3.5 stars 
 First, that badly photoshopped ugly hand on the cover is uber distracting. That poor woman's hand looks like it was cut off and reattached with a barbie doll's hand. Blah. Wrong size and wrong perspective. It's an eye-sore. 
 Second, I ended up enjoying this. It freaking took awhile but I did. Had a lot of cringe-worthy moments. But it ended up being a fun read the last few chapters really picked up and caught my interest. That dark angsty tone that I've missed from SEP's other books managed to slip in here a little. I do question the kind of characters SEP insists on including in her books and if they are supposed to be root worthy or not. They are the typical SEP characters I've seen in most of her books that are cooky-crazy stereotypical borderline obnoxious. They can be entertaining and endearing but here it was annoying as hell. The nosy, judgmental busy body town folks and family friends thinking they know what's best for the hero in this Ted. It was heaped on waaaaay too much. And the whole 'legendary lover' thing in regards to Ted I seriously thought was supposed to be a sarcastic joke. Not because he wasn't a great lover based on the love scenes he seemed to be doing fine. But because he's such a reserved incredibly private ridiculously well-mannered guy I just saw the legendary lover title as corny. 
 Ted came off as this uptight nerdy emotionally-stunted guy who never can do anything wrong in the eyes of his beloved town folks. That all of course changes once Meg comes into the picture. Like every other typical SEP hero, he was a complete ass to Meg at the beginning blaming her like everyone else and their mother, cat and dog for his fiance leaving him at the altar. He tested my patience and made me scratch my head at his cool non-emotional reactions to things. And of course I couldn't stand the brown-nosing self-serving manipulative secondary characters who were all out to use Meg and Ted as well to save their dying town. GMAFB. No true honest friends or family would ever do that. Way too much scheming and opportunistic stunts they pulled in order to get a stupid deal through for a golf resort. I just thought they lacked integrity and brains through most of the story and I was really sick of seeing Meg get shouldered all the blame for Ted and the town's problems. I kept waiting for someone to clue them all in that Lucy was the one who left Ted at the altar, NOT Meg. And her wonderful perfect saintly friend Lucy went in hiding after the whole thing leaving Meg to fend for herself. Yeah great friend there. RME. I just saw nothing endearing or likable about any of the secondary characters in this through most of the book. They were very obnoxious and so cavalier. Their self-entitlement and constantly throwing Meg under the bus for 'good of the town' was just astounding. They wised up near the end but not at times where it should have counted most. 
 I liked Meg but she had the annoying habit of acting passive aggressive and let everyone run right over her with the insults, barbs and humiliating stunts. I kept waiting for her to tell them all to shove off and leave that miserable town. She does have issues with self-confidence and has low self-esteem but she is a fire cracker, is smart, independent and pretty strong. That's why her passive aggressive cowering attitude made no sense to me. And this is a habit of SEP's I've been noticing for a while now. The 'reckless' eccentric heroines who are described as wild and overzealous and fearless shrivel up and lose their backbone the minute trouble meets them. It doesn't make sense and is incongruous to their character in my opinion. I just kept waiting and waiting for Meg to stand up for herself. The author kept describing Meg as a LA spoiled rich girl, I didn't see any of that with the way she carried herself, how she refused handouts, worked hard and top it off with her self-depricating sense of humor and free spirit. The supposed dying Southern city had more self-entitled haughty characters who acted more spoiled and petulant with all their grievances then Meg ever did. I felt the author was selling her own heroine very short in this which was strange. But once again SEP's quirky eccentric one-of-a-kind heroine managed to win me over. As for Ted, wasn't much of a stand out for me as heroes go but he grew on me. Not my fav work by Phillips but still entertaining enough.