Customer Reviews

Return Engagement

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Love, love, love this book!! I have reread it half a dozen times since I bought it when it first came out and it just gets better with each read.

Noah, the hero, is the main reason I love it so much. He's incredibly hot (a requirement, of course!) but he's also sweetly endearing. He's insecure, he screwed up and he's just starting to get his life back on track. He's a recovering alcoholic who hit rock bottom. The author doesn't gloss over this, but treats it as the never-ending battle that the disease is. Unlike many books, no excuses are offered- no tragic past, no horrible life-altering event that sent him over the edge. He just plain got out of control. Gosh, now I just made it sound like a depressing book but it isn't! We meet him after he has cleaned himself up and is on the upswing. It's wonderful to watch him ride to the top again.

As with all Lynn Michaels books, this one has a colorful array of supporting characters and you'll be laughing out loud. It's one of those books that you just don't want to end. So, I do the next best thing... go back to the beginning and read it again!

I read Mother of the Bride and was waiting for this one to come out -- it's superb! Better than Mother of the Bride! I stayed up until 1:30 in the morning reading it: it was fresh, frank and sexy. Run to the store for this one!

This was an enjoyable book that held my interest. Noah was a heart throb actor who threw everything away with his selfishness, drinking and lack of concern for the future. Now he has a chance to turn everything around. He stopped drinking two years ago and is trying his best to be a caring, likeable person.

Lindsay was a good mom and a good sister, too good! Which brings me to Lindsay's sister Jolie. This girl didn't even deserve to be called human! For 30 years it was her mission in life to make everyone around her miserable because her mother had left her when she was five and taken Lindsay to Hollywood. Yes, terrible but she punished and blamed everyone around her particularly Lindsay. Jolie didn't have one redeeming quality, she was manipultive, insulting and downright cruel! I found it unrealistic that her family hadn't hung her up by her toenails years before!

I was also a little confused as to why Lindsay still found the need to mourn her husband's death and not allow herself (or her son) to have a real life after 8 years. Especially since very little info was given about him.

But that aside I enjoyed this book as I ususally do with Lynn Michaels. The secondary characters were hysterical and I adored them.

I would definitely recommend it!

Lindsey Varner made up one half of the teen dream couple for six seasons on the "Betwixt and Be Teen" TV series alongside Hollywood heartthrob, Noah Patrick. After having her heart broken by Noah at her 18th birthday, she turned her back on Hollywood, returned to her hometown in Missouri, and married her longtime beau, Mark. Now a widow 16 years later, she is raising their son Trey, and reluctantly agrees to appear in a play written by her sister Jolie, hoping to heal age old scars.

Down on his luck after losing everything and ready to end it all, with the last 2 decades being a drunken blur, Noah has made a deal with the Devil herself in order to regain his life. Lindsey's mother Vivienne Varner is the consummate stage mother and agent. Like a mafia don, she makes Noah an offer he cannot refuse - appear in a reunion play along with his former co-star to generate publicity and help reclaim his career.

It is pretty obvious from Lindsey's reaction when he arrives at the theater that she was not aware. Scheming Jolie seems to be in cahoots with Vivienne, who is bankrolling the project. Jolie is still sore that mama Viv abandoned her when the bright lights of Hollywood beckoned Lindsey. Jolie has spent most of her life alienating her sister and her extended family as a result.

Initially standoffish at having to share the stage with Noah, Lindsey relents, and as the two get reacquainted and start rehearsing their lines, old feelings start to surface, as Noah's fuzzy memories of his drunken youth reveal things he is not sure are real, and Lindsey tries to keep her heart from breaking a second time. They work together to get even with Viv and Jolie for interfering in their lives.

"Return Engagement" is a charming second chance at love story. You pretty much see the plot revelation coming a mile away, but the ride getting there is so enjoyable. The secondary characters (and there are a lot of them) add such a richness and texture to the storyline. How could you not love a story with a character named "Sassy Pantz?"

Return Engagement was the story of the reuniting on stage two child TV stars in a small town in Missouri. When Noah last saw Lindsey, he left her in a world of hurt and it follows the pair 15 years later as they try to sort out their feelings for one another.

I found Return Engagement to be a very cute, heartwarming story. I definitely enjoyed the antics of the two main characters as well as most of Lindsey's family. The only part I found a little "off" was the two villains: Lindsey's sister, Jolie and Lindsey's mother, Vivian (or Vivienne as she likes to be called). I know they were supposed to be mean and ruthless, but there was absolutely no redeeming qualities to them. After awhile it made me question why bother associating with them at all.

Aside from that minor detail, Return Engagement was a good book and worth the read. I enjoyed it very much.

