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Memories
Two Winners of Romance Writers of America® Golden Heart® Award
THE MEMORY OF YOU
She can't forget him--He can't remember her
Together, they must discover the healing power of unforgettable love
The day Lieutenant Matthew Foster departed for his so-called 'tour' in Vietnam, he never expected a sudden change in his itinerary would include an extended stay in the horrific Hanoi Hilton. Six years later, he's finally released with the other POWs during Operation Homecoming. Unfortunately, his memories before his capture were erased by the complimentary torture provided by the hotel's concierge. Due to prior facial injuries and the beard concealing his gauntness, he looks nothing like the boyish photo in his military file.
When the Army informs Matt he has a wife and he was mistakenly declared dead, he's sure Abby must have made a new life for herself. He doubts the bitter man he's become can salvage the boy she once cared for, so to be fair to her, he decides to simply write a note to wish her well and leave. But before he does, he can't resist going to Redemption, PA, to catch a glimpse of the woman he'd loved enough to marry.
The irony of the small town's name is totally eclipsed by Matt's dread that he'll discover he's lost something truly worth remembering. That fear becomes reality when he learns Abby is engaged, and he's a daddy! Luckily, his wife doesn't recognize him, so Matt could still walk away from the beautiful stranger who's been starring in his X-rated dreams. However, he could never, ever abandon his sons.
The clock is ticking. Any day, the military will inform Abby he's alive, and her wedding is in only six weeks. It doesn't give Matt much time to discover if he can reclaim the love the war stole from him.
A LITTLE BIT OF DEJA VU
Sometimes destiny has the last word (and laugh)
Fate thrust them together
Blackmail and deception tore them apart
Nineteen years later, their children's love reunites them
Now, only truth and forgiveness can make them a family
Margie Bradford is picking up the pieces of her shattered life following her husband's death. When her cousin encourages her to make a fresh start with her teenage daughter, unsuspecting Margie takes a reading specialist job in the small town of Redemption, PA. The last person she expects to encounter is Rocket Manion, the ex-NFL quarterback and Dr. Phil wannabe who broke her heart nineteen years ago. Strangling her meddling cousin is now at the top of Margie's to-do list.
Divorced teacher and head football coach Jake Manion experiences an eerie sense of déjà vu when his son announces he's gotten his girlfriend pregnant. The feeling simply grows stronger when Jake learns the girl's mother is Maggie, the same woman on whom he's wasted nearly two decades of bitterness.
While planning their kids' wedding and helping them grow up too soon, Jake attempts to pick up right where he left off--in Margie's bed. But no matter how irresistible his kisses are, she isn't stupid enough to let him hurt her again. Or is she?
THE MEMORY OF YOU
She can't forget him--He can't remember her
Together, they must discover the healing power of unforgettable love
The day Lieutenant Matthew Foster departed for his so-called 'tour' in Vietnam, he never expected a sudden change in his itinerary would include an extended stay in the horrific Hanoi Hilton. Six years later, he's finally released with the other POWs during Operation Homecoming. Unfortunately, his memories before his capture were erased by the complimentary torture provided by the hotel's concierge. Due to prior facial injuries and the beard concealing his gauntness, he looks nothing like the boyish photo in his military file.
When the Army informs Matt he has a wife and he was mistakenly declared dead, he's sure Abby must have made a new life for herself. He doubts the bitter man he's become can salvage the boy she once cared for, so to be fair to her, he decides to simply write a note to wish her well and leave. But before he does, he can't resist going to Redemption, PA, to catch a glimpse of the woman he'd loved enough to marry.
The irony of the small town's name is totally eclipsed by Matt's dread that he'll discover he's lost something truly worth remembering. That fear becomes reality when he learns Abby is engaged, and he's a daddy! Luckily, his wife doesn't recognize him, so Matt could still walk away from the beautiful stranger who's been starring in his X-rated dreams. However, he could never, ever abandon his sons.
