is the sister of Phoebe (featured in the series's first book , It Had to Be You). Molly writes Daphne the Bunny books and the way SEP weaves in parts of the Daphne dialog into the This Heart of Mine storyline is very clever.

DNF

What disappointed you about This Heart of Mine?

SPOILER: the heroine rapes the hero. That's how they hook up. They both KNOW it's rape and even talk about it being rape, and she says that she was just behaving "outrageously" and can he forget about it.

Has This Heart of Mine turned you off from other books in this genre?

I still love romance but I'm going to be a lot more careful about SEP books (and I loved her before this one!)

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

I'm not a fan of this narrator. I'd even forgotten I'd returned another book in this series because of the narrator. I stuck it out for this one until the rape scene.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

I can't believe this was ok in 2001.

Keeps You wanting to know More

This is one of my better picks of Audible I have just started to listen to my downloads, this book for some reason has me going I really like the way the narrator reads this books with both male and female parts Job well done This book keeps you wanting to know more so off I go into my own space again to find out what happens next...

Wow

This was an excellent read. The narrator was convincing in both the male and female roles. Another winner by SEP. If you haven't read the other Chicago Stars books you are missing out.

Witty and fun read.

Although I preferred the first three Chicago Stars football books to this one, I still rank this one with 4 stars as a good read. The first three books which I felt were great are: It Had to be You, Heaven, Texas, and Nobody's Baby But Mine. In this book, I didn't enjoy the two main characters as much as I enjoyed the characters in the previous books. I'm not sure why. They both sought entertainment through risk taking. Molly was supposed to be smart, so I couldn't understand why she would give away all her inherited money. That bothered me. And it still bothers me.

I read the paperback twice and recently listened to the audiobook. The first time I read it I was laughing out loud several times. I didn’t laugh as much in subsequent reads because I knew what to expect, but I still enjoyed it a lot. I also liked the secondary romance between Kevin’s mother Lilly and a famous reclusive artist Liam.

AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR:
Anna Fields was very good with everything except Kevin’s voice. It wasn’t masculine or sexy somehow. It was almost juvenile. I loved her voices for the heroes in books 1 and 3 (Dan Calebow and Cal Bonner) - very sexy. But not this book.

DATA:
Narrative mode: 3rd person. Story length: 399 pages. Swearing language: strong including religious swear words but rarely used. Sexual language: moderate. Number of sex scenes: about 9. Setting: current day Illinois, Wisconsin, and Northern Michigan. Copyright: 2001. Genre: humorous contemporary romance.

Another great book by SEP

Loved this book. Funny, heartwarming, sexy.

Terrible opener

The first part of this book is just terrible. Who can believe any of it? Thankfully the hot stuff is good enough to get the reader to the end. Plus, narration is great.

A really enjoyable read

My first book by this author but I really enjoyed it. Once I'd started reading, I couldn't put it down. The story held together really well and made my smile on more than one occasion. I didn't want it to end. It was so good that I've just downloaded another book by the same author.

Good book

Enjoyable listen. Unfortunately I listened to Natural Born Charmer (book 7 in this series) before I listened to this one, and the plot formula and types of characters is identical! Natural Born Charmer is better though. Some of the Lily and Liam side plot scenes were a bit cringeworthy in this book. Still a good book though.

I’ve started listening to book 6, Match Me If You Can and that plot is different so glad to know the author doesn’t always use the same formula for her stories as that would get old pretty fast.

Brilliant

Excellent book. The humour is brilliant and I just love Anna Fields voice. Excellent 5*

Lovely story, but male voices badly done

Same problem as with my other purchase by the same narrator... a lovely story but I really don't like the way she does the male voices and haven't been able to finish listening to it because of this