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    The Second Chance Café
    The Second Chance Café
    The Second Chance Café
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Second Chance Café

    Written by Alison Kent

    Narrated by Natalie Ross

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Growing up, Kaylie Flynn was shuffled from foster home to foster home before being welcomed into Winton and May Wise’s family. It was May who taught Kaylie the comfort of home, and the healing power of baking the perfect brownie. Years later, May leaves Kaylie the money she needs to open her own café in the charming Victorian house they once shared. Now back in Hope Springs, Kaylie’s determined to finally make all her dreams a reality—and unearth answers to lingering questions about her past.

    Soon, however, Kaylie’s carefully laid plans take an unexpected turn. The house needs far more work than she realized, and Tennessee Keller, the carpenter Kaylie hires, is proving to be a very handsome and very unneeded distraction from her quest to uncover the truth about her parents. When a crisis threatens to destroy everything she’s worked so hard to build, Kaylie must decide where her heart lies: with the ghosts of her past or the love and promise of her future.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateMar 5, 2013
    ISBN9781469276816
    The Second Chance Café
    Author

    Alison Kent

    Alison Kent was a born reader, but it wasn't until she reached 30 that she knew she wanted to be a writer when she grew up. Five years later, she made her first sale. Two years after that, she accepted an offer issued by the senior editor of Harlequin Temptation live on the 'Isn't It Romantic?' episode of CBS's 48 Hours. The resulting book, Call Me, was a Romantic Times finalist for Best First Series Book.

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    Reviews for The Second Chance Café

    4/5

    79 ratings9 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A great listen and a few interesting twists in the story!
    • 5/5
      Very sad but very beautiful story. I do hope there apart from too.
    • 3/5
      Kaylie Flynn has returned home to Hope Springs, Texas, where she lived as a foster child from age ten to age eighteen, in an unusually fortunate foster experience. Having built a successful career and a nice nestegg as baker, she has now bought the old home of her late and much-loved foster parents, Winton and May Wise, to be not only her home, but her new business, the Two Owls Cafe, serving lunch from 10am to 2pm.

      She also has another mission, finding out what happened to her birth parents, and why they never came back to get her after the awful events that landed her in foster care.

      Hope Springs is a charming town, and the characters are likable and interesting. Having spent ten years in Austin, Kaylie is sometimes surprised at how many people remember her and her foster parents, here in small-town Hope Springs. They also remember her brownies--then and now, her method of dealing with emotional crises is to bake brownies, and then find people to eat them before she can eat them all.

      But Kaylie has her own memories, some clear, others buried, and she wants to find out her parents didn't want her. Like many children, she blamed herself for the upheaval of her childhood, and as an adult hasn't shed those feelings.

      Old neighbors and classmates, as well as people she didn't meet as a child, become new friends. The hunky contractor the old classmate who became the realtor who sold her the Wise home recommended, Tennessee Keller, is skilled, perceptive of her needs in the renovation, and, oh, yes, very attractive personally as well as physically. Luna Meadows, local maker of a stunningly successful line of hand-weaved wool scarves, becomes a good friend--but turns out to be sitting on a potentially explosive secret. Tenn Keller has his own secrets. Kaylie herself is keeping secrets from her new friends as well as from herself.

      Of course this all has to explode over all of them, and the question is whether the relationships she's built, and her new business, are strong enough to survive it.

      There were points at which I wanted to give Kaylie, Tenn, Luna, and others whacks upside the head with a clue-by-four, as I felt they were being more obtuse than the reasonable demands of the plot required, but really, I liked them all, and I'm not fond of violence.

      Recommended with the above-noted reservation.