The clock is ticking. Any day, the military will inform Abby he's alive, and her wedding is in only six weeks. It doesn't give Matt much time to discover if he can reclaim the love the war stole from him.
A LITTLE BIT OF DEJA VU
Sometimes destiny has the last word (and laugh)
Fate thrust them together
Blackmail and deception tore them apart
Nineteen years later, their children's love reunites them
Now, only truth and forgiveness can make them a family
Margie Bradford is picking up the pieces of her shattered life following her husband's death. When her cousin encourages her to make a fresh start with her teenage daughter, unsuspecting Margie takes a reading specialist job in the small town of Redemption, PA. The last person she expects to encounter is Rocket Manion, the ex-NFL quarterback and Dr. Phil wannabe who broke her heart nineteen years ago. Strangling her meddling cousin is now at the top of Margie's to-do list.
Divorced teacher and head football coach Jake Manion experiences an eerie sense of déjà vu when his son announces he's gotten his girlfriend pregnant. The feeling simply grows stronger when Jake learns the girl's mother is Maggie, the same woman on whom he's wasted nearly two decades of bitterness.
While planning their kids' wedding and helping them grow up too soon, Jake attempts to pick up right where he left off--in Margie's bed. But no matter how irresistible his kisses are, she isn't stupid enough to let him hurt her again. Or is she?
618 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 16, 2013
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January 2, 2026
This is a two-book collection. The first one is an incredibly improbable story about a POW returning home to his wife and son. The second is a piece of anti-abortion trash.
In the first, Matt is a Vietnam POW coming home with almost complete memory loss. He finds out that he had been declared dead and he has a wife and he decides that he wants to get to know her before determining if he wants to continue his marriage. So he gets the US government to agree not to tell her that he's alive and continue his death benefits while he does this (improbability number one). He goes to her house, posing as a homeless vet (well, I guess he's not really posing). He sees that she has a son. She immediately agrees to let him move into her home in exchange for him painting the house (this is either improbability number two or it's just a sign that she's completely unconcerned for herself and her young son). While they're immediately attracted to each other, she's also engaged to a local dentist that she's refusing to go all the way with (improbability number two/three). The dentist is suspicious (naturally), but Matt disregards that and immediately begins pressing Abby for more and more physical intimacy (one thing both male MCs have in common between the two books is that they refuse to respect the word "no" and sometimes even physically restrain the women).
Matt bonds immediately with his son (and the boy next door, who has a bad father and is around the same age). After a few days, he begins taking over parenting -- making decisions about how they should act, their discipline, what they should study, tucking them in, and even bathing them. Within a couple of weeks, he's telling both of them that he will be their father. To reiterate, Abby has let a homeless man move into her home, bathe her son (and the boy next door), and tell them that they should call him "Dad." Even within the idealized world of romance, the only response is "Abby, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!?"
Meanwhile, Matt hasn't let his parents know that he's alive and he keeps putting off telling Abby the truth -- that he's her husband.
(You may be asking, why doesn't she recognize her own husband? It's a good question and it's hand-waved away with "Well, he got beat a lot when he was a POW.")
The thing about Matt is that his desire to do this is all about making sure that HE isn't tied to someone that he doesn't love. He never has a concept that he should let Abby know about him because it's the right thing to do and he made a promise to her. All long he's planning to leave if he doesn't feel love towards her, which is . . . well, it's pretty scummy. It undercuts all the heart of the story that the author otherwise might have achieved. He's lying to her and his son because he wants to make sure that HE still wants to be married. Meanwhile, he's perfectly fine pressing her into intimacy under false premises while she's engaged to someone else. And when I say "press," that's mild.
She couldn’t do this. Pressing her palms forcefully against Mac’s chest, she panted, “Stop. Please.” He lifted his head and stared into her eyes. “You don’t really want me to stop, do you?”
She DOES want him to stop. She tells him over and over and he just steamrolls her. I hated this book, but on it's own it probably would have gotten two stars. The one star rating overall is because I hated the next book even more.
