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Engaging The Enemy: A Will and a Way / Boundary Lines

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Sometimes the last man on earth you'd ever want turns out to be the very one your heart secretly yearns for . . .

Two complete novels by #1 New York Times bestselling author NORA ROBERTS

A Will and a Way

It wasn't easy living with her infuriating co-beneficiary, Michael Donohue -- even to fulfill her uncle's last wishes -- but headstrong Pandora McVie found it still harder not falling in love with her nemesis.

Boundary Lines

Feisty Jillian Baron and irresistibly arrogant Aaron Murdock seemed determined to carry their families' feud into another generation. But the battle waged within their own hearts pitted their mistrust against overwhelming desire.

506 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 2003

29 people are currently reading
1586 people want to read

About the author

Nora Roberts

1,209 books59.7k followers
Nora Roberts is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than 200 novels, including Hideaway, Under Currents, Come Sundown, The Awakening, Legacy, and coming in November 2021 -- The Becoming -- the second book in The Dragon Heart Legacy. She is also the author of the futuristic suspense In Death series written under the pen name J.D. Robb. There are more than 500 million copies of her books in print.

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5 stars
835 (30%)
4 stars
876 (31%)
3 stars
849 (30%)
2 stars
182 (6%)
1 star
38 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
Profile Image for Spencer.
1,569 reviews19 followers
November 11, 2024
2020
Still as wonderful as the first time I read it. I love how quirky the whole story is. It gets started from a will reading that gives money for a lifetime supply of wheat germ, a collection of magic tricks, and matches to individual family members and it just gets funnier from there. Uncle Jollie always wanted Pandora and Michael to get together and he plays a hand in just that happening from beyond the grave. I really wish that Uncle Jollie was alive and well in this story because he sounded like a hoot. All the recollections and fond memories that Pandora and Michael had of him would have been fun to read about in real time. However, watching them fall in love over their love for him was fantastic. I love how hardheaded and difficult they both could be (especially when dealing with each other) and it was great watching them become more soft and easy with each other. I love how protective they were of each other and how brave/stupid they could be when it came to the prowlers on their property. The whole mystery of it was fun to watch it unravel, as well. It was almost like reading an Agatha Christie novel wrapped up with a Nora Roberts story.

The two main characters, Jillian and Aaron, are likable and well-developed. Jillian is a strong, independent, relatable woman. She makes you want to be her or at least be her friend (especially when she's dealing with her animals. I've never wanted to bottle-feed a calf so bad as when she was feeding Baby). And Aaron is persistently resilient, confident and, let’s be honest here, dreamy beyond belief. Both of then have fiery tempers that tend to flare up basically every time they are together. I love the sparks that fly. It is hot, hot, hot!

2015
Profile Image for Tracey.
1,137 reviews8 followers
February 27, 2013
Nora Roberts is comfort reading, plain and simple, she is never going to win any literary awards and there is nothing wrong with that at all. For me Roberts books have always been good for when my reading slides downhill and I am struggling to find something to hold my attention. They become like kickstart novels, they seem to help me get of my slump and propel me onwards and I can offer you no rational reason as to why. This is two stories packaged by Harlequin under the title of Engaging the Enemy and it is your standard Robert’s romance fare (again nothing wrong with that). You have stubborn independent woman who does not want love meets stubborn good looking man who finds himself intrigued as why the firebrand woman has his interest. It is their stubbornness plus some kind of criminal/family drama that keeps them doing a dance around their feelings until capitulate into realising that true love has actually happened.
Roberts has a real knack of allowing you to engage with characters until you reach the last word of the final chapter. Then you have that little inner smile of isn’t that nice, it’s a happy ending and it does not matter that you knew all along that it was coming. I suppose that is the real joy that in these novels, good triumphs, love rules and happiness is guaranteed. Do we all not want that in some measure or form deep down.
87 reviews2 followers
April 27, 2011
This was the first Nora Roberts book I ever read and began a great love for her novels. How I came to Nora Roberts is one of the reasons why this two story collection holds a special place for me.

