Second Chance

by Siïn James

Overview

Returning from London to Wales for her mother’s funeral, actress Kate Rivers is overwhelmed by painful memories from her past as well as regrets about her current childless, unmarried life. Teetering towards a midlife crisis, Kate is unable to find the emotional support she needs from her lover, Paul. Instead she finds herself falling for her beautiful and married cousin, Rhydian. But is her affair a second chance at happiness or a dangerous infatuation? This absorbing novel retells the familiar human tales of love and family relationships in a sympathetic yet unsentimental way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781854115430
Publisher:	Seren
Publication date:	06/01/2011
Pages:	254
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Sian James was brought up and educated in West Wales. Her first novel, One Afternoon, won the Yorkshire Post First Novel Award; her second, Yesterday, won the Yorkshire Post Best Novel Award; and her fifth, Dragons and Roses, won a Welsh Arts Council prize. She has four grown-up children and one grandchild, and now lives in Warwickshire.

Sian James's first novel won the Yorkshire Post first novel award; her fifth won a Welsh Arts Council award. She lives in England.

Editorial Reviews

A 40-something British actress plunges headlong into a dangerous affair with her cousin in James' (Summer Storm) sixth novel, which begins when Kate Rivers is forced to take a break from her London career to settle family affairs back in Wales after the death of her mother. The mundane process comes with a risky potential bonus, though, when a visit from her cousin Rhydian, a handsome farmer with a wife and three children, kindles a serious spark. Their awkward efforts to get together are quickly complicated by Kate's divorced boyfriend, Paul, when his family completely comes apart after one of his college-age twin daughters is accused of manslaughter and the other commits suicide during the police investigation. James spends too much prose early on describing the details of Kate's childhood, but once the story gets going she delivers the various plot twists with brisk pacing and suspense, as the whirlwind of family activity keeps Kate's affair in suspended animation. That stasis fizzles into a disappointing, rather hurried resolution, as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place after the family explosion. James has a fine eye and ear for the details of small-town Welsh life, and the middle chapters are riveting and emotionally complex, but their excellence makes the ending seem all the more lackluster. Kate Rivers is a memorable character, but she deserves a more intriguing fate than her creator was able to deliver. (Aug. 17) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

A contrived, overplotted romance from Welsh novelist James (Two Loves, 1999, etc.). After her mother dies unexpectedly, 43-year-old Kate Rivers, a moderately successful actress, returns briefly to the Welsh village where she was raised. Soon her cousin Rhydian and his wife drop by to pay their respects. Rhydian's mother had always been particularly kind to Kate and her emotionally fragile mother, but Kate's reaction to Rhydian goes beyond family ties: she feels a passionate chemistry she has never experienced before. Meanwhile, Kate's live-in lover Paul has his own family crises to keep him from offering her the solace she expects. First, his daughter Annabel is implicated in the drug death of a college classmate. Then, as soon as she's out of legal danger, her twin sister Selena commits suicide. Kate buries her mother and makes intense, meaningful though rather quick love with Rhydian before heading to Cambridge to help Paul cope. Although Kate claims she has never felt accepted by the twins, Annabel quickly confides not only her sense of guilt about Selena's death but also the news that she's pregnant and intends to keep the baby despite having broken off with the father. Annabel also warns Kate, who responds with minimal regret, that Selena's death has brought Paul and his ex-wife together. Suddenly close, Annabel and Kate return to Wales, where the family has decided to hold Selena's funeral. Annabel and the young minister who has recently taken over the local church fall head over heels at first sight. Kate and Rhydian decide that although they are soulmates he cannot leave his three children and pregnant wife. And Kate returns to London disconsolate-until she discovers she toois pregnant with Rhydian's child: her second chance for happiness has come along after all. Schlock with a lilting accent is still schlock.

Kirkus Reviews