Title: Second Song
Series: Second Chance School: Book One
Author: Con Riley
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 312 Pages
Category: Contemporary Romance
Rating: 5 Stars
At a Glance: Con Riley delivers a patently beautiful story in Second Song, about two men who get a second chance to love themselves.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Do first times count if you forget them?
Rowan: I once lost a national singing contest. My consolation prize? A night I can’t remember and the tattoo on my bare bottom going viral. Six years later, I’m ready to rise like a phoenix from those shameful public ashes even if my singing days are over. Training as a music teacher is the second chance I need to prove I can be trusted to help children with their own trauma.
I can’t get distracted by falling for the wounded hero who saved me on my first day in Cornwall.
Liam: Blast damage forced me to leave the Army, and guilt keeps me running from those I hurt in the process. I don’t intend to fall for a pretty stranger trapped on a cliffside, but something about Rowan makes me crave more than our one heated night together, especially when he responds like I’m the first man to ever touch his heart or body.
If he wants a second chance here in Cornwall, I’ll stay and fight until he gets one.
Review: The Romance genre is rife with love stories about second chances. Con Riley delivers a patently beautiful one in Second Song, about two men who get a second chance to love themselves.
Rowan Byrn is introduced in a rather unconventional way, and it couldn’t have been sweeter or more rife with meet-cute vibes, despite the danger involved. Liam Sexton didn’t set out to be irrevocably smitten with Rowan at first sight, nor Rowan with Liam, but that’s precisely the way their story goes, and it’s lovely, pure and simple. The need to be in each other’s vicinity when circumstances work against them is something unfamiliar to them—the yearning part, that is—but is also altogether mutual. I don’t know what the opposite of risk averse tendencies is, but that doesn’t describe these two men in the slightest. They put themselves out there, wearing their hearts on their sleeves, and they hope for an outcome that keeps them close to each other for much longer than just one night.
Along with emotional healing comes new friends, rekindled friendships and family connections, and found family, which is an integral ingredient in the recipe this series follows. This little corner of Cornwall is composed of hurt and healing, kindness and compassion. There is an incredible gentleness in these stories that still manage to stir feelings and tweak emotions. There are no ifs, only whens. The only hows come with introspection and some top-notch dialogue, another hallmark of Riley’s storytelling.
Being back at Glynn Harber is like being welcomed home and embracing family who welcome and embrace you right back. While knowing the characters who meet Rowan right where he is delivers optimum warmth, it’s not necessary to know them all in order to feel their genuine commitment to everyone’s well-being, whether they be student or teacher or stranger. The most valuable lessons, after all, frequently happen outside the classroom but are no less imperative. For Rowan and Liam, those lessons come with a heaping helping of trauma, guilt, and injustice. Fortunately, they also usher in forgiveness. Not of each other, but of themselves.
You can buy Second Song here:
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