The Way They Were is Book Two of That Second Chance Series. (These are stand-alone books tied together by a common theme--belief in the beauty of that second chance.)
They promised to love one another forever, but tragedy tore them apart. Now, destiny just may bring them back together.
At eighteen, Rourke Flannigan and Kate Redmond thought they'd spend the rest of their lives together--until a family tragedy tore them apart. Fourteen years have passed, and they've both carved out separate lives hundreds of miles apart--hers as a wife and mother, his as a successful, driven businessman. But once a year, Kate pulls out a red velvet journal and writes a letter, which she'll never send, to the man who still owns her heart. Once a year, on the anniversary of the first and only night they made love, Rourke permits himself to read the annual investigative report detailing an ordinary day in Kate's life.
When a subcontractor at one of Rourke's holding companies is killed, Rourke decides to pay the widow a visit and offer condolences, never dreaming the widow will be Kate. As they embark on a cautious journey of rediscovery, one far greater than they could have imagined, secrets and lies threaten to destroy their newfound closeness--forever.
That Second Chance Series:
Book One: Pulling Home Book Two: The Way They Were Book Three: Simple Riches Book Four: Paradise Found Book Five: Not Your Everyday Housewife Book Six: The Butterfly Garden
Mary Campisi is the author of over 40 emotion-packed novels that center around hope, redemption, and second chances.
Mary should have known she'd become a writer when at age thirteen she began changing the ending to all the books she read. It took several years and a number of jobs, including registered nurse, receptionist in a swanky hair salon, accounts payable clerk, and practice manager in an OB/GYN office, for her to rediscover writing. Enter a mouse-less computer, a floppy disk, and a dream large enough to fill a zip drive. The rest of the story lives on in every book she writes.
When she's not working on her craft or following the lives of five adult children, Mary's digging in the dirt with her flowers and herbs, cooking, reading, walking her rescue lab, Henry, or, on the perfect day, riding off into the sunset with her very own hero/husband on his Ultra Limited aka Harley.
**SPOILERS**Ok for some reason this story didn't sit well with me like the 1st book in this Second Chances "series". I kind of liked the Rouke, much more than I liked Kate's character. Sorry, but even for a hopeless romanctic like myself, her pining away for this man for 14 years, writing in her hidden diary, ONCE every year was beyond too much to take. I can totally understand loving someone so much that you continue to desire them long after the shelf life of yall's time together has "expired", but I was like geeze woman, 14 years, and you are still holding on!!!!! Not really living a life, but existing only to be miserable underneath it all because of this one man. I know personally that it takes time to get over someone you loved more than air, I totally get that, but at the same time, I just wanted to yell GET OVER IT ALREADY! Get over it, or try to work it out! Those were the only 2 options, but my goodness, they tried to create like 20 more! UGH!!!! Kate was married to a guy who wanted to please her, and regardless of how that marriage actually came to happen, she said "I do" so she should at least have attempted to TRY to make her marriage more than what she felt she could make it at the time! I dont know, she bothered me. Now Rouke, while he didnt get over the 14 year old relationship still kind of moved on, but to his credit he never married because deep down he knew he had never wanted a woman like he did Kate. I can respect that decision more. Once these two were forced back together everything moved super fast on some aspects but slow like swimming through syrup on others. And all the while Kate, who loves Rouke, only wants Rouke, but too scared to go there with Rouke, is more than willing to share her body with him at the drop of a hat! All this from one night of sleeping together 14 years ago!!!! One night forges this everlasting love between them, ok I guess. Kate still refuses to tell Rouke about HIS daugther too because she didnt want her to be hurt like she herself had been!!!! Lying to his face about her even when the girl looks JUST LIKE HIM! I dont know, the woman bothered me, so much more than the woman from the 1st book in this "series". I guess because I feel like, there really wasnt much of a "relationship" here from the beginning but everyone held on for 14 years, but then when the opportuninty presented itself for a 2nd chance Kate was doing the majority of the running. Sure Rouke had come there not tellig Kate the real reason, and that was jacked up, but I dont like all the "games" mostly on her part to preserve herself from pain. I feel they should have just put it all out there, the good the bad the ugly, and admit what they really wanted instead of all the extra. Yeah this book bothered me and it wasnt half as an enjoyable read as the previous book by Mary Campisi.
Imagine sitting down to assemble a jigsaw puzzle. The picture on the box is interesting. You're not given the number of pieces, but based on the description on the cover it looks like it'll be challenging. You open the box and start assembling. The border is an unexpected shape and you become excited. This could be harder than you thought, but you're up for the challenge! Then you find big chunks of the puzzle already put together in the box. The machine didn't cut all the way through and although you can see the outline of the individual shapes, there's no way to separate the pieces. You shrug your shoulders in disappointment and put the chunks in their obvious spot. Then you realize pieces are missing and they're to the part of the puzzle you were most looking forward to putting together. You can still see that part of the picture, but it's not complete. You finish the puzzle, because that's what jigsaw junkies do, but you're not happy about it. When the puzzle is done you take a moment to admire your work but you can't help thinking that you missed out on the full enjoyment of putting that puzzle together. You take everything apart and put it back in the box, put on the lid and turn the box over. What's this? The pieces that were stuck together are now cleanly separated and taped to the bottom of the box! Some of the missing pieces are there, too! Who in their right mind would sell a jigsaw puzzle in that condition?!?! You have half a mind to write a stern letter to the manufacturer and express your disappointment.
