Review: Has potential, but needs further work
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 10, 2012
A Ring, A Dance, A Second Chance by Jonell Kirby Cash explores the possibility of rebuilding your life with a new partner, in your 60's and after becoming a widow.  Katie starts by transforming herself to fit her new more active social life and to boost her confidence:  new haircut, exercise program, a trip to China, more independence from her grown-up children.  Taylor is running for mayor and trying to help a friend avoid jail time after wrongful accusations.  Taylor does not seem to have changed much in 40 years, still stuck to his ideas and notions, still quite dominating, still viewing a woman's role in her husband's life as secondary.  Although Katie tries to "modernize" herself and her outlook on life, and start thinking about her wants and needs, it is obvious that even by the end of the book she had not yet found the spine to stand up to Taylor.  The end of the book leaves us with the idea that the marriage they seem to be rushing into will not be successful.  She also lacks the spine to confront the Reverend after a very unfortunate and almost abusive situation.The story has potential, but the writing is erratic and haphazard.  Ideas are presented but not explored, the story has many lose ends and repetitive situations of the same ideas. It seems as if the author rushed through the writing process, without completing the revisions of the book to give it a well rounded plot: the journal entries are nothing but summaries of what has been explored in each chapter, they do not add anything new or insightful, making them redundant; we never know what happens with the Partains or if they finally take responsibility for their actions; Kate and Taylor make an appointment to visit a marriage counselor and the discussion takes a few pages of a chapter but we never get to know if they go and what happens when they do (and they certainly do have a lot to discuss with the marriage counselor); Birch brings a friend to a family gathering and then we never see Birch again - Katie never has the "wedding conversation" with him nor does he seem to be present in her life during the last few chapters; during the first chapters Katie is working on remodeling her outdoor space and thinks about asking Birch to help her design it but we never get a glimpse of that conversation or its results, despite the fact that the outdoor space is mentioned throughout the book; Katie and Taylor never share with us the decisions they have made regarding their living arrangements, even though this is something that weighed heavily on both their minds; we never find out how Bobby Dunn picks up the pieces after his brushes with the law and quitting his job....there are smaller and less important examples of this throughout the book.  These are not questions that could be answered in a sequel, these are basic answers missing from the book, it is as if huge chunks of information had been deleted, resulting in an unfinished/unpolished book.The story has great potential.  It seems as if Mrs Kirby Cash did not get sound editing advise or the chance to review the book before its publication.  The book is very salvageable with revisions.