Review: A Moving Tale about Jumping into Life
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 10, 2013
In the first few pages of Second Chance at Forever, author Heather Lire draws comparisons between the main characters in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, and her own main characters, Morgan Churchill-Sanderson and Ryan Cartwright.  The entry imprints an image in the reader's mind that Morgan and Ryan will likely forge an intellectual spurring at first, which will steadily manifest into linking them on a physical and sensual level.  Pride and Prejudice may have given Lire a sketchy outline, but her story is entirely its own lodged in present day New England with characters that audiences can feel at home with and converse with on a personal wavelength.Lire feeds the information about her characters to the reader slowly making the sequences easy to grasp and applicable to real life.  The tender side of hardened police office Ryan Cartwright has a glint of realism.  The maternal and protective instincts of competitive basketball player Morgan Churchill, who earns her living as a college professor, contradicts the usual paradigm of female role models; yet, the attributes are typical of twenty-first century mindsets.The author's love of fall in New England is shown in the story as she vividly describes the fall foliage and cooling change of the climate having a stimulating effect on her characters as they seek each other`s warmth.  The passion between Ryan and Morgan isn't too intense but tempered to be warm and easy-going.  Of course, just as the reader thinks Morgan and Ryan's relationship is going so well on an even keel, Lire puts a wrench in the plot and separates them inciting a likely whimper from the reader.The pair isn't completely disengaged as Morgan gives birth to Ryan's twin boys, Jaxon and Dylan, nine months after their union. The rift between Morgan and Ryan lasts four years, but when their paths cross again, the warm memories surface as though only three minutes had passed between them.  As if taken from a real life story, Lire brings the pair back together as Ryan discovers his sons with Morgan and she discovers the two little girls, Jayne and Kate, whom he took in after their father and mother, Joe and Kim who were both friends of his, had been killed in a car accident. The two families merge into a brood that Morgan and Ryan share and put their hearts into without reservation.It's a moving tale with its scars and bruises showing that no one should fear jumping into life.  The wounds are part of the experience strengthening one's level to love even deeper.  The message in Lire's story comes out clear and penetrates the reader's impression of life.