Review: Heroes Are My Weakness by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

New York Times bestselling author Susan Elizabeth Philips 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 show. He knows a dozen ways to kill his characters with her 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 are 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.

Review:
Heroes Are My Weakness has a slightly Gothic feel with a suspenseful plot perfectly married with the romance and the trademark SEP humor that I've grown to love. This book is different from any other romance book I've read before and it was 5 STAR amazing. I love when I think I've figured out a book by the half way mark and then by the last page I find I was TOTALLY wrong. Heroes Are My Weakness was like that for me.

There is enough mystery and suspense in this book to put a suspense writer to shame, but the romantic elements are also front and center. Theo has the sexy, dark brooding hero role down to a science.  Annie compares him to Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre.. and I definitely see the resemblance.  Annie is another lovable quirky heroine... I mean seriously, would you expect anything less? She is a ventriloquist for goodness sakes. The secondary characters including Annie's puppets are well written and add so much to this plot. I specifically love how Annie uses one of her puppets to help her friends mute daughter to open up. The puppets add to the story and give it a quirky, witty fun feel.

The more time Theo and Annie spend together the hotter the tension grows between them and when these two give in they burn up the pages. As things start happening around Annie with signs pointing to Theo as the culprit, the story really takes a turn I never saw coming. I loved this book in its entirety and refuse to spoil it by giving too may details here. If you love an unpredictable, well written romance that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page, pick up this book, trust me, you won't be sorry.

Books by Susan Elizabeth Philips are my weakness. I can't resist them, and own most of them in more than one format. I was destined to love Heroes Are My Weakness long before the title appeared on my Kindle and well before the UPS driver delivered the hard copy that I also had to have for my collection. Again, SEP has earned her spot as my favorite author of all time.

Buy Links:
Amazon,  Barnes & Noble, iTunes

Author Info:
Susan Elizabeth Phillips soared onto the New York Times bestseller list with Dream A Little Dream. She's the only four-time recipient of the the Romance Writers of America's prestigious Favorite Book of the Year Award. A resident of the Chicago suburbs, she is also a hiker, gardener, reader, wife and mother of two grown sons.

If you are a SEP fan, make sure you are a fan on Facebook! She is very active over there and always sharing everything from glimpses inside her mind while writing, backstories of how her plots came together and great recipes!

Here is a link to her website- start there and there are links there to all of her social media pages, join the message boards. It is so fabulous when an author actually keeps a regularly updated website!

http://susanelizabethphillips.com/

I was provided with an ARC of this book from Harper Collins in exchange for an honest and unscripted review. All thoughts expressed here are my own. In fact, I loved this book so much that I purchased an e-copy and a hardcover after reading the ARC file, so I would own this for my collection.