The second book is about Jake and Maggie and it takes place closer to the present day. When Maggie was a teenager (and Jake wasn't, being six years older than her), they had sex due to a misunderstanding. He thought she was a sex worker who was a "gift" to him. She wasn't - she was a virginal teenager. By the time he realized the truth, he decided to keep going and she got pregnant. Oh, by the way, Jake was engaged to someone else at the time. She wound up getting an abortion, he took is very personally, and they haven't spoken for years. He wound up getting married to his fiancee and she met a man a few years later and got married. Years later, he has a son (18) and she has a daughter (16). He is a retired NFL player turned high school teacher and she's a high school teacher. The two kids meet and date and -- not knowing about their parents history -- the daughter gets pregnant. They decide to get married, which throws Jake and Maggie back into each others lives. Jake is now divorced and Maggie is a widow . . . so you can see where this is going.
Jake is an anti-choice POS who also doesn't understand the meaning of the word "no." Despite being an abstinence-only supporter (maybe he should have taught his son about birth control though?), he immediately begins pressuring Maggie into sex despite hating her for what he perceives as her choice to have an abortion years earlier (the truth is a bit more complicated than that, but only because it's important to the author that we also don't "blame" Maggie for not wanting to give birth to the child of an engaged NFL player while she's basically a child herself).
Another weird thing about this book is that we get multiple love scenes between the teenage kids, which is GROSS because the daughter especially is written as very child-like. Examples - she can't handle the thought of her mother dating, she destroys her boyfriend's phone when another girl calls him, she refuses to have sex with the lights on, etc. These are KIDS - afraid to talk to their parents, unable to make good decisions, petulant. But Jake and Maggie throw them a big wedding anyway because in the universe of this novel, that's the only way for them to be "redeemed." Jake speculates that the kids unconsciously did this to "screw up" their lives. So should they get married, Jake?
Jake's constant brooding over Maggie's abortion gets old really quick despite the fact that he forgave his ex-wife for her abortions (she had them because she knew he was still in love with Maggie even though he married her).
Women had no idea how helpless it made a guy feel to know he had no say over his unborn baby’s life. At least his ex-wife had had some justification for her abortions—unlike Margie who simply hadn’t wanted his baby.
Jake, if you don't want a teenage girl to get an abortion, maybe don't be a grown man who has sex with teenage girls? I don't know, I think that might help prevent it. But Jake can't picture that -- his "sex education" classes are all about teaching teenagers that men and boys have zero control over their sex drive and women and girls must keep them from making bad decisions.
“Now you’re catching on. Every one of these fellows would love to climb into the back seat with a different one of you each day of the week. It’s simply the way nature wired them.” He spread his hands in an apologetic stance. “I’m sorry, guys, but it’s my job to tell them your secrets. What you might not know, ladies, is these same eager studs aren’t so open-minded about the girls they care about. Are you, fellas?”
If guys don't respect you, it's your fault because you let them make bad decisions. He goes on to tell them:
"Is it fair for women to send guys mixed signals?” he continued. “Women say they want sensitive men who’ll communicate with them while the whole time they’re swooning over brooding bad-boys in movies and literature. Is it fair that men, who’ve always played the traditional role of providers, feel usurped and superfluous while women become CEO’s, abort their unborn children, and visit sperm banks?”
That's right, girls. You're responsible because there's a handful of women CEOs. Emma, the girl his son impregnated, happens to be in this class session and all her classmates know that she's pregnant at this point. So basically she's getting dressed down by her future father-in-law. When she says something to her afterwards, he brushes her off by telling her "My class plans were made a long time ago . . .The fact my son is responsible for your situation forces me to be even more vocal about teen abstinence."
Later, when the teen newlyweds run into trouble over his unfaithfulness, her father-in-law consoles her by telling her “A guy’s sexual radar runs all the time. Asking Alex not to notice an attractive woman is like him asking you not to breathe. He can’t help doing it.” Sure looks like a bright future ahead for these two!
