Second Chances is the first book I have read from this author, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The characters are well developed, and I cared what happened to each and every one of them.The book is told from multiple points of view, with each POV shift getting its own chapter, and the narration is in third person close with no head-hopping.With the social issues it explores, and the sensitive way in which this is done, this book is a must read. The author portrays the privileged white lawyer, the poor black girl, and the struggling young alcoholic all with equal authenticity. The only thing that detracted from this is the dialogue; it all felt the same. People from such different backgrounds just wouldn’t enunciate everything in exactly the same way, and many more contractions are used in daily speech than depicted here.

Other issues that marred the read somewhat for me are the numerous hiccups regarding the use of commas, as well as basic spelling errors. There is a huge difference in the following dialogue, just for want of one little comma: ‘Come on Jason’ (as written) versus: ‘Come on, Jason’ (as it should be written); and the same with ‘Thank you for sharing Angelina’; what the author intended to say was, ‘Thank you for sharing, Angelina.’ Also chunks of information got repeated on a number of occasions unnecessarily, and dialogue tags had a tendency to tell what had already been shown. All of which are why I gave 4 stars instead of 5. With a little polishing, this would be a definite 5 star read.

If you enjoy a good, realistic literary fiction read, you will love this book. This is an author I will be reading more of, for sure, and I highly recommend that you give Second Chances a go.