Having enjoyed McKenna’s first book Behind Closed Doors and, to a lesser extent, Standing in the Shadows, I expected far more than I got from Return to Me in terms of plot and characterization.

After a 17 year absence Simon Riley returns to Ellen Kent and the small town of LaRue. A long time ago he was the boy LaRue citizens shook their heads over, the wild, reckless orphan who lived with his alcoholic, mentally unstable Uncle Gus. But to El Kent, he was something more. He was worth saving, worth sneaking food to, worth worrying about. Worth loving. El gave him her virginity on the night he left town – and never saw him again. Now she runs a posh B&B and is engaged to the extremely eligible Brad Mitchell. But seeing Simon brings all the old feelings back, and she can’t keep away from him.

Simon’s back with a mission. The day his uncle died he received an alarming email from Gus and returned to LaRue to determine whether or not Gus really committed suicide. But when he begins poking into his uncle’s business and going through his old pictures and things, alarming incidents occur. Simon has always believed that his life in LaRue was shadowed by evil and chaos, but when that evil and chaos begins inching closer to El and putting her in danger, he doesn’t know what to do. Should he leave town, or would that be even more risky for El? And what about his long-held feelings for her?

My first inkling of the problems that I would have with El and the rest of the cast came right away with the introduction of Brad, her fiancé. McKenna clearly created El’s significant other to provide a flimsy, temporary barrier to a renewed relationship with Simon (since there are no other barriers except for his lame “I’m a wandering man” mantra). But she has a strange non-sexual relationship with Brad – who undervalues her, gives her no affection, never considers her feelings, thinks of her business as frivolous, and allows his nasty mother to steamroll her. She seems like a big, busty, blond doormat. Why would any woman put up with Brad’s mother when she wasn’t over the moon about Brad himself? But this was only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to El’s characterization. The tip tippy top.

El and Simon together are like watching a high school couple. No, make that a junior high school couple. Now, I know these two have a Past and Unresolved Feelings, but they are in their thirties, which means they have absolutely no excuse to play the incredibly annoying jealousy games they play with each other. If there’s a chain handy that will make Simon act like possessive and territorial, El gladly yanks it. And then she will insist that she is not scared of him and that she knows he has feelings for her even if he will not admit them. And then she will tell him that she loves him even if he never ever ever will admit the same to her. He’ll just have to accept that she loves him and take it like a man. And then she will boink him until they both drop because that’s the kind of woman she is. Boinking and giving.

A word about the boinking – it’s mostly very boring. Because El and Simon are very boring. And the reader is treated to bed talk like this from Simon, which is equally as likely to excite readers as it is to make them laugh:

“I want to lick up your lube until you melt into a lake of hot, yummy girl juice. I want to dive in it and wallow in it all night long. My face between your legs. My tongue shoved in your pussy.”

The rest of the characters are no better developed. Both the main love story and the secondary one are incredibly rushed, and the transformation of a major character from arrogant jerk to husband material is absolutely unbelievable. And all the “sympathetic” characters have such an overt anti-authority, snub-their-noses-at-anyone attitude that comparisons to high school must be made again. I suppose it helps that anyone in any position of authority in LaRue is legitimately evil.

The suspense plot is bizarre and disturbing, but it’s such an afterthought to the boinking that I couldn’t get seriously willied out about it. But consider: this is supposed to be a romantic suspense novel.

Return to Me was a vast disappointment. I expect better from this author – better writing, better plotting, better characterization. There are about a hundred other Reunited Lovers stories that are better than this one. Email me and I’ll send you a list.