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Ryan's Return
She had to admit her love had not died
For eight years Liv had made a life for herself and the twins. A good life, too. How could she possibly consider a reunion with Ryan now? His leaving had broken her heart, and she could never forget that - nor forgive him.
They had both changed in the separation: Liv was now a mature, beautiful, independent woman; Ryan a wealthy, successful businessman.
Her life had seemed complete without him - until his return. All Liv had to do was convince herself that it would be complete again - after Ryan had gone....
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
6 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 26, 2018
This novel didn't make much of an impression on me, because I couldn't quite identify with the MC's. The heroine was a very nice character but I just couldn't find myself wanting to root for her. The story line depended far too much on its angsty back story. There was a bit too much conflict between the MC's, which is understandable considering that the H is a dead beat husband and dad. I didn't like the H much because he appeared to be far too selfish and had abandoned the heroine Liv right after their wedding ceremony. The twins were cute but there was a little too much focus on interaction between the MC's and other minor characters like Mike and Maria. The author also introduced a wannabe OW called Alesi and spent a lot of time building up the idea that this woman had an infatuation with Ryan, yet in the end no explanations were made to clear up the issue of his possible involvement with the woman. I hate it when authors complete a novel and leave a lot of questions unanswered. The MC's were in conflict up until the final 3 pages. Then, the author rushed to write a very sloppy reconciliation. How can I trust that such a reconciliation will lead to a real HEA when it is done so hurriedly and all significant issues are brushed under the carpet with an exchange of "I love you"? The H also speaks about his "decadent" life after leaving the heroine. The heroine just ignores all her 8 years of hurt and rejection and he gets everything he wants with the barest minimum of grovelling and a speedy apology. I also didn't like the way the heroine treated the wannabe OM Martin. It seemed as if she was just dangling him like a fish while he wanted to marry her. She knew she wasn't attracted to him, would never marry him and she didn't have the courtesy to act like an adult and tell him how she felt. She acted cowardly and just let the stupid situation escalate into a rather embarrassing scene for the poor man, who turned up at her house and was confronted with Ryan. This novel didn't really appeal to me personally.
May 13, 2021
OMG, this book made my freaking head explode.
She’s 17 and is caught with the hero by their fathers. Both insist they get married. He abandons her after the wedding, and is gone for 8 freaking years. She’s pregnant, has twins, he finds out about them when they were 18 months old. He wasn’t in a good place to come back and be a supportive husband and father. It takes him 5 1/2 years to get his act together and come back, the prodigal son returns but this ones rich. He’s proved himself to everyone but his wife.
He’s freaking pond scum and she’s got treacherous body syndrome.
Ugh, I really hated this one. Originally published in 1981... I was a senior in high school and even then I wouldn’t have embraced this mess.
She’s 17 and is caught with the hero by their fathers. Both insist they get married. He abandons her after the wedding, and is gone for 8 freaking years. She’s pregnant, has twins, he finds out about them when they were 18 months old. He wasn’t in a good place to come back and be a supportive husband and father. It takes him 5 1/2 years to get his act together and come back, the prodigal son returns but this ones rich. He’s proved himself to everyone but his wife.
He’s freaking pond scum and she’s got treacherous body syndrome.
Ugh, I really hated this one. Originally published in 1981... I was a senior in high school and even then I wouldn’t have embraced this mess.
March 23, 2015
Too dumb to live.
September 20, 2012
The copy I read wasn't in English, so I had to translate what I could. I'm pretty decent at reading German and I did think the book was okay but the hero was an asshole. I didn't like how he just abandoned the heroine and his kids. It made me ashamed of him. Then suddenly he shows back up claiming to want them. It made me nauseated.
July 30, 2015
2.5 stars.
If the cover didn't give it away, this was very much an "Old Skool" romance. The fashions, the morals, the relationship... If I had to guess, I'd say early 80s-ish. (Ha! Just checked, and I was spot-on. 1981. Go me.)
Liv and Ryan hooked up when she was 17 and he was 23. A little skeevy, but whatever. Their fathers made them marry and the ink was still drying on the marriage license when Ryan skipped town. Liv turned up pregnant (with twins, natch) and raised them by herself for eight years, just down the way from Ryan's father and brother, who help her out. To be honest, I'm not positive I understood what Liv did for a living to support her and her "secret babies" -- the best I could understand she was some sort of artist -- but she had no contact with Ryan until he comes charging back into her life.
