As you all know McNaught is one of; if not my number one author... So with that said I have to give this book a low rating. I felt like "Remember When" was a lazy write and it mirrored (almost exactly) one of her other books. I will say it started out as a "could not put it down read", but somewhere around the middle it fell apart. I know she can bring more than this to the table and that's why this review is so negative. If you've never read McNaught DO NOT start with this one. Try "A Kingdom of Dreams", "Paradise" or "Almost Heaven".

SPOILER

I wanted to like this book because I like the heroine so much. She's the quinessential good girl who strives in life to please her father, her step mother, and her family. She's soft, gentle, and wholesome. You can't put like her and how she turns a personal tragedy into a family business. She's a fictional nice, Martha Stewart wannabe. That was the better part of the story. Cole the hero is the one that needs further character development. Their love doesn't fully work in this contemporary JM book. JM is good at so many things but there's absolutely no suspense in this book and she tries to build something and it really fizzles. There's just no "umph". I especially can't believe that Cole doesn't say "i love you" in this book. There's got to be something wrong with a love story when the hero doesn't even say those simple three words. It doesn't have to exactly, I love you...but something to that affect would be satisfying. Right?

I don't know about anyone else, but it is impossible for me to like a book where all the characters are PERFECT.

Let me illustrate: Diana is from a rich family but is even-tempered, kind, sweet, loveable, blah blah blah. Corey is the new step-sister who is shy, adorable, sweet, loveable, blah blah blah. The two girls get along famously, not one ounce of tension. Diana's rich father is doting, gentle, understanding, loveable, blah blah blah. Corey's mother is beautiful, unpretensious, accepting, and....wait for it....loveable, blah blah blah. Mom and dad ALSO get along famously, never arguing or having a difference of opinion. Then come Grandma and Grandpa, who are loving, caring, tender, loveable.....ok you get the idea. But I'm serious, EVERYBODY loves EVERYBODY and is rapturously happy! C'mon, add some tension, some depth! I found this first part incredibly boring.

Then comes the second part, which is actually a little better. Dad has died, but everyone in the happy little family is still, of course, happy and cheerful and absolutely flat. The only character I actually liked in the beginning was the hard-hitting Cole, who had a ruthless streak but also had the past to explain why. FINALLY, a character with more dimensions than a piece of paper!

But, still, no tension. Diana and Cole decide to marry in name only, to help each other's respective businesses. What a possibly delicious situation! The sexual tension would sky rocket, of course, because they would keep their marriage unconsummated.

But then they sleep together the very first night!....Huh? I thought Cole was supposed to be hard and unyeilding, then slowly soften under Diana's persistent love, or some such nonsense. But he almost immediately (and i mean literally, immediately) falls in love with her(but predictably denies it to himself) and she with him. He immediately deflates into a piece of paper, and she stays a piece of paper, and they fly off into the sunset on their own personal jet, starting their happily ever after! ....how utterly boring. Give me something to work with, something to agonize over. PLEASE!

I have read all of Judith McNaught's books and can state with strong conviction that Remember When is one of her more subtle titles, lacking somewhat in the 'roller coaster of emotions' department. In other titles, the hero and heroine go through phases of high and low emotions and end up hurting each other unnecessarily due to the fact that their love seems to be built on physical attraction and lust rather than trust and simple liking. Cole and Diana actually like (later love)each other before they get physical and they respect one another. McNaught's other heroes seem to lack such respect towards their object of affection or they would not be able to do things that they do at times( How Clayton basically rapes Whitney (Whitney, my love), how Mitchell (Every breath you take) humiliates Kate without even hearing her part of the story, etc).

Cole and Diana's love is simple and sweet. They think of the other before themselves (how Diana worries about Cole's reputation taking damage when they leave the ball together before her own and how Cole tries keep Diana away from him in the midst of his company scandal so that her good name will not be dragged on the floor, even though he loves her and 'prays' to himself that she will come to him).

Their love also helps them grow as individuals into better people. Due to Diana's influence and his falling for her, Cole's serious, cold, calculating, ruthless and cynical nature starts to break down little by little. He cracks jokes, starts making small talk to others, becomes more receptive to other's feelings and tries to become more kind and gentle towards Diana. Diana, who is somewhat of an obsessive compulsive perfectionist who makes christmas lists in the middle of the summer, becomes more relaxed. I became rather jealous of the love these two characters shared while reading this book. I believe that the greatest kind of love is one that helps you grow and become a better person not just for yourself, but for the sake of the one you care about and this book has this love. Remember When is truly a sweet love story that will always have a place in my little library

I love MacNaught's historicals, but until now her only contemporary I've liked is Paradise.
This book was not bad, but as another reviewer said it was very flat; no strong emotions, no mystery, no misunderstandings to keep the story moving, nada. The first half of the book describes the heroes teenage years, but basically it's a description of Diana's family. In this first half they spend a very brief time together and they become friends. In the second half of the book they meet again after many years and we get another 50-70 pages of how they both get ready for the big charity ball, where we know from the back-cover he is going to propose to her a marriage of convenience. For me, the next 50 pages where the most exciting in the book; how he courted her, how he proposed and she accepted. At this point, the 2/3 of the book are finished. In the book's last third, which takes place over a week or two, these two people accept that they really love each other and to make the marriage a real one (after spending less than a week together) and the rest of the book is about stock markets, politics and ancient feud as they are both trying to defend a financial attack on Cole's corporation.
I bought this book because I like the marriage of convenience theme, but here there is no such thing at all. They marry the first night they meet, they have sex that night, they officially agree to have a sex in their marriage a couple of nights later, and by the end of the week they agree that this is a real marriage, not a sham. No misunderstandings, no fights, no reasons for these two to be apart. The whole book is like a short story that the author decided to turn into a novel, by adding pages in the begining and the end of the book and leave the romance in the middle intact and completely unattached to the new additions. If you feel you have to read it then borrow it, DON'T spend money on it.