When Broadway actor Tom Wilczewski is about to jump into raging waters during a category 3 hurricane to save his co-lead, he calls his ex-wife and leaves her a message telling her he regrets their divorce and still loves her. Two months later Rose Kelly is in a bad place and hear’s Tom’s message for the first time. She reaches out and asks for his help to revitalize her family’s B&B in Martha’s Vineyard and Tom, hoping for a reunion agree’s. What she doesn’t count on is for the rest of his Broadway cast to show up and help.

Rose and Tom’s relationship ended because of a lack of communication and they were only 22 years old. Way too young to figure out that they needed to fight for their marriage instead of just give up. 10 years later, Tom is still acting and in his first big Broadway role, yet he doesn’t hesitate to rush to Rose’s side to provide whatever help he can give. In the telling of this story we learn quite a bit about their dynamics as a couple and what went wrong, and what I loved about that telling is that with more adult eyes, the things that were so important at 22 were not as important at 32. It’s the message behind trying to make things work that, well, made this kind of awkward novel work too.

There was a fun sub-plot to this story about Tom being romantically involved with his male co-lead, Boyd, who’s actually a very well known actor. The reality is a bit different that what’s playing out in the gossip rags, but Tom is actually bi-sexual, as he was when he and Rose met. This sub-plot was a bit of mis-direction but also had a lot of charm and brought a sense of lightness to what could have been a kind of serious novel about second chances. A lot of that had to do with Boyd, his not very bright decision making, and his pack of groupies. I was never sure where the scene would lead when Boyd entered the page, but I always looked forward to it.

This novel wasn’t perfect. Tom and Rose’s second chance was filled with a lot of doubt and gray areas that sometimes made their character’s decisions kind of hard to follow. I loved Tom’s fortitude in wanting to win Rose back despite all of her hesitations. He was all in, and because of that I was all in too.

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I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review and it was honest.

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