Susan Elizabeth PhillipsIt Had to Be You: Chicago Stars

~* 4.5 Stars *~A surprise amendment to her father's will leaves Manhattan bombshell Phoebe Somerville ownership of the Chicago Stars football team. She thought she's long been disinherited and was thrilled by the will, seeing it as proof that her father did love her after all...until the vicious, controlling codicil gives her one season to win the AFC Championship and demands she stop being such an unrelieved screw up. If she fails, the team will be handed off to her slimy bastard of a cousin, a man who, as a boy, made Phoebe's life miserable. Refusing to give in to her father's manipulations, even in death, she blows off the whole idea and heads off on vacation, submerging herself in the artistic world to which she had fled when her father had betrayed her in the worst way years ago.Finding the head coach of the Stars in her living room a few days after her return, however, wasn't something she had anticipated. Dan Calebow makes her nervous and strips her of her vaunted control. He's large, intimidating, and forbidding, and something about him does weird things to her stomach. His condescending derision, on the other hand, does something else entirely to her temper.She's the biggest bimbo that he's ever met, but Phoebe Somerville sure was a looker. Pity that she was so useless as an owner and was technically his boss. He had players with unsigned contracts and a team to coach, he didn't have time to play her games. He needed her back in Chicago immediately. Once there, he could set her up as a brainless figurehead and get on doing the job he loved.Problem was, Phoebe's anything but brainless, and the bimbo act is a shield she uses to protect herself. After years of insecurity with men, and a childhood of trauma and neglect, she has honed herself into being exactly what she needs to be to get what she wants. It isn't until she returns to Chicago and starts to take up the reins of the team that she realizes she wants to be the one thing her father never thought she could be. A smashing success. If that means she has to kick the patootie of one supercilious head coach, well...surely they make helmets or something for that.Sparks fly and quips are traded with witty alacrity in this sports romance romp, the first of the Chicago Stars series. With a rather astounding level of character definition and tragic backstory that tugs at the heartstrings, this is a light romance with deep, dark undertones and was doubly satisfying for it. I loved Phoebe. More than that, I admired her. She's a survivor, and while her survival instincts may be dressed up in inappropriate gold lame at times, or wrapped up like a bow on her poodle's topknot, they're exceptionally adept at keeping her afloat. She has a truly tender and kind heart, and her intelligence is keen, especially when she truly starts using it.Dan was a little harder to peg. He's drawn to Phoebe, but doesn't see much beyond her bodacious bod at first, and there was a sex scene towards the beginning of the book (not with Phoebe) that I found deeply disturbing until his partner was identified. Even after that scene I found his relationship with his ex to be a bit distasteful, and the manner in which he so clinically decides to marry a woman just because she's good with kids didn't enamor him to me, either. I did eventually warm up to him, and he does show a far wider range of emotion and intellect through the book, but it was a bit of a rough start for me with him.The push-pull between him and Phoebe, though, was straight up, classic, awesome romance fun wrapped around a very complex consortium of character issues and insecurities. I have to give Susan Eliabeth Phillips credit, she created fully realized and very human characters on all levels, including secondary and ancillary characters, that filled up and filled out this book superbly, giving it much more depth and a far more meaty plot than I was anticipating.There were a few spots that seemed a bit formulaic (it's an HEA romance, though, it wasn't like I wasn't expecting that) and the major relationship conflicts could be seen coming from across the stadium and were, in my opinion, the least elegant aspects of the storyline, but nothing was a major detractor. In fact, it was one of the most satisfying and comprehensive contemporary romances I've read lately.I was particularly pleased with the subplot about the evolution of the relationship Phoebe has with her half sister, and the nifty ways Dan factored into that. I was also pleasantly surprised with how SEP addressed Phoebe's rape at the age of eighteen, and how realistically that assault was integrated into Phoebe's psyche and personality. The moment that Phoebe shared that trauma with Dan was a very good moment for me in the book, for a lot of reasons that are hard to explain, but touch on my appreciation for honest relationship conversation and trust. And I loved absolutely everything about Dan's actions and reactions to the whole of his knowledge of that rape from that point to the very end.I did have a few issues with the book. I could have done without the crazy stalker subplot, I feel it did too little to expand or assist in adding insight into Dan's past and it seemed too hokey a plot device at the end to be a credible threat. Snippets throughout the book shined a glaring spotlight on its 1994 original publishing date (O.J. Simpson being mentioned as a sports correspondent, not a defendant was particularly telling). Dan's ex-wife served little purpose beyond being an excuse for a very emotional scene between Dan and Phoebe...and for the total gross out factor of that initial sex scene.On the other hand, I was highly impressed with the taut play-by-play of the AFC Championship game. It was very well written - informative, tense, emotional, but not so detailed as to make your eyes cross. Admittedly, I'm a rabid football fan, and I have been since childhood. I know football. I even follow my team's off-season personnel and contract stories religiously. It was pretty much guaranteed that I wasn't going to be bored or disinterested with the level of the sports detail in this book. That being said, I'd like to think that I'm objective enough to assure those who aren't football fans that there wasn't a ton of it in the book, and certainly nothing I would consider a major detractor for those who don't like the sport. It Had to Be You  is, at its core, the story of two damaged and emotionally fragile people finding each other in the least likely of places, and realizing that despite appearances and regardless of propriety, they're perfect for each other. And in getting there, it was the Superbowl of delicious, deep, thrilling, emotional journeys, ripe with fully realized and sympathetic characters that resonate with a sense of genuine triumph.~*~*~*~Reviewed for One Good Book Deserves Another.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading/listening to this story. I read this book with my book club and I'm so glad that it was picked. I wasn't quite sure if I would enjoy it or not because I'm not really a football person however, that was truly not the main focus and the story was very well written. Phoebe and Dan are really great characters! I honestly loved all of the characters and noticed that there are more books in this series and I do intend to read them. Excellent story!

