The Road To Second Chance

Laney Mae is divorced with a young son, and not only is she dealing with the divorce, but her mother is dying. Through all of this, Laney Mae is hyper-focused on finding out information about the father she does not remember, who was killed in a car wreck. She is positively obsessed by this, to the point of harassing her mother on her deathbed. Even the hospice nurse tells her to stop doing it. This obsession continues throughout the book and frankly made me want to take Laney Mae and slap her silly. She is not acting like a mature woman. Her other obsession is imagining her father, whom she refers to as Dandy. While Dandy does give good advice and seems to be a nice person, Laney's obsession with this is a bit over the top too, show more although it might not be if she had been 10 and not 42. The comic relief involving transporting her deceased mother to the town of Second Chance, WV, was out of place, even if it was amusing.
I have a lot of family in WV, and I appreciate the way the author handled that. Too many times, people from WV are made to be uneducated and very backwards, but the people we meet in Second Chance remind me of people in my family, so that made me smile.
Overall, the book was an entertaining read. I think the obsessions could have been toned down, but the overall story was good, and it ended right (as my mother-in-law used to say).
***I received a free copy of this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program in exchange for an honest review.** show less

I really enjoyed reading The Road To Second Chance by Toni M. Andrews. Her book reminds me of Anne Tyler's, with the strong emphasis on developing characters and placing them in difficult situations.

The main character is Lannie May; she is 42, bitter about her husband's betrayal and divorce. She is now in charge of taking care of her dying mother, Faye Martin. Faye has held a grudge against her husband for many years after he died in a car accident. He and another woman died. Faye assumed that he was cheating on her and threw out all of his belongings and would not answer her daughter, Lannie May's, questions about her father.

Lannie May was born and raised in Second Chance, West Virginia until her father's death, then her mother's moves show more her family to Virginia and started working at the Pentagon. Later, cancer takes over her life, Lannie May moves in with her mother and her son, Christopher. Lannie keeps hoping that her mother would forgive her father and let her know about her father. She was only two years old and does not feel complete without knowing about him.

There was anger, tears, grief, forgiveness, and moments of humor and tenderness. I really loved this book and I hope that Toni M. Andrews writes many more books! show less

Thank you to LibraryThing, the publisher and the author.

Laney Mae was a 42 year old divorced woman living with her 10 year old son with her mom who was dying. All she wanted to know was about her father who died when she was 2 years old because she doesn't remember him. She bugged her older brother for years and he told her what he could. Her mom refuses to talk about him and there are no pictures of him anywhere. She'll never find out more or will she?

It goes back and forth from the 1960s to now (which was 2001 which makes it interestingly enough to keep it from being maudlin and sad with her mother's death in the present.

There was some comic relief with cousin Jake who was an assistant in a funeral home in their home town of West show more Virginia, who came to Virginia to pick up Mama Faye in a pink hearse and they traveled to Arlington Cemetery to “visit” one of Mama Faye's brothers per her wish and also JFK and RFK's grave. She loved both of them and had a picture of JFK in her living room.

I know this is not an ARC but the typos are there. Don't authors read their books or their editors? I don't care if it is a small publisher. Someone should catch them. Very noticeable especially one that was not funny. The funeral home was named The Final Rest and all of a sudden it was named “The Final Restaurant.” If I see brakes spelled breaks one more show less

This was a entertaining story. A story that was defiantly original, I have not seen in any books before. Which is very refreshing reading something not written a lot about.

The story is about a family who's father dies in a car accident. In the car with him is a women. So here is were there is a bit of a mystery.

The mother assumes that he was cheating on her. She then for the rest of her life is consumed with hatred.
The young daughter is obsessed with knowing anything about her father and knowing what he looks like, because her mother refuses to talk about him and has thrown away everything of his and everything there was that had anything to with him. She also forbids anyone to even mention his name much less talk about him to her show more kids.
Then there is an older son, who remembers him. He can tell his sister only a little of what he remembers of his father.

As they grow into adults the hatred and obsession does not go away.

This is were I think the author went over board and it kind of took away from the story, it was a bit to much hatred and obsession. All in all I liked it. show less

i could not put this down

I read and reviewed this book in November of 2023. I did not care for this story and do not recommend it.