REVIEW: 'Second Chances Book One' by Rain Carrington
Title: Second Chances Book One
Series: Second Chances
Author: Rain Carrington
Published: November 3, 2015
Publisher: AAS Publishing/Self-Published
Genre: Erotic Romance; Contemporary Romance
Length: 197 Pages
Tags: Gay; M/M; BDSM; D/s; Angst: Light
BLURB:
Having everything he needed and wanted in his life for the first time, Brian Lauder was perfectly happy. He had a career that he loved, a home, friends and a submissive that he adored. One he thought he’d held at a big enough distance from to protect his heart. That was all before Morgan stepped back into his house and his life.
Morgan Cherik was everything a man could want. Beautiful, driven and eager to kneel for his Master, but he’d left without a word two years before to follow his dream, leaving Brian to pick up the pieces of a shattered heart.
Now he was back and Brian was torn between wanting to feel that love he’d never been able to shake for Morgan, or punish him and let him go. Then there was Pez, the young college student who had helped him heal. How could Brian let him go?
As Morgan begins to make amends, Brian knows that he cannot get over the other man who’d left his life for Brian’s happiness. Will the memory of Pez come between them, or bring them closer together?
First installment of the Denver Diaries Collection, a collection of serials all centering on the city of Denver, the club Chaps and a group of characters that threaten to take your heart and never leave you the same. Enjoy book one!
5 HEART READ
REVIEW:
Rain Carrington’s Second Chances Book One had me forcing myself to sit down and not jump around, waving my hands, while screaming “fan-girl, fan-girl here!”
If you have not had a chance to see what Carrington’s Second Chances series is all about, I encourage you to do so.
Carrington creates a beautiful cast of characters that just reach inside and grab you and don’t want to let go.
On these pages she has created a Dom so fierce, yet with such loyal compassion and understanding, that you are not going to want to put this book down.
When Brian’s past sub, Morgan, returns after leaving him without a word two years earlier, you can feel his pain, hurt, and anguish as if it happened to you yourself. Morgan’s regret, however, is almost as palpable.
The history, the love between them is overpoweringly evident, as well as the loss they both feel from Morgan having left. I could feel myself mourning for what once was.
But, as much as Brian wants to take Morgan back he doesn’t know that he can. For one, he is not sure he can endure the heartache should Morgan bail again. For another, even though he believes he has kept his heart at bay, he is in love with his new sub, Pez.
In an act of selflessness, Pez makes a suggestion to Brian that is a testament to his true love for Brian, and it rocks you to the core. My heart immediately burst for Pez and then sank it to my gut as I wondered what the ultimate consequence of such a sacrifice might be.
As Brian struggles with his warring feelings, he realizes what he must do. If he doesn’t at least try he will live with regret. But why must he give up one for the other?
As the story unfolds we see what each man is willing to sacrifice for the other and the toll it takes on each of them. Lost without Brian’s dominance and support, Pez heads on a course of self-destruction.
At the same time, Morgan is exposed, ready and all willing to serve his Master in order to prove his commitment and remorse.
There were moments so intense that it made me want to cry how much the “tough love” was killing Morgan and Brian, but at the same time, steering them both to true healing.
The love and respect Brian and Morgan have for one another as a couple, and as a Dom/sub, is more than evident in every interaction.
And Brian, we see him trying to come to terms with his need for Morgan yet his overwhelming feeling of loss for Pez. He struggles with a yearning to have them both.
Can he be enough Dom, enough of a man, for both?
At times the emotion in Second Chances Book One was so intense you could not help but feel like a rubber band wound up so tightly it could not help but snap.
The way Brian exerted his dominance while at the same time having a loving touch was beautiful to see and you appreciated him for the true Dom that he was. I wanted Brian as my Dom—the man is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.!
Through Morgan’s eyes, Brian’s own thoughts and his work as a psychologist at a women’s prison, as well as Pez’s longing, you see how Brian is a caring Dom. You know when he discovers Pez’s downward spiral, Morgan’s return is going to be challenged.
In the end, will Morgan be able to keep his promise to Brian, to never leave again, once he takes a noble leap that threatens to change their entire dynamic?
Second Chances Book One is a book of two men struggling with their need for the beautiful dominance one man evokes. It is a story of one man’s struggle to reach inside his soul and determine if his heart is big enough for two. It is a story of regret, selflessness, courage—but most of all it is a story of self-sacrificing commitment among three beautiful men.
Book originally reviewed by Kimmers in connection with now exited QUEERcentric Books blog. Second Chances Book One was provided free of charge to QCB, by the author, in exchange for our fair and honest opinion.
Carrington started writing when she was just a teenager in Trinidad, Colorado but didn’t start writing M/M romance until much later. Through the years many of her gay male friends told stories of heartache and the struggle to find “the one” so she told them stories, fantasies all about them and their future cowboy, fireman, biker or policeman. When she found a writing site that encouraged her to write them down she started what was an adventure like she never had before.
Her first story, Cabin fever, about a young man searching for love and finding it wrapped in a member of a mafia family gained her readers who cheered for more. She knew then that she had found her place in the world. To make stories of love and kink that not only her readers but she could get lost in as well. Rain now lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado but has traveled most of the US. Her last road trip to San Francisco gave her characters still coming out…no pun intended…in her newer stories. Rain has severe scoliosis which makes it hard for her to do all the things she used to love but it did give her the time to write that she never had before. She fights for LGBT rights from her home as best she can now and keeps in close contact with her friends that fight on two good legs to point them where they should go. She is a fervent believer that one door never closes without another opening so there are no limits she can’t get past. Of all the people in the world no one has encouraged and supported her like her friends, many of them writers themselves, and her family. There is never a dull moment in her home where laughter is in the air 24/7 and everyone knows to avoid the computer screen when she sits in front of it. They never know what kind of beautiful man love they may see. Rain calls it research, they call it, “there she goes again!”