This is the cutest, sweetest book. Trigger warning: there are some conversations about sexual abuse experiences. I teared up a few times, but the book it funny, sweet, and has just enough action to keep the plot moving.

It had to be you KU, & purchased $5.99, 374 pgs ****.* 4/16/19, 2/26/24 Dan & Phoebe4.5 stars because the first 27% was a little boring with all the backstories, the characters thoughts about everything and not a lot of conversations. Phoebe inherited a pro football team but her dead abusive father only left it to her for a few months and the only way to keep it was to win the AFL Championship. The team’s Coach, Dan, was not happy that the team owner knew nothing about football and was a high-falutin 30 yr. old snob that wanted nothing to do with football or the team. The team was on the bottom of the standings in their division. Needless to say, Dan and Phoebe butted heads constantly. If she failed to keep the team, it was to go to her cousin, Reed, who tormented her, her entire childhood. She wasn’t really a snob but a girl that had a horrible, abusive childhood. She had lived her adult life as a pretend person because she didn’t know how to deal with the life she had before. When her father died, he also left her as the legal guardian of her half-sister, Molly. Molly was 13 and no at all happy that she was put in that situation. I absolutely love all the football action, behind the scenes, the players, and Ron, the GM who became Phoebe’s best friend. Dan was a great coach but had a very quick anger point so it was fun watching his little fits on and off the field just like in the real football world. Their story and love hate relationship was a joy to watch unfold.There are triggers as rape and mental abuse. The character building was great. Storyline was near perfect except for the first 27%. Flow was fast and I could not put this book down. Sex was magnetic, at times romantic and hot, very well written sex scenes.This book will be a go to re-read for me since I love football and baseball with a passion and Ms. Phillips did her research and gave me the sports action that I love along with a little romance mixed in.

good dialoque and wit between main characters. I have read this book several times as it is relaxing and engrossing.

Loved the characters got engrossed in the story page turne perfect for a summer beach read looking to buy others in the series

Bella trama anche divertente, mi ha introdotta al mondo del rugby che non conoscevo

Great to read over and over. Sweet love story where it all begins for the Chicago Stars series

I have read this book (in German) about 10 years ago, but since i borrowed it from a friend who had also borrowed it, I didn't have a chance to reread. This is (and I'm pretty sure always will be) my absolute favorite romance book. In a decade, I have not found a better one and there has seldomly been a piece of literature that has stuck in my mind as thoroughly as the opening scene and the epilog of this book has done.I am still as in love as ever!