I was on my first work trip, alone, and the only book I brought with me was a Tom Clancy novel. Unfortunately, the Clancy novel detailed the aftermath of a terrorist attack (airplane into the Capitol - creepy). I was in the Pentagon on 9/11 and this was about a year later so I just couldn't finish the Clancy novel. (I have since - it was pretty good). I wandered down to the hotel's meager gift shop and the only book that even remotely caught my attention was this one. I figured what the heck and bought it. The engaging language and happily-ever-after ending were just what I needed. When I got home, I bought a couple other Nora Roberts books and never looked back.

These two stories are simple ones, but a lot of fun. I could see hints of Montana Sky in the second story, which later became a favorite book of mine.

It may seem a little hokey but Nora Roberts provided just the balm I needed!
Profile Image for Gwen.
142 reviews
January 13, 2022
Many years ago i discovered Nora Robert’s books & enjoyed them. Back then i thought they were more intelligent & a cut above a lot of chick lit.
Since then I’ve grown up & the world has changed. My experience reading this, a book i picked up at a charity shop for some light entertainment, has been very different. I think i may actually have read both stories a decade or more ago but saw them through opened eyes this time.
A lot of the passages that are meant to be raunchy now read to me like outright sexual assault. A man forcing himself on a woman out of desire, temper, aggression just because he fancies her. The woman responding “against her will” until she falls for him.
What utter bollocks!!
This is unreconstructed relational nonsense at its worst!
Add to that all the “unrestrained” emotions- read immature people flying off the handle- disagreements & misunderstandings- read more emotionally immature people jumping to ridiculous conclusions - and what is left is puerile, macho posturing with a failed attempt at injecting some “women’s lib”.
That this woman has grown rich by encouraging such outdated views of masculinity, femininity & relationships is a sad reflection of the state of mind of those who read it. That includes me a decade ago but no longer.
If you want to really cringe, take a look at her website & see her husband’s “creative” photography- read soft porn- which he goes to great lengths to defend as not being porn. It’s worth noting that, in my opinion, Nora & her husband look like very watered down versions of all the protagonists she describes, which makes me wonder if she has cast them both as the “heros & heroines” of each book. There is a marked similarity in them all for sure.
Anyway, i won’t be reading any more of this bilge.
8 reviews
May 8, 2022
Okay so I got to chapter 3 of this book and I'm going to force myself to finish it eventually because I paid 7 dollars for it looking for a fun short read, until I started actually reading it the first chapter you get a feel for the main characters. The MFC Pandora immediately come off so rude and hypocritical especially when she starts talking about her past knowing Michael, she criticizes his work for being unintelligent and unimportant but then it comes out she makes bead bracelets for a living...um okay, then they have to do this deal to secure the inheritance and she goes on a tangent how she doesn't want uncle Jolley's money because it would burden her and talks down to Michael for wanting to go through with it because he's so materialistic she said but then she goes through it anyway, why? The kicker for me though that really just creeped me out and made me want to stop reading was the way they refer to each other, they're cousins through marriage but they grew up together with a mutual uncle, so they consistently, even as they talk about their attraction to each other still call each other cousin and refer to the family members as their cousins and uncles. It just got too much for me and nothing's even happened yet, highly don't recommend.
Profile Image for Mafi.
1,201 reviews250 followers
March 13, 2012
Nora é sempre Nora! Dois romances muito bons, daqueles que fazem esquecer os problemas e acreditar outra vez no amor...gostei dos casais! As histórias não foram assim nada de especial, mas como são da Nora até deixo passar este detalhe..Livro perfeito para desanuviar a mente de outras leituras. :)
Profile Image for Suzie.
2,555 reviews23 followers
October 19, 2018
"A Will and A Way": Jewelry designer and television script writer are forced into living in the same house by an Uncle who left them his $50 million estate. One caveat is they must live together for 6 months or forfeit everything. Sparks fly between them and unhappy relatives inflict schemes on them. It is a 1986 novel, but still good.
"Boundary Lines": Side by side cattle ranches have a long standing feud, when the properties are handed down to Jillian and Aaron. Of course, the two are attracted to each other on a deeper level. Aaron realizes it first and pushes hard to get Jillian, which only causes her to push back. I enjoy the banter and how Nora Roberts writes the enemy to lover trope. 1985.
Profile Image for Lorraine Madigan.
260 reviews1 follower
June 7, 2021
This is a two story novel and I enjoyed both books! The first book, A Will and a Way is about Michael Donohue and Pandora McVie, distant cousins by marriage. They have to live in their uncles house together to fulfill the terms of his will so that they can split his estate. The rest of the family has other ideas on who should have received part of the estate. I love Michael and Pandora!
The second book, Boundary Lines is about Aaron Murdock and Jillian Baron. Their families have cattle ranches that adjoin and have been feuding for a long time. It's great to see their relationship grow past the feuding!
I would definitely recommend this book.
Profile Image for Crystal.
265 reviews68 followers
October 21, 2017
The first story I would give 4 stars. it was great reading about her jewelry making business. that was the best part of the book. The second story Boundary Lines I give 5 stars. Set in Montana with a strong heroine known for her guts and determination, this story was much more up my alley. Hope to find it as a separate book. Roberts weaves two tales of strong heroines that didn't know how much they needed ahand until they were swept off their feet by someone equally as strong and admiring them for who they are.
Profile Image for Tina.
Author 2 books36 followers
January 7, 2024
A Will and A Way
I almost put this down when they called each other 'cousin'. For my preferences, it should have been established earlier that they were cousins by marriage, especially when the will alluded to Uncle Jolley's desire to get them together.
I enjoyed the mystery of who was trying to drive them out of the house. Charlie and Sweeney were good side characters.