I just finished this book a few minutes ago and am still smiling! I loved it!! I fell in love with Lindsay and Noah and their day to day adventures! If two people never should have met again, it would have been these two!! But Noah doesn't give up!! He is very persistent and Lyndsay can not resist him!! The ending was awesome, Lynn wrapped it up very nicely. All in all, I loved this book and would highly recommend it to anyone who likes a good old fashioned romantic comedy!!!

Almost twenty years ago Lindsay Varner and Noah Patrick starred in a hit TV series. She played the cute cheerleader/girl next door to his hunky surfer boy/football hero. Lindsay's mother, a barracuda agent, had taken her to Hollywood, leaving Lindsay's younger sister, Jolie, behind. Lindsay achieved fame and fortune and jealous Jolie didn't. Noah also achieved fame and fortune and a life-destroying addiction to alcohol.

On the evening of Lindsay's eighteenth birthday she made love to a drunk twenty one year old Noah. The next morning the still drunk Noah had a new bedmate and heartbroken Lindsay left California to return home to her extended family in Belle Coeur, Missouri. She married her childhood sweetheart, had a son and became a widow eight years ago. She owns a bookstore with her cousin and doesn't miss Hollywood at all.

After the series ended, Noah fell into a tequila bottle and lost everything - family, the fancy cars, big houses, acting jobs - and became a skid row bum. Now sober for two years, Noah is enticed by Lindsay's barracuda mother to reclaim his profession; she sends him to Belle Coeur to the family's theater to act with Lindsay in a play Jolie wrote.

Lindsay's entire family, aunts, uncles and cousins, are involved with the theater, including her cat, Pyewacket. After Noah meets the family and gets Lindsay's back story, he helps her figure out what barracuda mother's motivations are. Oh, and they fall in love.

I liked everything about this book-the characters, plot, dialogue, small-town setting. A big twist near the end didn't surprise me but, because this book was so wonderfully written, so full of fun and quirky details, even the expected felt fresh and new. I will look for more by this author. If this story was a color, it would be a happy, warm yellow.

I love stories that revolve around the storyline of a second chance at love. Ms. Michaels has created a wonderful little world filled with great characters that experience a whole range of emotions. The reader will throughly be engaged in this read from page one.

Lindsay West is a child star that is trying very hard to come to terms with all that this involves. She falls in love with her co-star Noah Patrick and after one night in his arms her heart is broken the next morning when she realizes that their night together is not remembered by Noah because he had been drunk. One night is all it takes to send Lindsay packing and heading back home to Missouri. Now years later she is running a book store with her cousin, she's a widow and raising a teenage son, and trying to get over the hurt of her stage mother, mother, and jealously of her sister Jolie. When she promises to do a play her sister wrote she has no idea that Noah is on his way to Missouri to play the male lead. What will she do when she is faced once again with her biggest mistake, and only love?

Noah has ruined everything in his life with one swig from a bottle. A recovering alcoholic he is learning the hard way that nothing comes easy or cheap. Hollywood is no longer looking his way and his options are truly running out. That is until his one and only nightmare Viviane shows up and offers him a deal he can't turn down. Star in her daughters play for six weeks and get his feet under him again and maybe, just maybe Hollywood would give him another look. He has no idea that his acceptance is going to change his life in ways he never thought possible.

Noah and Lindsay are wonderfully complex characters. They have both been hurt and have the internal scars to prove it. Lindsay and Noah's relationship is intense and built up slowly. As a result the reader will feel fully invested in how things proceed. It will also seem more real. Secondary characters such as Vivien, Jolie and the rest of the family are wonder additions to this engaging read. Ms. Michaels tackles all kinds of sensitive issues and does so with tack and understanding. This is one read I have no trouble recommending.

Official Reviewer for www.romancedesigns.com

I can't say enough good things about this book: great characters (primary and secondary), great plot, great drama and a great resolution.

There was nothing about Noah and Lindsay's story that I didn't enjoy. I highly recommend this book for being solid, well-written and well-developed.

I'm looking forward to more from Lynn Michaels.

I've long been a Lynn Michaels fan. She has such creative additions that make her novels special and different.

But she really put it all together in Return Engagement. With the crazy family--and the characters remain true to who they are which is a wonderful source of humor--and the twists and turns of love, this is my favorite Lynn Michaels' novel and one of the best books I've ever read. Yes, EVER read!

This book is so rich and wonderful that it's like eating a thick, chocolate brownie filled with chocolate chips and white chocolate chips and M&M's and all sorts of delicious surprises.

I enjoyed Mother of the Bride as well and am looking forward to many more wonderful books from this amazingly talented writer.