The thing I mentioned earlier about this book being written in the 80s comes into effect here. The kids are total plot moppets and are only around when it's time to move Mommy (or rather Mummy since this takes place in Australia) and Daddy closer together closer together. Ryan basically threatens to rape Liv a few times and no one blinks an eye, but of course as it turns out, he doesn't have to because her body won't let her fight him... or whatever. When they're alone he calls her a bitch first after she 1) tells him that she shares a bed with their daughter, thus turning him down for sex and 2) later again turns him down for sex. What a prince.
Whatever. I can put all that aside. It was how romances were written at the time. It's like picking up a snake and being shocked when it bites you. What made me rate this on the low side of three stars was that a ball was dropped with this one. For one thing, I kind of got why there was a Big Misunderstanding at the end. Ryan spent most of the book coming around, antagonizing Liv, and telling people they were back together even though they weren't. This is, as anyone who has ever read an HP knows, classic "alpha/alphole" behavior and in and of itself isn't enough to make me rate it low. The fact that he seemed to have no interest in Liv and especially not in meeting his kids unless there were other people around, was. Seriously, he comes back into town, reveals he's known for quite some time he has two kids but has made no attempt to see them or the wife we're supposed to believe at the end of the book he's loved all this time, and then the only times he shows affection toward any of them is when other people around. Otherwise, he's hanging out with a hot girl from Fiji who is clearly into him, and greasing a business deal he's trying to get going, where being a "family man" helped him get the deal to begin with. Quite frankly, I can believe that
All of this could and should have been used for purposes of good angst and it made a half-hearted attempt at that, but then just sort of fizzled out at the end.
I can make allowances for 80s romance novel mores, but honestly, this one just asked too much from me. I probably would have been more likely to give it credit if it had been as OTT 80s-tastic as a lot of romance novels were in that time frame, but it just wasn't that either. Luckily it was free with Kindle Unlimited, so I didn't spend any money. I'm not sorry I read it and there were never any, Do I want to put this down? moments, but I can't say I'd want to revisit it. It's not a bad ride if you're looking for an Old Skool HP, but there are others that I'd rather go for instead (although if you have Kindle Unlimited and can get it for free, there's no harm in checking it out).
If the cover didn't give it away, this was very much an "Old Skool" romance. The fashions, the morals, the relationship... If I had to guess, I'd say early 80s-ish. (Ha! Just checked, and I was spot-on. 1981. Go me.)
Liv and Ryan hooked up when she was 17 and he was 23. A little skeevy, but whatever. Their fathers made them marry and the ink was still drying on the marriage license when Ryan skipped town. Liv turned up pregnant (with twins, natch) and raised them by herself for eight years, just down the way from Ryan's father and brother, who help her out. To be honest, I'm not positive I understood what Liv did for a living to support her and her "secret babies" -- the best I could understand she was some sort of artist -- but she had no contact with Ryan until he comes charging back into her life.
The thing I mentioned earlier about this book being written in the 80s comes into effect here. The kids are total plot moppets and are only around when it's time to move Mommy (or rather Mummy since this takes place in Australia) and Daddy closer together closer together. Ryan basically threatens to rape Liv a few times and no one blinks an eye, but of course as it turns out, he doesn't have to because her body won't let her fight him... or whatever. When they're alone he calls her a bitch first after she 1) tells him that she shares a bed with their daughter, thus turning him down for sex and 2) later again turns him down for sex. What a prince.
Whatever. I can put all that aside. It was how romances were written at the time. It's like picking up a snake and being shocked when it bites you. What made me rate this on the low side of three stars was that a ball was dropped with this one. For one thing, I kind of got why there was a Big Misunderstanding at the end. Ryan spent most of the book coming around, antagonizing Liv, and telling people they were back together even though they weren't. This is, as anyone who has ever read an HP knows, classic "alpha/alphole" behavior and in and of itself isn't enough to make me rate it low. The fact that he seemed to have no interest in Liv and especially not in meeting his kids unless there were other people around, was. Seriously, he comes back into town, reveals he's known for quite some time he has two kids but has made no attempt to see them or the wife we're supposed to believe at the end of the book he's loved all this time, and then the only times he shows affection toward any of them is when other people around. Otherwise, he's hanging out with a hot girl from Fiji who is clearly into him, and greasing a business deal he's trying to get going, where being a "family man" helped him get the deal to begin with. Quite frankly, I can believe that
All of this could and should have been used for purposes of good angst and it made a half-hearted attempt at that, but then just sort of fizzled out at the end.