That paragraph sums up how I felt about reading this book.
Any book blurb worth its salt not only gives the basic premise, but also contains "hooks" or plot points that lure a potential reader into cracking the cover. The blurb for "The Way They Were" had several such hooks and I looked forward to getting more of the story. With second chance romances, an important part of relating to the characters is finding out what happened the first time around. How did they meet? How did they fall in love? What was their first time like? How did they part? You would expect to get this information via flashback or some other devise. The reader needs this information to really buy into the fact they love each other and root for them to get back together. The book fails to deliver the goods within the official pages. The author decided to include deleted passages at the end of the book that satisfy the reader's appetite, but it comes after the meal is already over. Some diary entries and scenes of Rourke reading his yearly investigative reports also appear as extras.
Author Mary Campisi does a better job with the mystery tragedy that separated Kate and Rourke at eighteen. She dangles just enough information to keep the reader intrigued, but once again it's not enough to feel the real impact it had on all the parties involved.
On the plus side, the plot point revealed in the first chapter was totally unexpected and a great way to kick off the book. Also, the depth of the feelings revealed via Kate and Rourke's internal dialogue was enough to sell me on how much they loved each other despite the lack of back story.
I'm glad I decided to read the deleted scenes contained after the epilogue, but I wish they had appeared within the pages of the book where they belonged.
There are only a few books I've ever started without finishing, and I'll be adding this one to the list. Not impressed with any aspect of the book. The characters are poorly written, the story line was forced to say the very least, no fluidity whatsoever, and entirely too predictable. Not worth reading.
Mary Campisi novels are always simply entirely enjoyable. She makes romantic drama unputdownable for me, at a time when I DNF all too many books. For me, this is all I'm looking for in a great read - something that's keeping me glued to the page and right there in the drama pulled into the character's journey start to finish. I don't know how she does it, but she does, every single book of hers I've read. Yes, there was a bit of back and forth between the characters, but I didn't mind it. I've been in a bit of a reading funk lately and i was just like, FINALLY! A book I don't want to just stop in the middle or skim to the end because I stopped caring!
I thought the book was pretty damn good. I'd never heard of Mary Campisi until I read her other novel, then I went through her listing books on goodreads. I picked out the ones that I liked and bought them and lemme tell you, that was trouble! It was a great read and pretty emotional too. I really love the context in all of Mary's books I've read. It so down to earth, perfect.
I loved this book, it was such a lovely story and I really enjoyed seeing the characters develop. This is the first Mary Campisi book I've read but I'll definitely be reading more.
I typically try not to have a spoiler when I review a book, but it's necessary in order to explain how I rated this book. Overall, this is disappointing as it came highly-recommended by several people on my blog.
The basic outline of this novel had the potential to hit a home run: summer fling when you're 18 that is unresolved, your heart longs for that person for over a decade, you have a chance to reunite and the sparks start flying all combined with resentful family on both sides and a child born from the fling when you're 18. Sounds like a great plot for a Nicholas Sparks blockbuster book and movie.
However (vs. the traditional "but"), the author totally loses it in my opinion almost from the beginning: in a random town, the husband of the former girlfriend is a subcontractor on the former boyfriend's construction job and he dies on the jobsite, all of this combined with the old boyfriend is one of the richest and most popular men in the USA and the world, yet no one knows the construction company is owned by the old boyfriend. The statistical probability of that happening is probably incalculable.
To further compound the b.s. factor, the old boyfriend comes to this small town to "assist" the former girlfriend / new widow as she reviews her legal options but in reality for the former boyfriend to prevent a lawsuit against his company. If this happened in real life, the minute the fact the former boyfriend was acting this way said company would be writing a large check for settlement purposes. All of these actions are happening six months after the husband's death, but no one - including all of the plaintiff's attorneys - have been able to determine the former boyfriend (and construction magnate) owns the construction company. Come on!
All of this went beyond the believable factor, and despite what could have been a great heart-tugging story had me too distracted and I quit reading at the 29% mark of the Kindle version after the former lovers had their first roll in the sack.
This is the third time I have read this novel, and each time I fall in love with the characters, and want to just nudge them to their second and third and millionth chance until they are finally together. With so many distractions and outside issues it is no wonder it takes them forever, but still...oy!!
A definite must tread for lovers of second chances, fated love (or what seems to be), the wonderful antics of two teenage girls, and the underlying back story of many others, you will fall in love with this novel and it's characters. Mary Canpisi at her best.
Ok, so the guess on my part, and it is truly a guess, is either Miles, Maxine or Diana will appear in the next "Family Affair: The Secret," of what this was the prequel to. Though I would love more of Kate and Rourke and the girls anytime: though Maxine and Miles...
