Heroes Are My Weakness: A Novel Offered by HarperCollins Publishers Price: $12.99
"They Had No Scruples and Every Scruple.", August 27, 2014 Book Description Publication Date: August 26, 2014New York Times bestselling author Susan Elizabeth Phillips is back with a delightful novel filled with her sassy wit and dazzling charm Deepest winter.An isolated island off the coast of Maine.A man. A woman.Puppets. (Yes, puppets . . .)And . . .A mysterious house looming over the sea . . .He's a reclusive writer whose imagination creates chilling horror novels. She's a down-on-her-luck actress reduced to staging kids' puppet shows. He knows a dozen ways to kill his characters with his bare hands. She knows a dozen ways to kill an audience with laughs. But she's not laughing now. Annie Hewitt has arrived on Peregrine Island in the middle of a snowstorm and at the end of her resources. She's broke, dispirited, but not quite ready to give up. Her red suitcases hold the puppets she uses to make her living: sensible Dilly, spunky Scamp, and Leo, the baddest of bad guys. Her puppets, the romantic novels she loves, and a little bit of courage are all she has left. Annie couldn't be more ill prepared for what she finds when she reaches Moonraker Cottage or for the man who dwells in Harp House, the mysterious mansion that hovers above the cottage. When she was a teenager, he betrayed her in a way she can never forget or forgive. Now they're trapped together on a frozen island along with a lonely widow, a mute little girl, and townspeople who don't know how to mind their own business. Is he the villain she remembers, or has he changed? Her head says no. Her heart says yes. It's going to be a long, hot winter. This review is from: Heroes Are My Weakness: A Novel (Kindle Edition) I think I am the only one here that truly did not love or even really like this book all that much. Don't get me wrong, I liked it but I didn't 'like it' like it (if you know what I mean!) It will not become an automatic re-read as so many of the other books by Ms.Phillips are. This book combined many excellent ideas from her past books and I really know this to be true because I happened to be re-reading all of Ms. Phillips books before the publication of this one. The rest of the book follows the authors regular formula - spunky underestimated heroine, broody, misunderstood and uber sexy hero, someone within the community or among the 'beloved' characters friends/family trying to either break them up or drive the spunky heroine/brooding hero away (usually the spunky heroine). They fall in love, but will not admit it to each other...or at least they pretend not to understand what is happening. The heroine grows up and takes responsibility for herself/her career. Hero finally believes the heroine once she has taken her last stand and either leaves or tries to leave. This book had an added character that past books do not --- an Island off the coast of Maine. This was new. Yes, I really meant that the island is a character all on its own! If you read this, you will see what I mean. The Gothic house was a nice touch, but I really do not understand why so many are calling this a Gothic romance. I do not think anything could be farther from the truth. The idea of the puppets/dummies and the conversations they held with Annie was too much like Molly and her book characters in This Heart of Mine and because there were so many puppets, the conversations got a little annoying. However, it was very clever to use them as a sort of therapy for the books secondary characters. This is by no means a horrible book, it just isn’t one of the best or funniest or even sexiest books this author has ever written. I found it difficult to warm up to the characters and the mystery wasn’t that big of a mystery to me. It was a book that was just a tiny bit too predictable. Happy Reading!