Meanwhile, Jake has impregnated Maggie, because I guess it's abstinence-for-thee-but-not-for-me. Also meanwhile, he and his son have turned his new teen bride into a housemaid: "By the time Jake finished showering and shaving, his son had already left for work. Emma had been doing all of the cooking, cleaning, and laundry since she’d moved in." (Keep in mind, Jake is not just a former NFL player, but an all-star who retired after a very successful career and could easily afford some household help . . . or he and his son could help themselves).
So while navigating the situation of having to be parent-in-laws to one child (and one virtual child) who are newly married, they're having to figure out their own situation.
This book was an utter piece of trash. Jake's version of "abstinence" puts all the onus (and blame) on women and girls, while telling men and boys it's not their fault if they slip up because they were tempted into it. An abortion is a aggression against men. Hell, a woman having a career is an aggression against men in the universe of this book. There's no consideration on how it might be difficult to build a good marriage while you're still a child. All the issues involved in teen marriage and parenthood are glossed over.
In the first, Matt is a Vietnam POW coming home with almost complete memory loss. He finds out that he had been declared dead and he has a wife and he decides that he wants to get to know her before determining if he wants to continue his marriage. So he gets the US government to agree not to tell her that he's alive and continue his death benefits while he does this (improbability number one). He goes to her house, posing as a homeless vet (well, I guess he's not really posing). He sees that she has a son. She immediately agrees to let him move into her home in exchange for him painting the house (this is either improbability number two or it's just a sign that she's completely unconcerned for herself and her young son). While they're immediately attracted to each other, she's also engaged to a local dentist that she's refusing to go all the way with (improbability number two/three). The dentist is suspicious (naturally), but Matt disregards that and immediately begins pressing Abby for more and more physical intimacy (one thing both male MCs have in common between the two books is that they refuse to respect the word "no" and sometimes even physically restrain the women).
Matt bonds immediately with his son (and the boy next door, who has a bad father and is around the same age). After a few days, he begins taking over parenting -- making decisions about how they should act, their discipline, what they should study, tucking them in, and even bathing them. Within a couple of weeks, he's telling both of them that he will be their father. To reiterate, Abby has let a homeless man move into her home, bathe her son (and the boy next door), and tell them that they should call him "Dad." Even within the idealized world of romance, the only response is "Abby, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!?"
Meanwhile, Matt hasn't let his parents know that he's alive and he keeps putting off telling Abby the truth -- that he's her husband.
(You may be asking, why doesn't she recognize her own husband? It's a good question and it's hand-waved away with "Well, he got beat a lot when he was a POW.")
The thing about Matt is that his desire to do this is all about making sure that HE isn't tied to someone that he doesn't love. He never has a concept that he should let Abby know about him because it's the right thing to do and he made a promise to her. All long he's planning to leave if he doesn't feel love towards her, which is . . . well, it's pretty scummy. It undercuts all the heart of the story that the author otherwise might have achieved. He's lying to her and his son because he wants to make sure that HE still wants to be married. Meanwhile, he's perfectly fine pressing her into intimacy under false premises while she's engaged to someone else. And when I say "press," that's mild.
She couldn’t do this. Pressing her palms forcefully against Mac’s chest, she panted, “Stop. Please.” He lifted his head and stared into her eyes. “You don’t really want me to stop, do you?”
She DOES want him to stop. She tells him over and over and he just steamrolls her. I hated this book, but on it's own it probably would have gotten two stars. The one star rating overall is because I hated the next book even more.
The second book is about Jake and Maggie and it takes place closer to the present day. When Maggie was a teenager (and Jake wasn't, being six years older than her), they had sex due to a misunderstanding. He thought she was a sex worker who was a "gift" to him. She wasn't - she was a virginal teenager. By the time he realized the truth, he decided to keep going and she got pregnant. Oh, by the way, Jake was engaged to someone else at the time. She wound up getting an abortion, he took is very personally, and they haven't spoken for years. He wound up getting married to his fiancee and she met a man a few years later and got married. Years later, he has a son (18) and she has a daughter (16). He is a retired NFL player turned high school teacher and she's a high school teacher. The two kids meet and date and -- not knowing about their parents history -- the daughter gets pregnant. They decide to get married, which throws Jake and Maggie back into each others lives. Jake is now divorced and Maggie is a widow . . . so you can see where this is going.