I could very easily have given this book 3-3.5 stars but I decided 4 was fair. It was an ok book. I haven't read any others in this series so I can't compare as others have done. It wasn't as good as I was hoping but it wasn't horrible either. Kate is the main character and her true love is Rourke. They're together and then not together and together and...To me, Kate had a little more depth to her character than Rourke but both were fairly predictable. I'm going to start reading another book by a different author today and then I'll read another one and so on. I don't think by the time I get to the second book I read I won't remember this one. That kinda describes it best for me.
When teens grow up together and fall in love they expect to have a happy ever after together. It doesn't work out that way when their backgrounds are too different. Wealthy parents convince one that they need a life that is completely different and put pressure on them to travel in a completely different direction, then the connection with the former life is broken. Sometimes two hearts are broken as well. After many years they meet again, can they possibility find the life together that they once dreamed of? A very touching and exciting story.
Lovely novel. Have read Ms. Campisi before and knew she weaves a good keep secret types of plots. In this novel Kate is living a life that she is pretending to be happy about. Married a man to save face because the love of her life left town and never came back for her. This a story of young love lost love and reclaiming past love. Julia and Abbie the teens in this novel along with Maxine gives the novel humorous touch. I am sucker for second chance love and this story did not disappoint there was even an added extra secret thrown in to make the plot even more.
I wanted to like this book more. I don't know what about it made me not. I really liked it up until the point that Rourke went back to Montpelier. Then everything moved around so fast and jumped around so much at times I felt like I was on a Tilt A Whirl. I liked the flashbacks and the journal entries. I enjoyed Julia and Abbie and their schemes. I just wish I liked Kate and Rourke as adults more than I did. I didnt think the development was there between them, even with the flashbacks and journal entries.
The love story of Kate and Rourke. Fourteen years ago Rourke left Kate and move back to Philadelphia. Now with her husband, Clay kill on his jobsite, he return with his niece, Abbie. Kate has two secrets one is a diary she wrote in once a year which are letters to Rourke and The second could and will change life. Can Kate and Rourke have a second change at love and a family? Great stoey.
Could not put this book down grabbed me from page one and hung on to the very end. Terrific story, well written, with everything you could dream of in a contemporary romance with extras thrown in for good measure. Confusion, doubt, wonderment interesting characters, a little suspense all add to making this a 5 Star read. Do yourself a favor, buy it and read it you will not be sorry!
This was a free Kindle book from Book Bub. Why, I don't know. Didn't mind Rourke so much but the heroine was not to my taste at all. She lies. And then lies again and again. Her whole life is a lie. And whiny. Hard to make a heroine whose whiny and a liar very attractive. And the harridan of a side kid. Yuck, wouldn't want to be in the same room with that one. Why I finished this I don't know. But it did not get much better.
Lucky enought to get that second chance. He hasn't spoken her name in fourteen years. She keeps a journal hidden in the back of her closet and permits herself to write about him once a year. They promised to love one another forever, but tragedy tore them apart. Now, destiny may just bring them back together.
There’s a reason second chance romances is my favorite genre. It’s like looking down the road at what might have been. Rourke and Kates’ estrangement has so many factors contributing. The first is their age and they have to be dependent financially on their parents or guardians. Another is they were at the mercy and whims of the said adults. Oh the web they weaved. These two lovers have no chance of making it then.
Fast forward now, of course they are all grown up, and Rourke is a rich CEO. Unfortunately something happened (of course), that might impede their love. Hence the beauty of this story. The surprises also. The back and forth between past and present confused me at first, but I enjoyed this story.
'The Way They Were' was delightful. Its page-turning plot was filled with adversity, misunderstanding, levity, an epiphany, and love. Kate and Rourke, the protagonists, hemmed and hawed around their love for one another yet tried hard to achieve their HEA. I liked the author's use of vivid details and imagery which created a lively and upbeat tone. Overall, I liked the charming narrative.
Finally a book that you get into the story on page 1. Very pleasant easy read with surprises. All the characters were great together. Could not put the book down and where I went the book went. Great story with a great ending.
I enjoyed this book but I thought Kate and Rourke were very flawed, especially for successful adults. I really liked the teenagers and Maxine. They were relief for the basic distrust that seemed extreme.
A nice romance. A young couple are separated by their parents just after graduating from high school. Because of an accident they are reunited. The story starts here.
This book was really fantastic.It was well written & Kate & Roake are great characters.They had a hard road to get together.You can r e late to there story as you lived it with them.
If you know what I mean. I think the bottom issue was realistic enough but the as the characters behaved not so much, they needed something more. I liked the story but not how it unfolded.
First, I am sick of billionaire/single mom stories. This plot has twists that set it and the hero may just be a multimillionaire, but close enough. Second, I hate plots that revolve around someone withholding important info.
Young lovers separated by family and lies meet fourteen years later and inconceivable attempt to continue some of those lies. Sometimes they choose to ignore the evidence blatantly in front of them. Eventually love wins.
A really great story written with a lot of heart. Rourke and Kate were in love and ready to live their future lives. Their parents interfered to keep them apart. 14 years later their lives intersected again.