Boundary Lines
I didn't really feel a connection between the two main characters. I was more interested in who the cattle rustlers were.
Profile Image for Jodi.
2,727 reviews1 follower
October 18, 2019
2 for 1 book. Two stories within the pages very similar to each in terms of the overall content. Young lady is close to a family member who passes away inherits large estate and meets the man who is able to break down the walls she has built and they fall in love. Nice easy read.
Profile Image for Michelle Pereira.
26 reviews
September 16, 2020
liked the first story but wasn't too happy with the second story, Boundary. Like the protagonist, Aaron Murdock couldn't spare any opportunity to suck Jillian's face. Just sections which didn't need to be so elaboratively detailed in the stories. I found myself skipping large sections of mush.
Profile Image for Georgianne.
92 reviews1 follower
March 11, 2017
When I need to clear my mind or take a break I tend to read silly romance and Nora Roberts does it well.
Profile Image for Ana Santos.
27 reviews5 followers
July 9, 2018
Very boring at times, but the romance is cute.
2 reviews
January 18, 2019
I couldn't get past the fact that the 2 romantically involved were cousins.
Profile Image for Wendy.
1,478 reviews6 followers
July 16, 2020
I enjoyed reading this book. Lots of action and excitement...good plots, well-developed characters, etc.
Profile Image for Nkechi Ajogwu.
Author 23 books11 followers
July 25, 2024
My first romance book ever. 2011.
I like Nora Roberts' works.
Profile Image for Kelly.
757 reviews17 followers
Read
November 3, 2024
I think this might be the bind-up that I read A Will & a Way in, in 2003
Profile Image for Wanda.
47 reviews5 followers
November 14, 2025
didn't realize it was two stories in one when I began.
Profile Image for Cyrisse.
68 reviews
October 22, 2008
A Will and A Way

Pandora McVie was a jewelry designer. Her pieces were one of a kind. Michael Donohue wrote scripts for a successful television series. Pandora and Michael were related distantly through marriage. They didn’t like each other and they usually ended up auguring when they were together. They were both close to Uncle Jolley. They were the only members in the family who really loved him. The rest of the family thought Jolly was strange and they only wanted his money.

Most of the family turned up for the reading of Jolley’s will. Pandora and Michael were the only ones who seemed to be grieving. Jolley left most of the relatives very little. The bulk of his estate, including the house, would go to Pandora and Michael, but there were restrictions. They had to live together in the house for six months. If they refused, the estate would be divided up between the other relatives and a charity. Pandora didn’t want the money and claimed that she didn’t need it. She was attached to the house and didn’t want to see it sold. She was disgusted because she assumed that Michael wanted the money. Michael didn’t want the house sold either. He and Pandora agreed to live in the house.

