Title: Second Wind
Author: Aimee Nicole Walker
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 236 Pages
Category: Contemporary
At a Glance: Second Wind is a story of romance and being true to yourself that takes the reader on an emotional journey.
Reviewed By: Jenn
Blurb: Second wind: a new strength or energy to continue something that is an effort. After an amicable divorce, Lincoln Huxley is ready to embrace the sexuality he repressed for more than two decades. Rush Holden is no longer willing to settle for closeted men or those who don’t share his dreams of marriage and fatherhood. A chance encounter on a lakeside pier is the second wind they both need. Or will it just be a painful reminder of all they had lost?
Second chance: an opportunity to try something again that failed one time. Rush and Lincoln have shared a lot of firsts—friendship, young love, and heartbreak. Cruel reality forced the two men to choose paths that took their lives in different directions. Twenty-six years later, they get a second chance to fall in love with each all over again. Can it really be that simple, or will the same issues ruin their happiness a second time?
Happily ever after: to live happily for the rest of one’s life. Rush and Lincoln know that love and life can’t be defined by words alone. Patience, commitment, and the determination to do whatever it takes will be the only way the two men achieve their happily ever after.
Review: As I’ve come to expect from this author, each character, however brief their stay on the page, lives and breathes in the reader’s mind. Rush and Lincoln were each other’s first love and that memory stays with them as Rush has moved on to a successful career with a partner, and Lincoln lives as happy a life as he can while in the closet.
I loved the way that the author portrayed Lincoln’s life whilst he lived in the closet—with a family—as he wasn’t a cheater or seemingly empty drone hating his life. He felt some regret and wished that his life had allowed him to come out but was determined to be the best husband and father that he could to the people who mattered to him.
It was nice to see a situation where the wife was the one who asked for a divorce rather than the closeted man fed up with living a lie. While there can be a lot of debate on lies of omission, I don’t think Lincoln felt his life with his wife and children was a lie but the path he had chosen. It was nice to see how it developed and the friendship twenty years of living together strengthened when all the cards were on the table.
Rush’s pending engagement changes his thinking, that his partner and him are drifting apart to simply being stuck in a rut and having to work to get over the hump. Something that, unfortunately, doesn’t work out for him but helps him develop and grow as a person, showing that we never really stop growing at a particular age but that every step on the journey of life teaches us new things about ourselves and our own worlds.
The backstory of how their first love with each other peppered throughout the start made the important choices of their lives more poignant and dragged us into their growth, helping us empathise with all involved. When their lives finally met up again the sparks were flying, and it led us on the road to happy ever after.
This was a sweet book about love that can be as deep or shallow as you like, but is enjoyable however you take it.
You can buy Second Wind here:
[zilla_button url=”http://authl.it/B079QKNW5L?d” style=”blue” size=”large” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Amazon/Kindle Unlimited [/zilla_button]