Release Day Review: Second Shot by Con Riley

03 October of 2024 by ButtonsMom2003

Second Shot By Con Riley

Genre: Contemporary Romance, GLBTQ, MM

Tropes: Found family, second chances

Released: October 3, 2024

Publisher: Self-Published

Series: Second Chance School, Book 2

Length: 364 Pages

Cover Design: Natasha Snow

Synopsis

Welcome back to Glynn Harber School for another steamy, swoony romance between two bruised souls.

Passion always leads to heartbreak for Hayden Novac.

Nice guys always get picked last. That’s what my coach at a soccer academy once promised. Ten years and a career change from a footballer to a farm worker and woodland manager later, it turns out that his picked-last rule also applies to my love life.

I can’t imagine what being someone’s first choice feels like until an artist shows me at the school where I now work.

I could have a second shot at happiness with Rae, but given my track record of scoring own goals, can I risk bruising my heart again to take it?

Featuring an ex-footballer afraid of rejection and the artist who draws a different future for him, Second Shot continues Con Riley’s Second Chance School series. Expect passion in close proximity, love as wild as Cornish woodland, and an HEA that will keep you turning pages.

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Review

Reviewed by ButtonsMom2003

So good, so moving!

OMG, Con Riley’s books always stir all of my emotions in the very best way. Second Shot got to me quickly and didn’t let go. You can read this book as a standalone but you might enjoy it more if you’ve at least read Charles, book one in her Learning to Love series. Beloved characters from that series make appearances in this book and series.

This story is spicy – Hayden and Rae have a sexy encounter in Chapter 7 – but it also has a slow-burn feel to it. Each character’s background is revealed to us bit-by-bit as Con Riley weaves a magical story rich with descriptive prose that made me wish that I could be in the story with them.

As I read the book on my e-reader, I marked two places where I was nearly sobbing because of the emotion the character was feeling, and a few more that brought tears to my eyes. I should tell you that I am one of those readers who loves it when a story brings me to tears. This doesn’t mean that the story is angsty or even sad – I don’t think Second Shot is – it just means that the writing was so good that it made my heart feel overwhelmed at times.

Hayden and Rae don’t have an easy path to their HEA. Both of them have things in their past that they don’t freely disclose and misunderstandings happen but are soon righted. A character is introduced during the epilogue and I was very happy to learn that the next book will be about him.

Books like this one are why Con Riley is on my list of favorite authors.

♥♥♥♥♥

O Factor: Spicy

Second Chance School Series

♥ Amazon US ♥ Amazon CA ♥ Amazon UK ♥

#CommissionsEarned

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About Author

CON RILEY lives on the wild and wonderful Welsh coast, with her head in the clouds and her feet in the ocean.

Injury curtailed her enjoyment of outdoor pursuits, so writing fiction now fills her free time. Love, loss, and redemption shape her romance stories, and her characters are flawed in ways that make them live and breathe.

When not people-watching or reading, she spends time staring at the sea from her kitchen window. If you see her, don’t disturb her — she’s probably thinking up new plots.

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