Customer Reviews

Unforgotten (The Michelli Family Series #2)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Wanting to discover more about the secrets his Nonna Antonia has kept hidden for so long, Lance Michelli goes back to his home in New York. Coming back with him is Rese Barrett, the woman he had met in Sonoma, where he began his pursuit for the truth of his family's past. Rese has agreed to go with him, to give Lance a second chance to prove he is worthy of her trust.

In New York, Rese meets Lance's family, whose way of life- so different from her own- is slightly overwhelming, although friendly and welcoming. With Nonna Antonia's health so fragile, the unraveling of the past is slow. In her mind, Antonia relives her life in Sonoma and the reason she left her beloved home with her husband, Marco Michelli.

Unforgotten by Kristen Heitzmann is an excellent sequel to `Secrets'. I love the characters of Rese and Lance, who are complete opposites. Lance is unreserved with his affections and undaunted by the difficulties life throws him. Rese tries to always stay cool under pressure and keeps all her emotions bottled up inside until they explode. I've enjoyed all of Heitzmann's books, but I would say that Secret and Unforgotten are my favorites.

Kristen's newest book, the sequel to the Christy Award winner "Secrets" was a fabulous well-written story full of emotion and unforgettable characters. Her character-driven plot kept me turning the pages to find out what happens next to Lance and Rese. I think these books "Secrets" and "Unforgotten" are the best-developed characters she has ever created. I had to stop a couple of time and look around to make sure that the characters hadn't come to life. Wow... I also love the way she did Antonia's story back when she was fleeing her home in Sonoma, California with a man whom she knew little about other than he had sworn to protect her from her father's killers. Lance had discovered the secrets that were hidden in Antonia's old home which is now owned by Rese Barrett. At the conclusion of "Secrets" Rese and Lance decided to head to the Bronx in New York City to speak to Antonia about the villa and what she wants to do with the property even though legally she still owns it even though Rese had paid for the property. Lance finds himself caught between the two women he loves and must sacrifice more than he has to give. An awesome, riveting story filled with romance, angst and the ever-lasting love and forgiveness of God.

I am an avid fan of Ms Heitzmann, she's amazing! This was in my opinion her most complex book yet. Rese and Lance were very different people but because Lance was so warm and caring, and because of his need to stay at the villa in book one he took the time to look beyond Rese's tough guy exterior (she did grow up raised by a schizophrenic Mom and then solely raised by a nondemonstrative Father in a construction world after all!!). I don't care for a tough almost masculine female lead character as a rule but Ms Heitzmann tells a compelling tale, similiar to The Rose Legacy, only in that it has an old tale woven through this contemporary book. What Lance finds as he gets to know Rese is that she has totally learned to bottle evrything up and of course to never show weakness and vulnerability in the very harsh world she has known. I loathe books where the perfect guy loves the totally cold woman with no foundation for it, but this book develops characters so well, it is a very believable and satisfying book even if it my not be to your liking! There were so many challlenges to live the faith also, I was wondering where she was going with the vendetta -the conclusion of that was Perfect! What can our God due if we surrender all to Him.This book is not for the fainthearted(content little Christians who do not want their faith challenged). When you read this book you really feel enveloped by Lance's Italian family, it's incedible! There are so many complex characters in the book . And though Chaz is barely mentioned, he contributes a lot. I don't believe it is my favorite book of the author but I definitely recommend it and will have to read it again to absorb all I missed the firt time through!

Fans of the Christy Award-winning SECRETS will enjoy Kristen Heitzmann's absorbing sequel that explores issues of trust, forgiveness, faith and romance between a lovely but cold Bed & Breakfast owner and an Italian man who is haunted by secrets from the past. At 400-plus pages, it's a long --- perhaps too long --- read. However, Heitzmann's competent writing keeps the pages turning.

The story swings back between the grandmother Nonna Antonia's life in 1931 and the present time, with Antonia sometimes remembering incidents in first-person point of view. It's a difficult thing to pull off, but Heitzmann handles it fairly well. Nonna Antonia's childhood home and vineyard are now the scene of her handsome grandson Lance Michelli's work as a chef at a B&B. He's fallen in love with the seemingly cold Rese Barrett, a welcome and an unusual female CBA protagonist who excels at construction and renovation, but mostly fails at relationships. Her fears about the schizophrenia that runs in her family helps make her a sympathetic character rather than a forbidding or one-dimensional woman.

Lance lures Rese, his "business partner" from Sonoma, California, back to his childhood home in Little Italy in the Bronx of New York City. Here, his lively extended Italian family lives together in rooms over Nonna's family restaurant, Bella Tabella. It's in the Bronx that Rese peels back the layers of who Lance really is and discovers the joys and foibles of large, chaotic family life.

Other storylines from SECRETS play out as well. Star struggles with love, acceptance, and her artistic gifts while acting out in destructive ways to deal with pain. Lance discovers a vendetta or curse against his family that must be dealt with --- by revenge? He must balance his family loyalties with his strong Christian faith and desire to please God while putting the past to rest.