      I bought this audiobook.
    • 2/5
      The Second Chance Cafe was an easy to read, although predictable romance. This book seemed pretty squeaky clean at first, so much so that I was reading it to my 73 yr old aunt. But, then I got to a sex scene that I thought was a little too explicit for this book and found myself skipping that whole section as I didn't feel comfortable reading that part to her. But, that being said, my aunt enjoyed the story and didn't seem to really notice when I was improvising through several pages. My aunt enjoyed the recipes that were included within the pages, and all in all it was an enjoyable story.
    • 4/5



      The Review:

      I read Alison Kent's Love in Bloom a while ago, and loved it. So when I read about this one on her blog, I knew I had to read it. And, I got to read it early, since I received a galley through Netgalley.
      Am I glad I read it? Oh yes.


      The setting of Hope Springs felt believable. It was small, closeknit and the citizens supported each other. But, I also liked the fact there were secrets. One of the thing that annoys me the most in contemporary romance novels is when everyone know everything about everybody, which is unrealistic.

      This was a heartwarming story, about healing past scars. All the characters had scars and secrets. It was touching to watch how Ten and Kaylie struggled with their scars, and how it affected them. But gradually, they started to tell each other about what had happened in the past, to each other and to their friends. I liked the secondary characters. They had their secrets, and had made their mistakes. What I especially liked, was how their secrets affected the plot.

      The plot was filled with unexpected twists. The transformation of the Wise/Coleman's house into a cafe felt believable. From how Kaylie listen to Ten's suggestion to how they discovered problems that delayed them.
      I liked the fact that a lot of the plot twists stemmed from the secrets the characters had. But I also liked the fact that they struggled with their decisions, and knew they would have consequences.
      That said, one thing I missed in this book was that their HEA never felt threatened. It is possible that it was affected by the fact that I read this on my phone, since I tend to skim more on my phone.
    • 4/5
      Another enjoyable read! After a run of duds, I'm so happy to have found yet another great book (and author). I loved the characters, loved both the romance plot line and the secondary ones. This book had me literally sobbing a few times, which, as I mentioned in my previous review, is not exactly something I look for in my escape reading. But they were good tears. Another author to happily seek out...
    • 4/5
      Listened for Review (Brilliance Audio)Overall Rating: 3.50Story Rating: 3.50Character Rating: 3.50Audio Rating: 3.50 (not part of the overall rating)First Thought When Finished: Strong beginning but the end kind of tapered off. I think there were too many things that were trying to be tied up.Story Thoughts: The Second Chance Cafe was a heart-warming story that made me want to believe in second chances. While I think the story had to much going on at certain times, the overall theme was fantastic. There were some heart-warming moments, some sad moments, and one really steamy scene towards the end (I read romance so this wasn't too bad but it felt a little out of place in this story). The romance was sweet, slow, and perfect for the two people involved. The side-story was actually a little more interesting to me and would have loved for it to be flushed out more.Character Thoughts: The characters in The Second Chance Cafe came in all shades of grey. I kind of like the idea that no one is perfect and we all have flaws. The main decisions that each of them had to make made me want to give them all a big ole group hug. There was a lot of love and wanting to do the right behind every single person in this story.Audio Thoughts: Narrated By Natalie Ross / Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins Natalie Ross is really brilliant at women's voices, pacing, and emotions. My only complaint with this audiobook was the main guy's voice, it just did not click for me.Final Thought: The Second Chance Cafe was a sweet romance with a strong emotional backbone!
    • 4/5
      I loved this book! The characters had depth and I found that the pace of character development as well as the plot went along at just the right pace. The reader is also introduced to other characters in the community whose story continues in the next book. Fans of Robyn Carr may enjoy this book. Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC copy in exchange for an unbiased review.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this contemporary romance/chick-lit read by Alison Kent. Overall the plot was mostly believable and I enjoyed the evolution of sharing that took place between Ten and Kaylie as well as that between Kaylie and Lena. The supporting characters were nicely fleshed out and I look forward to learning more about them as the series progresses. I would have enjoyed getting a bit broader view of Hope Springs as I feel settings are almost a character in and of themselves. Nevertheless, I believe I am hooked on Kent’s Hope Springs series and look forward to reading the next installment when it is released.I received an advanced copy of this novel via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.