The Second Chance Cafe Archives > recordedbookreview.com

Hope Springs: A foster child lovingly raised in an old Victorian house comes back, buys the old house, and opens up a Bakery Cafe where she can sell her special brownies.

19 Years of Reviews

The spunky wife of a floor licking, scum sucking, receptionist-nailing hack accountant discovers her husband's infidelity and writes up the dastardly deed in his monthly newsletter which she emails to kith and kin and customers. She accumulates notoriety ("SCORNED LOCAL WIFE SUED FOR SCATHING E-MAIL") , attractsAnd One Last Thing by Molly Harper read by Amanda Ronconi

Hitachi's beautifully directed High Definition video series called True Stories features a segment on "Coal's Comeback". A bunch of old em·phy·se·mic grandpas are fishing, muttering into the wind, when the voice of Bruce No of Hitachi America announces that Supercritical Technology is the new generation of Coal, the cleanSister Mine by Tawni O'Dell read by Renee Raudman

What starts up as an Insider's Guide to storage in L.A. develops into a diary by Holden Caulfield's bitch-sister, grown up into another alienated and out of joint L.A. wife. Judith was a thoroughly unpleasant daughter with a borderline personality disorder of a father who grew tomatoes in NebraskaTo Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal narrated by Susan Boyce

There is something annoying, something unsettling, something demoralizing about a story in which all the women are either murder victims, embittered but useless mothers, faithful, ineffectual wives, or sexually charged students with dancers' bodies. Annoying, too, is witnessing an entire small town turn against an innocent man and his brainyThe Bone House by Brian Freeman read by Joe Barrett

A sweet perfectly staged gem of a romance, with no excessive sexual details and no drawn out “chapter 4” breakup before coming back together. An uncle’s unusual bequest puts a hold on Molly’s hotel management career: she is compelled to help out an old friend by agreeing to marry andPamela Kelley Six Months in Montana

Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me hard boils the story from the start: London as the small bad city with its own 87th precinct: Brant, who cuts a bit off the top of every drug bust, makes himself loved by women, plays laid back surfer dude copCalibre by Ken Bruen read by Gerard Doyle

Another New York City nanny? No, no. This one wakes up screaming every morning, unable to stop the dream of a body bag around a not yet dead body. This one is having an affair with the father of the children she is nannying. This one sees cockroachesYou’ve Been Warned by James Patterson & Howard Roughan Read by Ilyana Kadushin

Utterly charming tale of British advertising executive fed up with the petty hysteria of bosses, clients and ex-wives. He quits. He drives to the south of France, meets a beautiful real estate agent, and opens a hotel. But things are not so simple...Hotel Pastis by Peter Mayle read by John Franklyn-Robbins

Another Wall Street soap opera about bourgeois boomie pretty boys in big trouble. Yes, we've got a situation here, as the Denver cops would say. Time to grab a big blonde with an MBA, rent a car, empty your bank account, and run. Fall in love with her on the road. Get shotThe Takeover by Stephen Frey read by Paul Hecht

Again, we have Washington with its burials and its laudations betrayals become elegy -- where the ones praising the dead are also their executioners. A Roman tradition carried brightly on by moral gamesmen, whose empires are supported by three rhetorical questions: Is it ethical for men in power, men entrusted byA House Divided by Mike Lawson read by Joe Barrett

The Louboutin-loving print reporter makes us want to read her. She writes well because she knows how to talk well to......everyone in Richmond, Virginia. And seems to fit in everywhere, despite the heels. Lyndee Walker tells us that "she has always wanted to be Lois Lane..." and gives us aFront Page Fatality by Lyndee Walker

Although less terrible than usual, Brick can't do funny. And this book can be funny. The ram rod straight CIA trainer; the queer, ruthless, demented Director of Operations; the stubborn, nerdish, accidentally lucky pseudo-operative determined to avenge his murdered girlfriend..... Then of course he bumps into a woman who canThe Amateur: A Novel of Revenge by Robert Littell read by Scott Brick

Publisher: Chivers North America,Pub Date: p2000.The Pushcart War between elevator operators and rich prick fathers with beautiful daughters. CRAZY FOR CORNELIA by Gilson, Chris.

Timothy Van Bender's beautiful, disappointed wife signed a pre-nuptial agreement which protected Timothy's inherited wealth from the contingency of her (slightly embarrassing) lower class. When she commits suicide, Timothy is left with a failing hedge fund, a not-yet redecorated house in Silicon Valley, his membership at the Menlo Circus Club,Switchback by Mathew Klein read by Chris Patton

Three women who are discontent present the traditional female problems, but unhinge these problems in different ways. One woman whines about her husband not wanting to pay for yet another IVF treatment; another woman whines about her unfaithful husband; another whines about being alone. But by the end of this story, noneA Secret Wish by Barbara Freethy narrated by Amy Rubinate

Tag: The Second Chance Cafe

The Second Chance Cafe by Alison Kent read by Natalie Ross