"Engaging romantic suspense tale"

When his abhorrent stepfather Max Strongman decides to drill for oil on the family ranch in Alberta, Dylan McLean is outraged by the potential environmental harm to the McLean property. Dylan organizes a protest, but a scuffle occurs and an innocent girl is killed. Dylan feels culpable because he arranged the demonstration that led to the death of the teenager. Unable to cope with what happened, Dylan leaves town with no warning just before he is to marry Cathleen Shannon.

Two years later, a rodeo injury sidelines Dylan who begins to ponder what happened on that fatal day. He postulates who is the killer and decides it is time to prove his innocence to Cathleen. Rather then pine, Cathleen opened up the bed and breakfast that she once thought she would manage with Dylan. She rejects Dylan's efforts to reenter her life, but still gives him a place to sleep, albeit her barn. As he atones for what he did to her, their love flourishes, but Cathleen fears Dylan will just leave again.

SECOND CHANCE PROPOSAL, the first of three consecutive months of Shannon sisters' tales, is an engaging romantic suspense tale that grips the readers from the start. Though some readers will feel sorry for Dylan as a flawed person unable to cope with the tragedy, others will dub him a loser especially as Cathleen is one heck of an individual, making his desertion even less tolerable. Still C.J. Carmichael opens her trilogy with a strong second chance at love tale that whets the appetite of fans anxiously awaiting the next two releases.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted January 29, 2002

Summary

He's back!

Two years ago, almost everyone in Canmore, Alberta, thought Dylan McLean was responsible for the death of a teenage girl on his father's ranch. Only Cathleen Shannon believed he was innocent.

Then he left her at the altar and fled town. Now Dylan has returned and he wants a second chance--from the townspeople and Cathleen!

Having been jilted on her wedding day, Cathleen is furious when Dylan shows up asking for assistance. But that doesn't mean she wants him paying for a crime he didn't commit. So maybe she will help him clear his name.

A second chance at love, though? That's out of the question. Or is it?