Shortly after the will was read, Pandora and Michael moved in. She sat up her equipment in a shed and started working. Michael set up a place to do his writing. He and Pandora settled into a routine and managed to get along fairly well, though they still had disagreements. They became intimate. Things were happening that made them think that the relatives were trying to make them mess up so the conditions wouldn’t be met. At first it was things like Pandora’s shed being broken into and her being locked in the basement, but things turned deadly when brake lines were cut.

Boundary Lines

Jillian Baron grew up in Chicago, but she loved open spaces. She started to spend time with her grandfather on his ranch Utopia. After he died, she was running the ranch. It had been in the Baron family for years. The Murdocks owned a ranch that was next to Utopia. The Barons and the Murdocks had been enemies for years. Jillian hadn’t met any of the Murdocks, but she seemed determined to carry on the feud. She met Aaron Murdock one day at a pond that was at the boundary of the two ranches. Aaron was friendly, but she was rude to him because of who he was.

Aaron was interested in breeding his horse Samson with Jillian’s house Delilah. Jillian was interested in doing that as well, and they worked out an agreement. Aaron was interested in Jillian and started to pursue her. They spent time together and Jillian learned that he wasn’t that bad. They became involved.

Jillian was having trouble with Utopia. Calves were being born, but it seemed to Jillian that there weren’t enough. She found fence lines cut. She and some of her men estimated that a hundred cattle were missing. After taking a count, she discovered that many more were missing. What few clues there were all pointed to the Murdock ranch.
Profile Image for cc.
425 reviews170 followers
February 18, 2010
Another Silhouette two-in-one novel by Roberts.
I have to confess that these books may well not be high literature, but they are a feast for the soul and the heart of an audience.
I will not be giving the world news by saying that Nora Roberts has certainly a very unique way with words, just as she seems to have an exceptional understanding with people, both how to describe them, and how to write for them, and therefore she's always aware of how to hold the reader to her plots. In Engaging The Enemy she does precisely that using four characters, two couples, whose respective shares fell a specific kind of hatred for each other, that kind of hatred which limits quickly merge with the limits of crazy passion, and after some hurdles, sayings and a whole bunch of stuff that tend to cast more dark clouds over the hard heads of the lovebirds, spreads, finally, inevitably, to the greatest of loves.

In the first story of this volume, A Will And A Way, the couple consists of Pandora McVie, an artist dedicated to jewelry making, and of Michael Donohue, a screenwriter for a television series. The two are almost cousins, who despise each other since forever. A despise that is accompanied by a share of mutual desire. When these two lost souls, accustomed to the isolation of their lives, inherit, in equal parts, the whole legacy of their beloved recently deceased uncle, with the condition that they live together in a house that is also part of the estate, and says a lot to both, their first reaction is that this is the worst that could have happened, however, over time we'll see the development of an intimacy both tender and vibrant, which will become a habit and dependency for them.
I really liked this story, the predominant theme can even be a love-hate relationship between the protagonists, but since the topic appeals to me and I always come back to it to relax from other readings that require more of my sanity, I dare say that reading Nora Roberts is good for health. If nothing else, it makes one's heart to beat faster, and therefore the entire body gets a extra irrigation!

Still, my favorite was the second part, Boundary Lines.
Jillian Baron and Aaron Murdock, owner of two farms joined together by a very special lake, and separated by a fence that appears to get ruined a lot, can be neighbors but had never laid eyes on each other until the hot summer day when Jillian decides to take a swim in the lake I mencioned before, and Aaron goes through there also. The spark is immediate but Aaron will have a lot to ride to get to the broken heart Jillian carries in her chest, guarded by thick and successive layers of pride and self-preservation.
The magnitude of the fiery love-hate, of the tender and unbridled desire, of the crazy-mad passion, of the hopeless dependance and love between these two, is several times higher in exponent compared with the couple from A Will And A Way, or perhaps it's just because of the wilder scenery around them (which made me remember Irish Thoroughbred so much!).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Laura.
458 reviews78 followers
March 5, 2017
The second book was much better than the first.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews

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