Customer Reviews

Where Is He Now?

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

 

 

WHERE IS HE NOW by Jennifer Greene
April 23, 2005

In WHERE IS HE NOW by Jennifer Greene, Nate Donneli and Jeanne Claire Cassiday are two ex-lovers who were always meant to be. A fifteen-year class reunion is coming up, and this event could be what brings the two together again.

At one time in her life, Jeanne thought for sure that her life and Nate's would be tied together forever. They were sweethearts in high school, but shortly after they both started college, Nate broke off their relationship with no explanation whatsoever.

Jeanne was heartbroken, but in order to get over him she puts her soul into her father's business as a convention event manager, dealing with planning and booking events and also making sure their business stays solvent. While her father was excellent with the customers and clients, he was awful with money.

It is now 15 years later and Jeanne finds herself in charge of the class reunion, along with her friend Tamara, the friend who ended up pursuing her dream and becoming a rock star, and the class nerd Arnold. Jeanne is asked to contact Nate, in the hopes that he will help them with the main speech at the reunion, since he was the one labeled "most likely to succeed". Nate, however, ended up working at his father's garage instead of being the architect he always wanted to be. He felt he was a failure, despite helping to raise his brothers and sisters after his father's death, as well as keeping the business alive.

After learning what happened to Nate after graduation, Jeanne realizes what a success Nate's life really was, but someone needed to point it out to him. There were also feelings of love and attraction between them, and she wanted to resolve any of these feelings before she moved on with her life. She recognized that her love for Nate had stood between her and all the love relationships she had since high school, including a marriage that failed miserably.

Nate now has a successful luxury car business, as well as a precocious teenage daughter. A lot has happened since graduation, and both Claire and Nate slowly rediscover each other and catch up on each other's lives after graduation. Neither had expected to find each other doing what they were doing now, and it was a learning experience for each of them to understand whether their dreams had been fulfilled or not

An interesting subplot involves Arnold, who always had a huge crush on Tamara, and Tamara, who felt that her life was a failure. As the two of them work on the class reunion party, Tamara sees a different side of Arnold and learns a little about her own feelings.

I found myself liking this book, although it wasn't the perfect novel. I enjoyed the various subplots, but felt that there were too many things going on for one book. The story of Arnold and Tamara should have been taken out and saved for a separate book, while the focus should have been on Nate, Claire, and their two families. There was not enough attention made to Claire's father, who I thought had an important story that could have been explored. Overall, however, I feel that this is a book worth reading. It's a good beach read, or can be saved for a rainy day.

After a failed marriage and new romance with the "perfect" man, Jeanne Clair Cassiday realizes that her romance woes can be attributed to one thing - lack of closure from the one that got away. As her 15-year high school reunion is approaching, she is assigned the task of looking up Nate Donneli, the class heartthrob who was most likely to succeed. After dumping her his freshman year at Princeton, she never heard from him or of him again.

When she stops at his father's car repair shop, she is shocked to discover that Nate Sr. no longer runs the place; the new owner is her Nate. After catching up with each other, she is shocked to find out that he has a 14-year old daughter, and wrongly assumes that she was dumped because of his father status. Turns out that Nate had to give up his dreams of becoming an architect so that he could take care of his siblings after his father suddenly died, leaving the family with very little, but the repair shop (that Nate managed to make very successful). He daughter Caitlin was the product of a one night stand and the mother wanted nothing to do with Nate or Caitlin, so he obtained full custody.

Part of the charm of the story is how quickly the two can assume their old roles - illustrated by how they immediately refer to each other via the pet names (Peanut and Shadow) they gave each other 15 years earlier. Before they can resume their relationship, she needs to break him of his nasty habit to take care of everyone, and open up and let someone else take the burden for a change, and help him find the thief who has been embezzling from his company.

There is a cute secondary romance with the class nerd and a former rock star that took a wrong turn in her career and became an addict.

It is a very well written and tender story that will tug at your heart strings.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. However, I didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped I would. I liked the characters, I was especially fond of the relationship between Tamara and Arnold and thought they were deserving of their own story, as their relationship/romance didn't really add anything to the relationship between Nate and Jeanne Claire.

