Review: H.M. Ward teams up with Stacey Mosteller for emotional contemporary romance - spoiler free!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 21, 2014
I was kindly given an ARC for this book. Spoiler free *unless otherwise is specified*.Second Chances is a story about a single mom who lost her husband two years ago. She’s been in a funk since then, and the only thing she really takes joy in is her son. Pretty quickly we are introduced to her lawn man, Daniel. It’s clear early on that he likes and cares for Gen and her son, CJ (way more than Genevieve realizes). When Gen is in over her head and is getting frantic, he steppes in. Turns out he’s pretty amazing with CJ. They find themselves spending more time together. Problem is Daniel is more than 10 years younger than her.'Is he going to kiss me? What the hell is he doing? My stomach flip flops, and when he offers me his boyish grin I melt. “Genevieve?”“Yeah?” I ask, feeling half drunk with a midlife crisis-mad crush on the lawn boy.“Can I have the towels, then?”He’s been holding out his hand. Oh God, I misread him. I laugh nervously and shove them into his hands, dropping the washcloth on the floor. “Oh, right! We wouldn’t want you walking around naked, would we?”'So this book tackles a pretty taboo topic. There are endless books where the man is a lot older than the woman. No one bats an eye at that, of course. In this book the main character is 33 years old woman and her potential love interest is only 22. He’s in college. She has a kid. He started working for Gen and her husband when he was fifteen. She’s now a widow.What I loved was their dynamic. The age difference was non-existent when they were together. He had experienced some things that forced him mature quickly, and so he didn’t really act like your typical 22-year old.It reminded me the tiniest bit of Seduction & Snacks, especially in the beginning. I loved that book to death, and so I mean that as the biggest complement. In contrast, this book (as we were warned repeatedly) was also a tearjerker.*mini-spoiler, but not really - it brushes upon how much/little sex there is in this book. The rest of the review is completely spoiler free!*This book had a slow burn, and I was actually surprised by the fact that there was only one sex scene, and it took place fairly close to the end. I have to confess I was expecting things to heat up a lot quicker, but that was admittedly before I really got into the book and really grasped the character dynamics.CJ was the adorable. >Dan with CJ< made my ovaries explode. I practically awwwh-ing in any scene they were together.One of my favorite scenes was when Dan was helping Gen out when CJ was sick and she was a train wreck. He took CJ off her hands for a bit so she could shower and take a nap. She was listening to them through the baby monitor. Read this scene and feel your ovaries go boom (if you have them, that is. You could be equipped with cojones for all I know) ;)All in all it was a very entertaining read, and I was laughing out loud several times. It was hilariously written. I think H.M. Ward and Stacey Mosteller was a great match!I had a couple of peeves, which is why I’m settling on 4.5 stars for this book. My only real complaint is that I wished the ending were a little more powerful. The few other peeves I had were not that significant overall, but if you are interested to see what they are you can do so here: bit.ly/1tpKzhW