Once Again, Now
By Charmaine Gordon
Keene Publishing
330 pages
larger print
$15.00
After sharing her life with her husband for 40 years, Kate Harris finds herself alone. A widow for a year after her husband dies of a heart attack, Kate agrees to attend her friend's "recycling" party. Now she has to find an unattached man and whip up a decent salad. Call it fate, but she meets Mac McCord, a handsome, middle-aged man who is friendly, clever and possibly the man for her. Mac's wife was killed in a bus explosion in the Middle East and it's been difficult for him to be alone. Having both lost their spouses, they find they are more than compatible. They are actually very good together as lovers and companions. They swing right into a new couple's lifestyle.
During this transitional phase of Kate's life, she decides to make some changes. For one, she takes a computer class at a local college so she can finally learn how to use the Internet and just may start her own travel business.
It seems that both Kate and her friend, Ron, are on the road to recovery. She hadn't talked to him since his wife, Lauren, died of cancer a year before her husband. But now they're back to being old friends.
Because of Mac's wife's tragic death, he's obsessed with Kate being safe. He convinces her to learn how to fire a handgun. They close one door to their lives and open an other. They marry in mid-October and honeymoon in Israel. Slowly he confides to her about his past and she becomes content with her new life. But are they to live happily ever after?
ONCE AGAIN, NOW is about second chances at being in love, being a part of someone else's life. It's about leaving behind old, familiar rituals, furnishings and often friends and establishing a new home, becoming part of a new "couple" and finding out about each other. This book will have you crying right along with the characters.
The only thing I wasn't thrilled about was one character's personal agenda, no matter what it cost others. But that's life.
--Denise Fleischer, gottawritenetwork.com
four and a half rose petals out of five
November 5, 2005