Jake is an anti-choice POS who also doesn't understand the meaning of the word "no." Despite being an abstinence-only supporter (maybe he should have taught his son about birth control though?), he immediately begins pressuring Maggie into sex despite hating her for what he perceives as her choice to have an abortion years earlier (the truth is a bit more complicated than that, but only because it's important to the author that we also don't "blame" Maggie for not wanting to give birth to the child of an engaged NFL player while she's basically a child herself).
Another weird thing about this book is that we get multiple love scenes between the teenage kids, which is GROSS because the daughter especially is written as very child-like. Examples - she can't handle the thought of her mother dating, she destroys her boyfriend's phone when another girl calls him, she refuses to have sex with the lights on, etc. These are KIDS - afraid to talk to their parents, unable to make good decisions, petulant. But Jake and Maggie throw them a big wedding anyway because in the universe of this novel, that's the only way for them to be "redeemed." Jake speculates that the kids unconsciously did this to "screw up" their lives. So should they get married, Jake?
Jake's constant brooding over Maggie's abortion gets old really quick despite the fact that he forgave his ex-wife for her abortions (she had them because she knew he was still in love with Maggie even though he married her).
Women had no idea how helpless it made a guy feel to know he had no say over his unborn baby’s life. At least his ex-wife had had some justification for her abortions—unlike Margie who simply hadn’t wanted his baby.
Jake, if you don't want a teenage girl to get an abortion, maybe don't be a grown man who has sex with teenage girls? I don't know, I think that might help prevent it. But Jake can't picture that -- his "sex education" classes are all about teaching teenagers that men and boys have zero control over their sex drive and women and girls must keep them from making bad decisions.
“Now you’re catching on. Every one of these fellows would love to climb into the back seat with a different one of you each day of the week. It’s simply the way nature wired them.” He spread his hands in an apologetic stance. “I’m sorry, guys, but it’s my job to tell them your secrets. What you might not know, ladies, is these same eager studs aren’t so open-minded about the girls they care about. Are you, fellas?”
If guys don't respect you, it's your fault because you let them make bad decisions. He goes on to tell them:
"Is it fair for women to send guys mixed signals?” he continued. “Women say they want sensitive men who’ll communicate with them while the whole time they’re swooning over brooding bad-boys in movies and literature. Is it fair that men, who’ve always played the traditional role of providers, feel usurped and superfluous while women become CEO’s, abort their unborn children, and visit sperm banks?”
That's right, girls. You're responsible because there's a handful of women CEOs. Emma, the girl his son impregnated, happens to be in this class session and all her classmates know that she's pregnant at this point. So basically she's getting dressed down by her future father-in-law. When she says something to her afterwards, he brushes her off by telling her "My class plans were made a long time ago . . .The fact my son is responsible for your situation forces me to be even more vocal about teen abstinence."
Later, when the teen newlyweds run into trouble over his unfaithfulness, her father-in-law consoles her by telling her “A guy’s sexual radar runs all the time. Asking Alex not to notice an attractive woman is like him asking you not to breathe. He can’t help doing it.” Sure looks like a bright future ahead for these two!
Meanwhile, Jake has impregnated Maggie, because I guess it's abstinence-for-thee-but-not-for-me. Also meanwhile, he and his son have turned his new teen bride into a housemaid: "By the time Jake finished showering and shaving, his son had already left for work. Emma had been doing all of the cooking, cleaning, and laundry since she’d moved in." (Keep in mind, Jake is not just a former NFL player, but an all-star who retired after a very successful career and could easily afford some household help . . . or he and his son could help themselves).
