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Hartman Valentines #2
Forever Mine, Valentine
Talented artist Jill Amory is tired of her "Jill of All Trades, Mistress of None" reputation. She just can't seem to settle down into the fulfilling, crackerjack career everyone expects from her. So this is going to be the year she decides what to do with her life, traveling across the country to find her bliss. And that means no man - period! - until she's landed the perfect gig.
But destiny, in the form of warmhearted, elderly Charlie Hartman, has other plans. Charlie's convinced he's a modern-day Cupid with his eye on Jill for his friend Spence Jegger, Colorado Springs' resident marriage-a-phobe. Convincing Spence he's going to wed the first woman he sees on Valentine's Day might take some doing...until Spence takes one look at his intended.
Destiny is full of surprises....
224 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1990
About the author
Vicki Lewis Thompson
525 books1,540 followersNew York Times and USA Today bestseller Vicki Lewis Thompson believes love makes the world go around and laughter makes the trip worth taking. The recipient of RWA’s Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award and the author of more than ninety books, Vicki pioneered a new kind of romance hero with Nerd in Shining Armor. Following the success of her nerd stories, Vicki launched a boisterous paranormal series featuring a matchmaking witch and wizard, an ADD dragon named George, and a black cat inspired by her own precocious feline, Eve.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 2, 2010
Vicki Lewis Thompsons' Forever Mine, Valentine was my introduction to the now, sadly, defunct Harlequin Temptations line. The Temptation imprint was launched in North America in March 1984 and was marked by its far more sensual nature than Harlequin's other series, the Romance, Supperromance, and Presents lines. Temptations featured main characters from all walks of life, not just the jet set, and took place in various locations, from small towns to big cities to tropical destinations.
Forever Mine, Valentine is set mostly in a shopping mall in Colorado, where St. Valentine himself is a main character in the book, in the guise of Charlie Hartman, a sweet, seemingly doddering, old man.
Jill Amory left her old life behind, including a stable dentist boyfriend, to wander across the country on foot, with just a backpack. She paints windows for businesses to earn a little money and has a deadline set to travel all the States. Jill doesn't quite know what she wants in life, but she knows it is not commitment.
Spencer Jegger owns a successful sporting goods store in the mall. He's athletic, attractive, and friendly to all, including Charlie, who insists that Valentine's Day miracles are in store for Spence. Charlie tells a disbelieving Spence that he and Jill are destined to be lovers for life. While Spence isn't listening to the old man's nonsense, he is interested in Jill.
Spence hires Jill to paint the windows of his store, and in the meantime, he and Jill form a playful relationship with sexual tension just bursting through the surface.
Jill is hesitant about getting close to Spence. He's an incredibly good-looking man and makes his interest in her known, but Jill's mind is not on settling down, not even for a short while for a love affair. She's aiming to roam, to search for something, some purpose in life.
Charlie is a cute character, doing just about everything he can to get Spence and Jill together. He avows the two are meant for each other. Isn't it Valentine's season, and doesn't Jill's surname "Amory" have the word love in it? That's more than a mere coincidence; it's a sign from the heavens above that they're meant to be! Charlie also has a cute flirtation with an elderly mall-walker, a lady who wouldn't mind cuddling up to the supposed St. Valentine.
It was this book that introduced my young mind to real love-making in books. I'd read sex scenes before in V.C. Andrews' Flowers in the Attic and Stephen King's Carrie. But they were brief scenes, and were nothing as detailed as what I read in this one!
My goodness, I was such a dorky, nerdy bookworm back then! I passed this book on to my friends, spreading the salacious content around in school until one day I got in trouble with my social studies teacher. She took the book away from me in class and made a big scene, which was humiliating, although fortunately, that was the worst of it. Well, except for the fact that it earned me a reputation for years as "that girl who reads the sex books."
This book was filled with a hefty dose of humor and lots of steamy love scenes. I didn't understand Jill's hesitancy for commitment, and I was glad when she decided she'd seen enough of the country to know where her true home was. This little romance left quite a mark on my impressionable younger self!
Forever Mine, Valentine was a sequel to Be Mine, Valentine, where Charlie had previously wielded Cupid's bow and arrow to great success. Yes, the old scamp is truly a saint sent from up above! That's one aspect I loved about the Temptations, they could have any crazy plot to them or even a simple, mundane one. All kinds of stories were told in them, with the only qualifier that they were sexually mature enough for a new era of romance readers.
4 1/2 stars
Forever Mine, Valentine is set mostly in a shopping mall in Colorado, where St. Valentine himself is a main character in the book, in the guise of Charlie Hartman, a sweet, seemingly doddering, old man.
Jill Amory left her old life behind, including a stable dentist boyfriend, to wander across the country on foot, with just a backpack. She paints windows for businesses to earn a little money and has a deadline set to travel all the States. Jill doesn't quite know what she wants in life, but she knows it is not commitment.
Spencer Jegger owns a successful sporting goods store in the mall. He's athletic, attractive, and friendly to all, including Charlie, who insists that Valentine's Day miracles are in store for Spence. Charlie tells a disbelieving Spence that he and Jill are destined to be lovers for life. While Spence isn't listening to the old man's nonsense, he is interested in Jill.
