"...Last Chance, where inertia is a way of life."
A light blend of family dynamics and new love. It's summer in Last Chance, South Carolina and time for the Watermelon Festival. Single mom Amanda Wright, her young son and her colorful granny are ready to have some fun in the sun. Accompany the day is the mellow voice of DJ Grant Trumbull. Best selling author Hope Ramsay has written another fun story set in the Last Chance Series. A perfect, fun afternoon read.
Last Chance Summer is a novella, a short story around 10,000 words.
The publisher, Forever (Grand Central Publishing) provided a reading copy in hopes of a review. My words are my own.
Peter Gethers's popular memoirs, starting with The Cat Who Went to Paris, put his name on the literary map. In Ask Bob, Gethers tackles fiction, telling the story of Dr. Robert Heller, a prominent New York City veterinarian who also pens a newspaper column ("Ask Dr. Bob") addressing the concerns and woes of pet owners. Dr. Bob is no-nonsense in the delivery and approach of his column--and with his patients and their owners--but he's not as direct in his personal life. He comes from a dysfunctional family that has made his role as son, brother, uncle and lover a muddled, thorny challenge. When Bob meets and falls in love with a woman whose family has more issues than his, he takes solace in their romance and the security of his job, concluding that he understands animals better than people. But when tragedy strikes, Bob is forced to meet the challenge and tend to the people he loves and cares for the most.
Gethers has written a smart, lively novel infused with romance and heartfelt, real-life complications of family and domesticity, centered on the women in Bob's life who influence him the most over an 18-year period. Several of Dr. Bob's newspaper columns are interspersed throughout the novel, along with his charming, insightful notes about certain clients and important people in his life; these add levity and humor to the story's heavier themes. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines
