Kiss An Angel by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

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As I approached the end of August, I had only one more book to read for the Ripped Bodice Summer Bingo. My final prompt was circus. I went through a few of the options I had and nothing really sounded good. I went through a couple lists on goodreads again and looked for highly rated books by friends and booktubers I follow. I ended up finding the standalone Kiss An Angel by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. I have read a couple of her books before and was more intrigued by this than my other options. Update: I applied this to the prompt of rec from booksta for the 3rd board of Summer of Swoon.

We meet Daisy, a kind-of socialite that's being married off by her father to Alex. Her father is some kind of dignitary with Russia and fairly well off. Her mother was a famous supermodel and mostly raised Daisy. After her passing Daisy gets into financial trouble and her father's option to keep her out of jail is to arrange a marriage for 6 months. To Daisy's surprise, she's joining Alex for the next 6 months as he performs and is manager of a traveling circus.

So, I was triggered by this book. While I've always been very sensitive with emotions and easily affected when I read, this was a hole other ball game. At first I thought maybe I'm exaggerating and I'm not actually triggered, jut emotionally affected, but I had in result some very bad dreams (not nightmares, but bad) and ended up waking up crying a couple of times that night. I then also spent the next day in a funky headspace most of the day. Now, it wasn't just one thing that triggered me, but the combination of so many different events happening. I don't want to go too much into it, but the combination of her father not actually seeing her as herself, her mother passing and having to take point on everything alone, being around people that see her differently than she is, being constantly called a liar when she's not, and being an optimistic and sunny person, only to finally reach a point where she's just so exhausted and worn out that she stops caring and fighting back not only about the perceptions about her, but just as a person. This meant I was able to connect to Daisy more than expected.

Now, because this hit me so hard, I didn't feel like enough happened to turn it around and redeem those around her. While I loved the connection between Alex and Daisy, I didn't like how long he kept things from her and how long it took for his perceptions about her to change. He was so set in his misconceptions of her (based of what her father told him) that he completely changed his lifestyle to make things harder for her. It took until the 50% mark for them to even start connecting. I didn't like that it took until pretty much the last quarter of the book for him to even realize that she didn't steal the money (from the beginning). Now, part of me was a little let down about how that was resolved because I wanted more groveling from Alex and the other circus performers, but Daisy was pretty much over it and didn't want to hurt Heather. Now, I didn't feel like Sheba redeemed herself at all, but she didn't need too. I did not like how Alex reacted to the final conflict, but I understood it. Although, I didn't like that Daisy ran from it knowing that this was going to be a hard thing for him to come to terms with. I felt her reaction was a little overdone. Another thing I really want to point out, there is no reconciliation with her father. Nothing was done with it at all and there was nothing done. There kind of was a throwaway line that Alex finally realizes that he doesn't actually know his daughter, but that's it. If it was going to be brought up, there needed to be a conversation. And maybe a discussion about cutting him out of their lives until he can reconcile with the way he treated Daisy throughout her life.

While I enjoyed how she was so afraid of animals and then became their keeper, I didn't like how much they pushed her into it. Yes you can get over your fears by exposure, but I didn't like how they treated her. Alex and her father also kept calling her ditzy and flighty for absolutely no reason. Even after Alex knew Daisy and had been living with her for months at that point he was still calling her that. She is not one bit ditzy and/or flighty. Okay, let's get off my ranting and talk about some nice things. I liked the connection she had with the tiger. It was a little fantastical, but I loved it and how both he and the baby elephant kind of became her champions and sources of comfort. My little kitty Cheese is certainly that for me. I loved that when there was crazy weather she went to check on Sinjun the tiger, but then stayed with him not only to care for him and the menagerie, but because that was where she felt safe.

Outside of the things I mentioned above, I enjoyed Alex and Daisy's connection. The steam was oddly written to me, where it's super descriptive for everything except the full penetration scenes. It was like cracked door instead of closed door. I don't know. This just didn't really do it for me, and after being triggered I kept reading because I heard such good things about it and I wanted some closure. While it didn't really give me the closure I wanted (needed), this was written well. I'm sure at some point I'll pick up another Susan Elizabeth Phillips since I've read her before, but she's not at the top of my list. I just have found her books to be okay. Maybe it's because their older, but I've enjoyed other older books. Maybe it's just the way she forms her characters and their experiences. I don't know. There are a lot of people that really enjoy her work though, so check her out if you're into older contemporary romances.

Have you read Kiss An Angel?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Kiss An Angel, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, 3-stars, 1 day, eBook, 384 pages, published in 1996