I can make allowances for 80s romance novel mores, but honestly, this one just asked too much from me. I probably would have been more likely to give it credit if it had been as OTT 80s-tastic as a lot of romance novels were in that time frame, but it just wasn't that either. Luckily it was free with Kindle Unlimited, so I didn't spend any money. I'm not sorry I read it and there were never any, Do I want to put this down? moments, but I can't say I'd want to revisit it. It's not a bad ride if you're looking for an Old Skool HP, but there are others that I'd rather go for instead (although if you have Kindle Unlimited and can get it for free, there's no harm in checking it out).
September 29, 2015
Another one for my hate list. So the alpha hero stays away and deprives his kids of a father for the 6 years he has known about them. Of course there is a very GOOD reason. He wanted to make his way in world and come back wealthy enough to buy an island and develop it. He says it took 6 years for him to make enough money to return. Yeah right, he returns on a yacht and we know all little kiddies need their daddys to be wealthy and own a yacht to be happy.
September 9, 2020
I don’t like this book, because the man confessed he has known about his children for 6 years out of the 8 years he and the woman have broken up. Aren’t you as a dad even the least bit interested to get to know them? Nah, he’s not a good man.
August 4, 2019
I expected more grovel from a jerk who ditched his child bride on the day of the wedding and then stayed away for eight years, all the while knowing that she is raising their twins all by herself. Also the story was boring.
April 6, 2012
This romance is very much about the consequences when adults interfere between young people in love. I found this book to be quite sad.
May 29, 2025
Well, I could have liked this if it weren't for a few things:
1. The lack of depth to the characters (too little time spent on what made them tick)
2. Too many intriguing supporting characters left hanging (you know a bit about them and that's it)
3. The H and h having hot sex on the beach when the h is just 17 and the H is 23! (I don't care if
they are soulmates, a teenage girl and a mid-20's guy just seems creepy.)
4. A ridiculous shotgun wedding, with the H a runaway groom immediately after.
5. The H making excuses for himself for being an irresponsible jerk.
6. Neither the H's dad nor the h's dad insisting that the H be told about the twins and show some
responsibility
7. The H staying away WAY TOO LONG, after finding out about the twins! I don't care how much
of a mess his life was in, the fact that he could stay away for years while getting himself
together tells me he couldn't have really cared all that much about either his kids or his wife.
8. The h not taking the money the H sent her; she didn't have to use it on herself, but put it aside
for the kids. At the time she didn't know the H found out about the twins (more silly stuff) but
that didn't mean she shouldn't have used the money as a sort of child support.
9. Neither the H nor the h making some attempt to end the marriage. It wasn't fair of the H
to decide by himself that he'd return when he was established and successful and then pick up
the pieces and expect she'd be waiting (UNBELIEVABLE!), while the h should have wanted to
get on with her life and get in touch with the H and demand they settle things.
10. Once again, we have a book by this author where the h has a close friendship with her estranged
husband's brother, yet they never talk about him???? (He never even told her that the H knew
about the twins! Being such good friends, you'd think he'd feel a little guilty!)
11. The H returning (after stalking the h a bit) and expecting her to want him back, how he wanted
his kids, wanted this, wanted that, all about HIM!
12. The h being all too eager to sleep with him, then changing her mind, then changing it again,
then getting angry with herself as well as with him, and having a number of suspicions as to why
he really returned, but never having the guts to talk to the h about them.
12. If the H had such a troubled relationship with his father that he stayed away from him for years,
then how come everything got settled between them so fast???
And now that I've reviewed my list, I'm taking away another star!
1. The lack of depth to the characters (too little time spent on what made them tick)
2. Too many intriguing supporting characters left hanging (you know a bit about them and that's it)
3. The H and h having hot sex on the beach when the h is just 17 and the H is 23! (I don't care if
they are soulmates, a teenage girl and a mid-20's guy just seems creepy.)
4. A ridiculous shotgun wedding, with the H a runaway groom immediately after.
5. The H making excuses for himself for being an irresponsible jerk.
6. Neither the H's dad nor the h's dad insisting that the H be told about the twins and show some
responsibility
7. The H staying away WAY TOO LONG, after finding out about the twins! I don't care how much
of a mess his life was in, the fact that he could stay away for years while getting himself
together tells me he couldn't have really cared all that much about either his kids or his wife.
8. The h not taking the money the H sent her; she didn't have to use it on herself, but put it aside
for the kids. At the time she didn't know the H found out about the twins (more silly stuff) but
that didn't mean she shouldn't have used the money as a sort of child support.