Spence hires Jill to paint the windows of his store, and in the meantime, he and Jill form a playful relationship with sexual tension just bursting through the surface.
Jill is hesitant about getting close to Spence. He's an incredibly good-looking man and makes his interest in her known, but Jill's mind is not on settling down, not even for a short while for a love affair. She's aiming to roam, to search for something, some purpose in life.
Charlie is a cute character, doing just about everything he can to get Spence and Jill together. He avows the two are meant for each other. Isn't it Valentine's season, and doesn't Jill's surname "Amory" have the word love in it? That's more than a mere coincidence; it's a sign from the heavens above that they're meant to be! Charlie also has a cute flirtation with an elderly mall-walker, a lady who wouldn't mind cuddling up to the supposed St. Valentine.
It was this book that introduced my young mind to real love-making in books. I'd read sex scenes before in V.C. Andrews' Flowers in the Attic and Stephen King's Carrie. But they were brief scenes, and were nothing as detailed as what I read in this one!
My goodness, I was such a dorky, nerdy bookworm back then! I passed this book on to my friends, spreading the salacious content around in school until one day I got in trouble with my social studies teacher. She took the book away from me in class and made a big scene, which was humiliating, although fortunately, that was the worst of it. Well, except for the fact that it earned me a reputation for years as "that girl who reads the sex books."
This book was filled with a hefty dose of humor and lots of steamy love scenes. I didn't understand Jill's hesitancy for commitment, and I was glad when she decided she'd seen enough of the country to know where her true home was. This little romance left quite a mark on my impressionable younger self!
Forever Mine, Valentine was a sequel to Be Mine, Valentine, where Charlie had previously wielded Cupid's bow and arrow to great success. Yes, the old scamp is truly a saint sent from up above! That's one aspect I loved about the Temptations, they could have any crazy plot to them or even a simple, mundane one. All kinds of stories were told in them, with the only qualifier that they were sexually mature enough for a new era of romance readers.
4 1/2 stars
April 27, 2018
This one was really good. I do enjoy some of the older Harlequin Temptation titles and this is an oldie but a goodie from Vicki. The hero/heroine are put together but none other than St Valentine. The romance takes place just over ten days but it works and the thing I loved the most was the hero put his emotions on the line first, said I love you, even kind of proposed. The heroine on the other hand was on a quest to prove that she could stick to things so despite the romantic in me wanting her to stay I admired her commitment to her mission. I loved these two together and they had insane chemistry too.
June 19, 2011
VLT is a fun author, known for her humorous contemporaries. This early piece, however, about a Valentine's Day hook up between a mall shop owner and a mall window painter, seemed a little flat. Spence owns a sporting goods store in a mall that used to be owned by his parents and is now sold and operated by Tippy the Lip, or barracuda-woman in my mind. Spence lets a down-on-his-luck gentleman named Charlie live in the back of the store - Charlie is genteel, old-fashioned, and possibly a manifestation of St. Valentine. And so Charlie, of course, sets out to make a match, between stolid Spence and lovely Amery, who's travelling cross-country in a camper van, painting department store windows in a mall near you.
The characters sound fun and interesting, but they felt very flat, and consequently, I couldn't care less about Avery and Spence's romance. There was some humor, and Charlie of course was the best of the bunch. But ultimately, I skimmed quickly through the book once it failed to capture my attention by the first third. Pass.
The characters sound fun and interesting, but they felt very flat, and consequently, I couldn't care less about Avery and Spence's romance. There was some humor, and Charlie of course was the best of the bunch. But ultimately, I skimmed quickly through the book once it failed to capture my attention by the first third. Pass.
October 10, 2011
Pretty good. I'm think 3 1/2 stars on the sweetness/kinda sappy factor but it felt like there was a little more than just a chick-flick book. I loved the characters and the story line. I really enjoyed the hint of magic. Gotta love the holidays. This has humor, love, emotions, self-discovery, a good community feel to it, determination and stubbornness, family (real and chosen) and friends, a little whimsy, some steaminess, and a great HEA, with a little wondering what will come up next for Hartman! Kept me interested and good for the Valentine read. Hunker down with some sweets and blankets in your comfy clothes kinda book. Hoping to read more in this series, and that there would/could be more than the two. Enjoy!
January 9, 2010
Always bring this out to reread every year; just a cute, sweet story with St. Valentine in it too! :)
March 3, 2015
i won this booK! it was really cute, a girl was going across country painting windows. she ended up in CO springs near valentines day. she met a nice young man and a sweet older man who thought he was st valentines (turned out he was) and he set the two of them up. she helped to keep the mall where the young man worked from getting ruined.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 2, 2008
Cute and has the typical ending. Nice!
July 20, 2009
This is a cute story...nothing more than what you'd think it would be. Heroine a little wishy washy annoying, but still cute. Definitely more romance than erotica, but I cared about the characters!
March 31, 2012
3.75 stars
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews