Customer Reviews

Antonides' Forbidden Wife (Harlequin Presents)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First let me say Anne McAllister is one of those authors that always seem to keep her characters grounded and relatable to her readers. Although they maybe financially successful they keep in the forefront that family is all important, that being said I absolutely fell in love with Ally and PJ's story for lots of reasons. First, they were in my age group early thirties, not too young to not have experienced much, but not to old were their settled and most things are common place, they are in what I term the magical 30s were your honing your professional skills and if your truly ready, discovering what it means to have a meaningful and lasting parental, intimate and platonic relationships.

The plot of the story is PJ and Ally get married when they are in their early 20s for practical reasons to help get Ally out of a situation she's in. After they marry they have one intimate night as man and wife but they next day go their separate ways, still remaining friends. Five years later they meet up again a little older but not much wiser, only to part not on the best of terms, because Ally is rude and mistreats PJ. Another five years pass and Ally and PJ both now in their 30s; Ally shows up at PJ's office after of a total of 10 years and very little contact. She asks him for a divorce, because she's fallen in love and plans on getting married. Upon seeing her again PJ is confronted with feeling that he has a allowed to lie dormant for years, he refuses to grant her the divorce, and makes the suggestion that they should actually try being married in more than name only, this throws Ally into a tail spin, because she has organized her life meticulously up until this point and having PJ back in her life makes her question all the things she has worked to accomplish and how much they really mean to her once she is forced to stop and think about them, and further more she is force to example feelings she wants had for PJ, from this point on the story is a journey for both main characters that forces them both to honestly look at the lives they've led apart from one another, as well as the life they could possibly have together.

I don't want to spoil the book too much for you, but I will say this was a wonderful well written book with a great plot, character development, were you could actually see the characters beliefs and ideals change, and how the effects of those changes made the story flow and evolve. It wasn't a melodramatic or far fetched storyline just good reading and fun.

I would recommend this book as something you want to curl up with as a winter weekend read, I've read in a few hours, it's a keeper. Happy Reading!

Antonides' Forbidden Wife will make one believe in romance again as Anne McAllister has written such a wonderful story about honor, commitment, values and sheer romantic love.

The Antonides family are a fun loving, noisy, at times difficult Greek family who one immediately loves and wants to claim for their own. Anne has written two other books about the family, The Antonides Marriage Deal and The Santorini Bride and they reflect the love and strength of this family. I encourage all Presents and Mills and Boon fans to read them as well as Anne's January release.

You will fall in love with PJ Antonides, his carefree nature, his deep emotional ties to his past friend and the woman he married years ago, Ally. PJ's determination to win her love and stay married at times will have you in tears. He is sexy, handsome, rich and is such a caring and wonderful man.

Ally, well at first I did not understand her and her reluctance and then it all became clear. Her motives for marrying PJ were to allow her to free herself from her father and seek her dreams and now she's achieved them. Emotionally, she has never gotten over the loss of her mother and the distance her father put between them. Now her father's health is an issue, she desperately wants his acceptance and to do that she wants to divorce PJ and marry another man. So she has returned to New York to ask PJ's assistance again but he's not going to have any of it!

To say anymore would ruin the story so I sincerely encourage you to read PJ and Ally's love story and fall in love with The Antonides that Anne McAllister so brilliantly penned!

I liked this book very much, I wouldn't say it was great. PJ and Alice or Al to PJ were married 10 years earlier. PJ offered to Marry Al because she had a small inheritance, but she couldn't get it until she was married. She wanted to study, travel and just get freedom from her father. Now ten years later she's met someone else and wants a divorce, so she can get married. PJ said no to the divorce and sparks fly. In those ten years, neither one of them could forget their wedding night, which seems to be the reason why neither one of them filed for divorce.. It was a nice story.

I highly recommend this read to anyone and everyone! The characters were well developed, the plot line was well thought out, and the romance was believable! PICK THIS UP, TODAY!

I became a fan of Anne McAllister through kind of an odd route: a fan club page for actor Michael Vartan, star of "ALIAS," "Never Been Kissed" and "HawthoRNe"!! Apparently a piece from Ms. McAllister's blog had caught the eye of the webmistress at The Safe House...because Ms. McAllister had fallen in love with Michael when she watched "ALIAS"...She also liked Hugh Jackman and other sexy hunks, and used them as the templates for her male characters...
Anyway, as she fell more & more under the spell, of the delicious, green-eyed, French-born Monsieur Vartan, an idea formed in her mind...And the result was the dashing, green-eyed Petros (PJ) Antonides...If you read the physical descriptions of PJ, picture "ALIAS'" sexy Agent Michael Vaughn in your mind, with his thick hair, green-eyes, rakish stubble, deep-dish dimples tanned skin and his "whip-cord hard," lean & muscular 6-foot frame, his crooked smile, his sandpaper-on-velvet voice...See Anne McAllister's blog and you will see pictures of Michael...
Now who would make a good Ally?? Someone a bit like a young Connie Chung, perhaps?? Or Michelle Yeoh?? And I can just see Jeanne Cooper (Katherine on "Y&R") as PJ's beloved grandmother Yiayia (my favorite character in the book)!!

Anne McAllister's writing is wonderfully emotional and you feel the characters moving and breathing...You ache for these two messed-up people to stop thinking everything to death, because it's their love that is dying while each of them tries to control the situation...When they finally stop trying to get what they each think they want, and just FEEL -- and just LOVE, they find that they both can't fight against their love for one another...
A beautiful story...I guarantee you'll be hooked!! And having the hero be based on an actual person helps, too...