Chance of a Lifetime
By Jodi Thomas
Publisher: Penguin Group
Release Date: December 31, 2012
Jodi Thomas takes readers back to Harmony, Texas, for a
fifth installment in this small-town series filled with quirky characters who
show that there’s always something extraordinary about the lives of ordinary
people. In
Chance of a Lifetime, the
focus is on three of these characters: Emily Tomlinson, the town librarian,
whose painful secret has leached the color and dimension from her life; Rick
Matheson, a lawyer whose empty office seems like his biggest problem until
someone starts trying to kill him; and Beau Yates, a young country
singer-songwriter with bad memories and big dreams.
Tannon Parker was Emily Tomlinson’s best friend throughout
their childhood, the kind of friend who never let her down until one day he
wasn’t there when teenage Emily most needed someone. Their friendship never
recovered, and for years they have been little more than passing acquaintances.
But when Tannon needs a favor from Emily, life gives them the chance for the
wounds of the past to heal and a renewed friendship to grow that will give them
a future richer and brighter than their youthful dreams.
Emily is an only child whose parents are dead, but Rick
Matheson, a member of one of Harmony’s original families, has the opposite
problem. The town is filled with Mathesons and their connections, all of whom
are determined to protect Rick when it becomes clear that he has an enemy who
wants to rid Harmony of the lawyer permanently. Enter Trace Adams, a
motorcycle-riding U. S. Marshall on leave who possesses the skills and training
to protect Rick from his assailant and the appeal and passion to jeopardize his
heart in the process. Trace is a loner not looking for permanent ties, but Rick
believes in the future they can build together enough to take a chance on
rejection.
Beau Yates’s fundamentalist preacher father cut loose the
son he’s convinced is headed for hell, but the growing popularity of Beau’s
music in Harmony and beyond and moonlight rides with a mystery girl are giving
Beau a taste of heaven—his idea of it at least. Life in small-town Texas may be
a long way from the Nashville stardom Beau dreams of, but it nurtures him and gives
him rich material for his songs. Meanwhile, Beau’s belief that his chance will
come is growing stronger.
Harmony has become one of my favorite fictional places, and
I look forward to each new book in the series. Thomas deftly weaves together
the stories of new characters and characters readers have met in earlier books.
She also includes enough bits about lead characters from earlier books to assure
readers that their favorites are flourishing but not enough to distract from
the new focal characters. If parts of the plot in this one seem to defy the
logic of small-town life, the characters are such a delight that it’s easy to
suspend disbelief and just enjoy another visit to Harmony. I finished Chance of a Lifetime satisfied that
Emily and Tannon are all set to live happily ever after, hopeful of seeing Rick
and Trace move toward a more definite HEA in future books, eager to see Beau’s
dream continue to develop, and persuaded that the next book in the series will
leave me as primed for more Harmony stories as this one and its predecessors
did.
~Janga
http://justjanga.blogspot.com