So while navigating the situation of having to be parent-in-laws to one child (and one virtual child) who are newly married, they're having to figure out their own situation.
This book was an utter piece of trash. Jake's version of "abstinence" puts all the onus (and blame) on women and girls, while telling men and boys it's not their fault if they slip up because they were tempted into it. An abortion is a aggression against men. Hell, a woman having a career is an aggression against men in the universe of this book. There's no consideration on how it might be difficult to build a good marriage while you're still a child. All the issues involved in teen marriage and parenthood are glossed over.
June 14, 2017
Two books in one set, one telling the story of Matt and Abby, the second one of Maggie and Jake, and Alex and Em.
I am of two minds about this: I did like the plots and the storyline, as well as the narration style. The characters were mostly sympathetic, but in my opinion switched between realistic and unrealistic. The story at times dragged on, and the characters dialogues and actions made me think: geez it's crystal clear what's going on, stop behaving like spoilt children and get on with it!
I don't know enough about the Vietnam War and POWs to really say something about Matt and Abby, although I did like their story more, it seemed more realistic. However, I doubt that people would open their homes to complete strangers and let them live with them, especially single mothers? It may by so in the USA, and it may have been different anyway during the time the story was taking place, but I am not sure. Also, I get why Matt acts the way he does, however, again, in my opinion, this goes on too long, and Abby's reaction seem to be more and more outside of normal ones.
The second book, so many elements for humour in it which, unfortunately in my opinion, the author did not use. The parallels in the lives of Jake and his son Alex could have been hilarious, even with the seriousness of their situations. I am not sure which year this story is supposed to be set in, but regarding the reactions of the protagonists, they seem to be mixed up between current times and more oldfashioned ones. Again, some of their actions did not seem logical to me, their dialogues not natural, and as I have mentioned before, the storyline for me dragged on needlessly.
All in all, however, I did like the books, I did not mean to sound so negative, just trying to explain why I did not like parts of the stories.
And yes, I would read more of this author and in this series, just not straight away.
I am of two minds about this: I did like the plots and the storyline, as well as the narration style. The characters were mostly sympathetic, but in my opinion switched between realistic and unrealistic. The story at times dragged on, and the characters dialogues and actions made me think: geez it's crystal clear what's going on, stop behaving like spoilt children and get on with it!
I don't know enough about the Vietnam War and POWs to really say something about Matt and Abby, although I did like their story more, it seemed more realistic. However, I doubt that people would open their homes to complete strangers and let them live with them, especially single mothers? It may by so in the USA, and it may have been different anyway during the time the story was taking place, but I am not sure. Also, I get why Matt acts the way he does, however, again, in my opinion, this goes on too long, and Abby's reaction seem to be more and more outside of normal ones.
The second book, so many elements for humour in it which, unfortunately in my opinion, the author did not use. The parallels in the lives of Jake and his son Alex could have been hilarious, even with the seriousness of their situations. I am not sure which year this story is supposed to be set in, but regarding the reactions of the protagonists, they seem to be mixed up between current times and more oldfashioned ones. Again, some of their actions did not seem logical to me, their dialogues not natural, and as I have mentioned before, the storyline for me dragged on needlessly.
All in all, however, I did like the books, I did not mean to sound so negative, just trying to explain why I did not like parts of the stories.
And yes, I would read more of this author and in this series, just not straight away.
September 25, 2017
5 Star romances
Laurie Kellogg is a very talented story teller! I love the stories about the returning prisoners of war from Viet Nam. I got married in 1967 so I can relate to a lot of the events of that time. Very true to life stories.
And Alex & Emma and Jake and Maggie's story was just amazing! Loved it!
Laurie Kellogg is a very talented story teller! I love the stories about the returning prisoners of war from Viet Nam. I got married in 1967 so I can relate to a lot of the events of that time. Very true to life stories.
And Alex & Emma and Jake and Maggie's story was just amazing! Loved it!
November 16, 2018
I loved these books and totally love this author! The stories are different but amazing 😉
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