I enjoyed the writing, the story flowed well, (I read it in two days) and the conflicts between Jeanne and her Dad and Nate and his family were interesting. I think the thing that bothered me though, and keeps me from giving this book a higher rating is the two conflicts are never really resolved in a satisfactory way. They just sort of end.

I hate that. I hate that I spent the whole book, all three hundred and some odd pages, worrying about the theif in Nate's garage and whether or not Jeanne Claire's dad will make it in business without her, and I get to the end of the book and both conflicts are resolved almost as an after thought.

Aside from that though, it's worth reading.

In Ann Arbor, Nate "Shadow" Donneli manages the family owned Donneli Motors, an antique car dealership. He also raises his daughter Caitlin by himself since his spouse divorced both their child and him. He is worried about the family business because someone, probably one of his siblings, is cleverly embezzling money from the firm.

With her father, Jeanne "Peanut" Cassiday runs Oz Enterprises, which hosts events for organizations. She, her best friend, and a nerd are in charge of the fifteenth anniversary St. Sebastian High School reunion. Though preferring to avoid her reunion assignment, Jeanne visits Shadow, who was her high sweetheart, to ostensibly see if he will come as the person who was most likely to succeed. Instead she asks him why he deserted her. Unable to ignore their attraction, they start seeing each other. The promise of their teen love blossoms into adult forever feelings. However his daughter and her father depend on Nate and Jeanne respectively, making their vows of responsibility turn permanency between them as evanescent as it was back in high school.

This is a fun contemporary romance with a wide cast that supplements the prime romance including a charming secondary love story. The where are they now feel to the plot makes for a fine time that will have readers asking the same questions about their high school peers. Though the embezzlement seems unnecessary, fans will appreciate this warm second chance at love.

Harriet Klausner

A fifteen-year class reunion is coming up, and it's time for the prom queen, the most-likely-to-succeed jock, the brainy nerd and the outrageous girl rock singer to come to terms with their pasts and their dreams.

Jeanne Claire and Nate, the golden, popular couple who everyone assumed would marry, broke up shortly after graduation. But they've always loved each other, and now they have to explore the reasons for their break-up, realize the mistakes they made and correct them. They have to reclaim their own lives, their own dreams, before they can be what the other needs.

Arnold, the former brainy nerd, is now a millionaire, but still carrying a torch for funky Tamara, who ignored him in school. Now, however, Tamara, who recorded a couple of hit songs but then sank into a life of drugs, has all new priorities--and an all new appreciation for Arnold. But can Arnold overcome his insecurities to accept that Tamara might really love him?

Now, I am a big fan of Jennifer Greene's category romances at Silhouette. She's a legend. But this big book didn't thrill me. The class reunion theme has been so overdone. And it felt more like two category romances cobbled together than the deeper, more complex story I was hoping for. Still, it was smoothly written, the love scenes were satisfyingly steamy, and there were some nice moments and humorous scenes that brought a smile to my face. Ms. Greene's observations about dreams and disappointments were perceptive, I thought.

This book recycles the plot of Rachel Gibson's DAISY's BACK IN TOWN, with the addition of the high school reunion and the secondary characters. Frankly, I thought that Gibson did a better job with the high school lovers getting back together and the reaction of others. All that Greene does in the climactic scene is to have everything else go quiet - no reaction, no comments. In fact, except for the h/h, every other character in this book is hardly even two-dimensional. [Contrast the vividness of Daisy's sister and mother in Gibson's book, and they are not even the lead characters.] Donald? Jeanne's father? Nate's mother? His brothers? Just barely sketched in with a line or two but no character development.

The other issue for me is the way the author deals with the passing of time. She has a dramatic scene, then in the next chapter weeks have passed and the viewpoint is the character looking back on what's happened. Very awkward and it leaches the drama out of the book.

Finally, a big deal is made of Jeanne's dream, then it all comes down to one word: textiles. Huh?? And that's all she wrote.

For a more enjoyable read along similar lines, read DAISY.

If you graduated in the late 1980's you will enjoy the "remember when" factor of this book. The plot was enjoyable but predictable. I enjoyed the honesty of the characters. A nice beach read.