9. Neither the H nor the h making some attempt to end the marriage. It wasn't fair of the H
to decide by himself that he'd return when he was established and successful and then pick up
the pieces and expect she'd be waiting (UNBELIEVABLE!), while the h should have wanted to
get on with her life and get in touch with the H and demand they settle things.
10. Once again, we have a book by this author where the h has a close friendship with her estranged
husband's brother, yet they never talk about him???? (He never even told her that the H knew
about the twins! Being such good friends, you'd think he'd feel a little guilty!)
11. The H returning (after stalking the h a bit) and expecting her to want him back, how he wanted
his kids, wanted this, wanted that, all about HIM!
12. The h being all too eager to sleep with him, then changing her mind, then changing it again,
then getting angry with herself as well as with him, and having a number of suspicions as to why
he really returned, but never having the guts to talk to the h about them.
12. If the H had such a troubled relationship with his father that he stayed away from him for years,
then how come everything got settled between them so fast???
And now that I've reviewed my list, I'm taking away another star!
November 3, 2023
The most irresponsible, immature H I have ever read about in any book and the h is an idiot for not having moved on when her husband even after knowing about their children doesn't reach out to her for more than 7 years! What idiot would sweep that under the rug and reconcile?
December 20, 2017
لو لم تسافر .... من روايات عبير
not-interested-in-reading
June 30, 2022Did Not Read. Refuse to Read. Not My Cuppa. Too Long Separation. Not a True Hero.
December 21, 2017
171 - لو لم تسافر - لينسي ستيفنز - روايات عبير القديمة
الملخص
تحت وطأة الهجران والغربه،وعندما يجد الانسان نفسه وحيدا بلا معين، تغلب العواطف الغريزية في الحفاظ على النفس على كل ما عداها .
بعد انهيار زواجها اختارت ليف دانيسون اسلوبا مناسبا للعيش مع طفليها التوامين ، وحيدة لا يعكر صفو حياتها شيء ، لكن النار اللاهبة عادت مع عودة رايان زوجها الغائب الذي بقي ، بشكل ما ، قريبا ، اكتوت ليف بهذه النار في الماضي وهي لا ترغب في لمسهآ مرة ثانيه، آخر ما تريده هو عودة الزوج الذي هجرها يكل قسوة ، لكن رايان كان قال لها : (ماهو لي يبقى لي) .
ثم هناك هذا الشيء في الداخل ، اشبه بجمره ضئيله ظلّت تتوهج دائما ...
الملخص
تحت وطأة الهجران والغربه،وعندما يجد الانسان نفسه وحيدا بلا معين، تغلب العواطف الغريزية في الحفاظ على النفس على كل ما عداها .
بعد انهيار زواجها اختارت ليف دانيسون اسلوبا مناسبا للعيش مع طفليها التوامين ، وحيدة لا يعكر صفو حياتها شيء ، لكن النار اللاهبة عادت مع عودة رايان زوجها الغائب الذي بقي ، بشكل ما ، قريبا ، اكتوت ليف بهذه النار في الماضي وهي لا ترغب في لمسهآ مرة ثانيه، آخر ما تريده هو عودة الزوج الذي هجرها يكل قسوة ، لكن رايان كان قال لها : (ماهو لي يبقى لي) .
ثم هناك هذا الشيء في الداخل ، اشبه بجمره ضئيله ظلّت تتوهج دائما ...
April 23, 2012
A good simple story of returning love. The characters were believable and interesting. The love story kept me turning the pages.
Read
June 17, 2018She had to admit her love had not died
For eight years Liv had made a life for herself and the twins. A good life, too. How could she possibly consider a reunion with Ryan now? His leaving had broken her heart, and she could never forget that - nor forgive him.
They had both changed in the separation: Liv was now a mature, beautiful, independent woman; Ryan a wealthy, successful businessman.
Her life had seemed complete without him - until his return. All Liv had to do was convince herself that it would be complete again - after Ryan had gone....
For eight years Liv had made a life for herself and the twins. A good life, too. How could she possibly consider a reunion with Ryan now? His leaving had broken her heart, and she could never forget that - nor forgive him.
They had both changed in the separation: Liv was now a mature, beautiful, independent woman; Ryan a wealthy, successful businessman.
Her life had seemed complete without him - until his return. All Liv had to do was convince herself that it would be complete again - after Ryan had gone....
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews