You know the trope: our heroine returns to her hometown and runs into the very person she wanted to avoid the most. It might be a guy she missed her chance with the first time; it might be one she now despises for one reason or another. It might even be her ex, her first love, or her ex-husband.
Whoever he is, he’s not a stranger, and seeing him again hits her harder than a body slam. There are feelings, maybe mostly bad. But uh oh—he’s just as hot as ever!
There are feelings to be sorted through, truths to be revealed. Mr. Blast-From-the-Past might be annoying, but layers gradually get peeled away—he’s not awful! And he might annoy our heroine, but oh my gosh, he gets her in ways that no one else can. So in some ways, he’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to her, but also, well…the best.
Some people say that second-chance romance is for older people, those who tend to look back on their lives and reminisce about past choices and decisions: the one-who-got-away, the forbidden love, or the one-who-never was.
I have always been a fan of second chance romance, even when I was in my twenties devouring romance, and it had absolutely nothing to do with mourning unrequited love or waxing poetic over a long-lost love.
Nope. For me, it was and still is all about forgiveness.
How many times does life actually give us an opportunity for a do-over?
Sometimes this opportunity serendipitously falls into our laps. But more often, we have to make a do-over happen. As in our books, it’s awkward. Difficult. Maybe even a little painful, because the person our heroine has been avoiding actually understands deeply who she is beneath the tough exterior she shows the world. But in the end, the struggle is so worth it.
Barely a day goes by when I don’t wish for some kind of opportunity to choose a different path. Maybe it’s as simple as a conversation where I could have been more direct, more decided, where I shied away from saying something that might have been uncomfortable but should have been said. Or a missed opportunity to do or say something nice. To not be silent. To speak up. Characters seem to have a much easier time of that than us mere mortals in real life!
Life presents numerous opportunities for reconciliation, for forgiveness, for telling people you love that you actually love them!
This for me is the essence of the second chance.
To be able to learn from past mistakes and right wrongs.
To be more mature.
To correct flaws and misconceptions.
Basically, to live our best lives.
If the bonus is that my heroine can repair a connection that never should have been broken in the first place, then that is the cherry on top.
Seashell Harbor #3
Summertime in a small seaside town brings one woman an unexpected second chance with the first man to melt her heart . . .
After spending the last few years beating cancer, author Darla Manning is ready for a fresh start—she’s already got a new teaching position in California for the fall. But first, she has some loose ends to tie up over the summer, like finishing her latest novel and selling her oceanfront home. Darla doesn’t expect her ex-husband, contractor Nick Cammareri, to top her list of unfinished business. He was only supposed to do a few quick renovation jobs around the house, not temporarily move in and stir up feelings she thought were long gone.
While Darla tries to focus on making the most of her last Seashell Harbor summer, she can’t help noticing how much Nick has changed. Her immature-but-seriously-cute high school sweetheart is now a motivated-and-seriously-sexy man who’s earning his MBA and running the family business. Plus, he seems determined to make her remember how—and why—they first fell in love. Darla believed moving on meant moving away, but could her hometown hold the key to a new beginning for her . . . with Nick?
Romance Small Town | Romance Contemporary [Forever, On Sale: July 11, 2023, Trade Size / e-Book, ISBN: 9781538736319 / eISBN: 9781538736302]
Miranda Liasson is a bestselling author whose heartwarming and humorous romances have won numerous accolades and have been praised by Entertainment Weekly for the way she “deals with so much of what makes life hard . . . without ever losing the warmth and heart that characterize her writing.” She believes we can handle whatever life throws at us just a little bit better with a laugh. A proud native of Northeast Ohio, she and her husband live in a neighborhood of old homes that serves as inspiration for her books.
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