Second Chapter

De: C. G. Macington

Narrado por: Gavin Pottle

When celebrated science-fiction author Thomas Winters returns to Harbour Point after fifteen years away, he's only seeking solitude to finish his best-selling space series. Instead, he finds Oliver Chen—the man who got away—now a widowed bookstore owner raising his thirteen-year-old daughter, Lily.

As Thomas struggles with writer's block, young Lily becomes the unexpected bridge between these two men with unresolved history. A passionate fan of Thomas's books, she senses a deeper connection between her father and the author whose novels line their shelves.

In a small coastal town where private matters rarely stay private, Thomas and Oliver must navigate not only their complicated feelings but also the challenges of building something new under the community's watchful eye.

©2025 Andrew Rivera (P)2025 Andrew Rivera

Positives and negatives

I rarely write 3-star reviews for books; typically what spurs me to write a review is either absolutely loving the book or absolutely hating it. "Second Chapter" is different because there were aspects of the book that I loved, but there were so many issues that weighed it down that I can't in good conscience leave a four or five star review.

First, the positives, and there are many. The writing is good, occasionally excellent. Emotional moments are poignant without veering into melodrama. I genuinely liked all the characters, including Lily, which is unusual for me because I don't like kids in fiction and I HATE smart kids in fiction, but she's a smart kid and I liked her. I liked that the book doesn't come across as something that would first appear as fanfiction on Archive Of Our Own. It's written by a male author, and the characters come across as actual men instead of romance novel stereotypes designed to make female readers giggle and swoon. It's a book based on a trope (second chance romance) but it doesn't come across as a particularly "tropey" book, if that makes sense. It seems wholesome in a way that most gay fiction doesn't, so much so that when there actually is sex on page it almost seems vulgar, in a way. Lastly, and this is hugely important because it's the reason I've been burned out on romance novels lately, the characters talk to each other like human beings and not as though they're starring in a movie produced by an HR department on how to interact with your coworkers. Words cannot express how pervasive HR-speak has become in publishing, and m/m romance novels are particularly susceptible to it.

So it's unfortunate that as the book wore on I was feeling less and less positive about it, although everything that I've already mentioned is maintained throughout the novel. The biggest flaw in the novel is that--and I don't know how to put this delicately--I seemed to be paying more attention to it than the author was while writing it. Revelations happened more than once, the novels that the protagonist Thomas (an author) was writing seem to be inconsistent, and Oliver has a freakout halfway through that is quite possibly the most nonsensical and baffling character action I've read this year, maybe in the past several years.

Minor spoilers here and in the next paragraph, but it's worth it to show just how bizarre one of the mid novel plot twists is. It's stated that Thomas is writing his novels based partly on his own experiences with Oliver, and he actually makes that pretty clear to Oliver several times. It's established that both Oliver and his daughter Lily are superfans of Thomas's books, and so was Oliver's late wife, Sarah, to the point where Sarah would read the books and point out to Oliver places in the books where Thomas might be referencing their relationship. According to Lily, Oliver also apparently keeps a notebook of his own theories detailing who might be the inspiration behind some of Thomas's characters. The sci-fi novels that Thomas writes feature Captain Elian (which I may be spelling wrong), and she has a navigator whom she relies on and apparently the relationship is meant to mirror Oliver and Thomas's relationship (although she also has a relationship with someone she left on her home planet which... sounds pretty similar to their relationship as well, so that's already contradictory and confusing). At one point, someone points out to Oliver that he might have inspired the navigator and he completely loses it for some reason, saying that Thomas had no right to write about their relationship without his permission, despite the fact that he already had more than one conversation with Thomas about how the books were reminiscent of their relationship and he also used to have conversations with his wife about it. So why is he suddenly super bothered by the similarities? The book doesn't explain. And what makes it even more ridiculous is that the navigator's name is Chen, which is ALSO OLIVER'S LAST NAME. You're telling me that Oliver and his dead wife combed the books looking for references to Oliver and they somehow missed the fact that the navigator has the same personality as Oliver, the same ethnic background, and the same freaking NAME? Maybe I'm being ungenerous here and the name of the navigator in Thomas's novels is actually "Cheng" or "Chan" or something and I'm just hearing it wrong, but even if it is, that's still very close. And what's more, Elian and Navigator Chen/Chang/Cheng/Chan aren't even in a relationship in Thomas's book, so who even cares if people know Oliver is the inspiration behind him? He should be more worried if people think her former partner whom she left on her home planet is inspired by him.

Anyway that isn't the first time in the novel that something pops up that makes me think that maybe the outline had to be revised a few too many times for the narrative to make sense, but it is the first time that I actually shouted 'What??" at my phone as I was listening. Another example: Lily seemed to be aware of her father's history with Thomas very early on and seemed to be trying to push the two of them together, which seemed odd to me because we never really were told why she was doing this despite having chapters from her point of view. But then she finds something that details their former relationship and she's surprised by it. Well then what were you doing earlier making sure they were alone together? But then later she says she suspected it from the first moment she saw them together, which, ok, but then why were you surprised when you found the proof of their history?? It makes me feel as though there were revisions made to the author's outline about when and how Lily found out about the two of them and somehow BOTH ideas made it into the book.

In general, I like the narrator; his voice is masculine and pleasant to listen to but then he occasionally reads a line with an obviously incorrect inflection, and sometimes mispronounces common words (to be fair, these could be typos which I know audiobook narrators are supposed to say as written, but he mispronounces the word "conspicuous" twice so that seems unlikely to be true in all cases). But he manages to inject real emotion and good acting (without overdoing it) into some intense parts of the narration, so I'm still giving him four stars.

Anyway the book ended up being a mild disappointment, but only because it started so promisingly and was otherwise so finely crafted. I don't know if I'd recommend it; even Oliver's nonsensical freakout is preferable to HR-speak.

Second Chapter Review

Hi, this is actually the Narrator wanting to thank everyone who ends up listening and leaving a review for this audiobook!!! Hope you enjoy my performance!