Rules for Second Chances
Maggie North
352 pages/10 hours
St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan Audio
published June 25, 2024
Thanks @macmillan.audio and @stmartinspress for my early reading and listening copies. #MacAudio2024 #MacmillanAudioInfluencer #smpinfluencers #partner
This is definitely a different type of love story. The tag line being can true love happen twice with the same person. Liz and Tobin are struggling in their marriage and work to try and see if it is worth saving. Their second chance fight was a little heavier than the cover indicated. Even Liz’s attempts at improv to prepare for a pitch at work aren’t light.
I loved the MCs’ occupation was wilderness guides for a company. And I loved the MC was shown in all her social awkwardness even though I do wish it wasn’t every moment in the book. This would have helped me to connect with Liz earlier in her story.
I loved the yes and philosophy practiced as part of the improv and how that ultimately helped Liz figure and get what she wanted.
There was heart in the writing style that included both heartbreaking and heartwarming moments. And that ultimately there was redemption and hope in all of the couple’s trials and tribulations.
Gail Shalan did an excellent job voicing Liz and showing the ups and downs and anxiety that encompass her daily life. I wasn’t terribly fond of the male voice she used and that she used it for every male character. It made it a little harder to remember who Liz was speaking with. But I did appreciate that she made Tobin’s voice a little quieter than Liz’s. That seemed to fit with his personality.
While this wasn’t what I was expecting, I enjoyed this second chance romance between Liz and Tobin.
Liz Lewis has tried everything to be what people want. But she’s always been labeled different from everyone else in the boisterous world of wilderness expeditions—that is, if anyone notices her at all. Her marriage to popular adventure guide Tobin Renner-Lewis is a sinkhole of toxic positivity where she’s the only one saying no. In a mountain resort town built around excitement, introverted Liz gets…spreadsheets.
When she gets mistaken for a server at her own thirtieth birthday party and her last line of communication with Tobin finally snaps, Liz vows to stop playing a minor character in her own life. The (incredibly well-researched and scientific) plan? A crash course in confidence…via improv comedy class.
The catch? She’s terrible at it, and the only person willing to practice with her is a certain extroverted wilderness guide who seems dead set on saving their marriage one bonkers improv scenario at a time. But as Liz and Tobin get closer (…again), she’s forced to confront all the reasons they didn’t work the first time, along with her growing suspicion that there might be more to her social awkwardness than anyone realized. Liz has just eight weeks to learn improv’s most important lesson—”yes, and”—or she’ll have to choose between the love she always wanted and the dreams that got away.
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