Readers may find Lance's unusual healing powers a little spooky and contrived, and Heitzmann never really explores them in any depth in this installment. Some readers will find Lance's theology of suffering over Tony's death open to discussion: "Either I accept that this was His purpose, that He intended to take Tony and leave me and somehow it was right and perfect, or I despair and curse Him." Nonna Antonia's semi-recovery toward the end of the novel is a little difficult to believe, as she goes from being unable to say "yes" or "no" to communicating in sentences. There also are a few longwinded romantic clichés: "Her resistance shattered as he made his point until she wondered how she had doubted the possibility of connection, because in those moments she could hardly tell where Lance left off and she started."

That said, Heitzmann is one of the best at depicting sexual attraction between characters in Christian fiction --- and the women are as capable of passion as the men. Her rich culinary details will make readers salivate. Some of the delights of this story are Heitzmann's characterizations --- the multifaceted Italian family with a lovable momma who can't cook but insists on trying, the pack of unruly kids, and a father who has a surprising heart-to-heart talk with Lance over two bottles of Bud. The last pages of the story set up themes for a possible sequel that, if written, should be eagerly anticipated by fans of the series.

(...)

Captivating and subtle, humorus and heart-breaking. The settings and characters in this book and Secrets before it were so real I felt I was there. The ending left me spellbound. I cannot wait to see what happens next for Rese and Lance and the other characters.

All things happen for a reason--even the bad.

Rese Barrett has recently purchased a vineyard in Sonoma with the intention of restoring it to its former glory and then opening an inn. After hiring Lance Michelli as chef and making him a partner in her business, she discovers that his grandmother, Antonia, used to live there. But they both possess titles to the property. In order to put things right, Rese and Lance travel to his home in the Bronx to discuss the problem with Antonia, whose health is now failing.

Over seventy years before, Antonia was forced to suddenly leave following the murder of her father--and she had never been able to return. This story highlights the extreme culture shock that Rese experiences while visiting Lance's very Italian family. Having survived an attack on her life as a child by her own schizophrenic mother, Rese has learned to survive by overachievement and shutting people out. Though it is very difficult for her, through interactions with Lance's relatives, she learns what family is about and how to open up to others.

Lance presents his grandmother her old diary that he found at the vineyard. As Antonia reads the old diary, she begins to tell Lance her own story, and together they dig into what really happened when she was forced to leave her home. What they find out shakes them both to the core of their faith and threatens Lance's newfound relationship with Rese.

Set in modern-day Little Italy, as well as Sonoma of Antonia's youth and being a newlywed in 1931, this book is a sequel to Kristin Heitzman's earlier book, Secrets.

Armchair Interviews says: Unforgotten is a moving love story that is full of lessons on reconciliation, self-sacrifice, the curse of a vendetta, and the power of forgiveness.

I knew this would be a great sequel. Afterall, I loved Rese and Lance and Antonia in Secrets and couldn't wait to hear how their story progressed in Unforgotten. What I hadn't expected was the journey I would make into my soul; the questions I would have to answer about myself. While I read I had to analyze my response to the characters actions. When vengeance seems to be God's Will, is it ever? Lance's fervent yearning to be right with God leads him down paths I didn't expect. But ultimatly God's love clarifies those labyrinthine paths. The harder hurdle for me were the threads of healing weaving through the storyline. Physical healing. Miraculous healing. This made me stop and wonder: how much faith did I really have? Did I believe that God could do ANYTHING? Even heal today as Jesus did 2000 years ago? When I prayed, Lord heal my friend, did I ever have any expectation that such a healing could really take place? This novel was a great novel and so much more. It will entertain you, challenge you, have you yelling at and laughing with the characters, and hopefully inspire you, as it did me, to walk an even deeper walk with the One who holds all mysteries of life in His hand.

The first half of the book was GREAT. No complaints. However, the second half left much to be desired. Unlike her other books, I don't feel like she finished this completely. She left us wondering what happens with all the secondary characters she introduced (some within the last chapter) and Lance and Rese's plans. I hope there is a sequel to this...it would be nice to see the plot go a little further.

In Unforgotten Lance Michelli continues his quest for the truth with the aid of Rese Barrett.

THE GOOD: I enjoyed the budding romance between Lance and Rese, and the way Rese seemed to finally loosen up a bit. It was written in a way that I can really associate. I also appreciated the theme behind this sequel: trust, forgiveness and complete faith in the Lord.

THE BAD: I enjoyed Secrets, so I was looking forward to reading the sequel. I'm sorry to say that I was disappointed. The first half of the book was very well written, however, the second half was not. It veered off in a direction I cared nothing about: vendettas, curses, mafia etc. And, there were other things in the story that I couldn't swallow.

THE UGLY: I did not like the way she ended it. There were still a lot of unresolved conflicts and issues- not typical for Kristen Heitzmann.

All in all I gave the book 3 stars because it deserves 5 stars for the first half and 1 star for the second half, so that averages out to 3 stars.

The book arrived in time for a trip I was taking. Kristen Heitzmann is a very creative writer and I more than enjoyed the book...I devoured it!