Second Chance at Love

3.5 stars ~ still trying to figure out if I love the book or not... this was from my TBR, but it was also a re-read from back when it was first released. I loved the renewal of Caitlin and Trevor's relationship, but I did get tired of Caitlin's constant putting-everyone-else first... almost to the point of martyrdom. But overall everything worked...

Eight years ago Marianne Conway and Logan Tate were engaged for a matter of weeks before she flung his ring back in his face when he accused her of just wanting to brag to her friends about being engaged (v. strange as she was actually keeping secret) and because she had been told by his brother Moss that he considered her babyish.

Eight years ago 16yo Rosalind Prescott was quite brutal in her rejection of Slade Anderson, an 18yo awkward boy who loved her with stalker like devotion. The intensity of emotion scared Rosa who was a shameless flirt at that age. Now 24, Rosa lives with her widowed brother and works as a personnel officer in his computer consultancy - and still has no idea how to let guys down easy.

For four years now Ellen Craig has lived apart from her husband, in Canada, working as a television personality and raising their son Rowan. She and Dermid are separated not just legally but by the entire Atlantic ocean as he lives and works in Scotland, and does not visit.

Karen Lacey is a successful lingerie store owner and operator now well established in Auckland. But when she bumps into a man she recognizes in a coffee shop on her lunch break she is completely disconcerted. Drew Bridger uses this to his advantage, hustling her out of the store and into a park where he torments her, asking why she hasn't asked about “her” yet.

Eight years ago, Jess Mallory was 16 and hoping her family, biologist Max Mallory and actress Clarissa Evans, would be strengthened by a summer together in Santa Barbara. But then Ben Standish came along to do an article on her father...and despite his mutual attraction to Jess, ended up running away with her mother.

Holly Weston and Nick Falconer married young – too young for Holly to realize what living with her parents and being under her father's thumb was doing to Nick. And so after a huge fight during which Nick raped her, they split.

Maggie Rafferty is happily divorced, living with her son Mike and being chronically late getting him to baseball practice, where the hunky new coach has caught her eye. But then her ex-husband Wade shows up in Washington preempting her son's annual visit to see him, and announces that he's getting re-married—within the month!

Stella MacLean just keeps getting better! I thoroughly enjoyed her debut novel Heart of My Heart and thought it would be a tough act to follow, but Ms. MacLean did an amazing job, delivering a heartwarming hybrid of category romance and emotionally charged women's fiction.

3 stars ~ I liked this... an easy-going romance overall. Also a sweet story about second chances for love... when least expected.

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From the BACK:

TO LOVE AND TO CHERISH...

Inheriting half of her late husband's company means
Shannon Morris is now Jase Pembrooke's business
partner ~ to their mutual dismay!

Working together, they are forced to confront their