REVIEW: "Reunited on Dragonfly Lane" by Annie Rains
I’ve always maintained a strict no re-dating policy.
As a rule, when I break up with someone, I remove him completely from my pool of prospective partners.
I will never date him again.
I will never hook up with him again.
I will never drunk dial him in the wee hours of the morning, no matter how many vodka martinis I might have consumed the night before.
My reason for adhering to this rule is simple. I don’t end relationships frivolously, so there was a good reason why we called it quits the first time around. In all likelihood, were we to give it another go, that reason would rear its ugly head again.
Because it would be destined for failure, any attempted relationship do-over would be a waste of my time. And, because I’ve pretty much always seen dating as just something you have to do if you want to ultimately get married and have kids, I certainly was not interested in putting effort into something that was doomed to fail.
As a quick caveat, I should say that this rule did not prove particularly difficult for me to abide by as my roster of romantic partners is pretty ridiculously small. We’re talking, low single digits. 🤷
Despite the restriction I place on myself, I respect the fact that some people are willing to give a relationship a second shot.
I mean, maybe you both grew.
Maybe you both changed.
Maybe, this time, it will work out.
And, if romance novels are to be believed, it really might not be a waste of time. There is, after all, a whole slew of romance novels containing the second-chance-romance trope. And this newest Annie Rains novel, the latest — and last — in her Sweetwater Springs series, is one of them.
By all appearances, Sophie Daniels lives a fulfilling life. The proprietor of a popular boutique in her hometown of Sweetwater Springs, she seems to have found her niche. What isn’t necessarily apparent on the outside, though, is that she struggles in silence.
Years ago, what was to be an enjoyable afternoon of climbing transformed into a harrowing, near-death experience. Though Sophie survived the incident, she did not escape without physical — and mental — scars.
The most significant impact of this event was on her confidence. Since the accident, the once self-assured Sophie has found herself focusing more on what she can’t do than what she can. This pessimism pervades her life, hindering her from moving forward in her life and from taking a chance on love.
Though Chase is technically the “new” veterinarian in Sweetwater Springs, he is not completely new to the town. Chase was raised in the town, along with his brother, Pete. He spent much time during his coming-of-age with Sophie, his then-girlfriend. In fact, Chase was supposed to be with Sophie on the day of her accident. Unfortunately he had, at the last minute, made other plans. It was this horrible twist of fate that ultimately ended the relationship that everyone around them — along with the duo themselves — assumed would end in matrimony.
Chases return to Sweetwater Springs changes things, though. As much as they both try to fight against the draw they feel towards each other, neither Chase nor Sophie can deny the chemistry that exists between them.
Will this attraction — and a residual emotion that can only accurately be described as love — be enough, though? Or will the lingering effects of Sophie’s past trauma, as well as Chase’s own hold ups and prejudices, prove too high a mountain to climb?
Clean and clear and formulaic — in the way readers so often want romances to be — this novel provides an easy escape from the very real — and, recently, incredibly abundant — challenges of daily life.
The plot is simple to follow and almost completely linear and the setting is warm and familiar and inviting.
Yet, despite all of this, this book left a bit to be desired.
Particularly problematic for me was the fact that I didn't really care for either of the main characters.
I found Chase’s black-and-white view of right and wrong to be really off-putting. Similarly frustrating was his myopic focus of the misdeeds of his brother — from whom he spends the bulk of the novel estranged. He is consistently unwilling to give not just his brother, but anyone with a dodgy past, a chance.
It was more than just that I didn’t like this characteristic of Chase, really. It was also that it didn’t ring true. I just don't know that I buy that a real person would be quite so rigid.
Similarly, I found Sophie's continual focus on her past hiking accident really frustrating. The fact that she couldn’t move past it — even in the most basic sense — made her seem really weak-willed. And that is not a characteristic I enjoy in female protagonists in any genre.
Honestly, my favorite character in this novel was neither the hero nor the heroine, but instead Trisha, Chase’s ex-sister-in-law and Sophie's best friend. Trisha, who is doing her best to raise the son that she had been left alone to parent when her husband sent to jail, is the type of strong, resilient woman I connect with and, as such, she was someone for whom I could root.
To my delight, though, I will get to see more of Trisha as she is the central heroine in The Summer Cottage, the first book in Annie Rains’ new Somerset Lake series, which hits shelves in May.
As for Reunited on Dragonfly Lane, though it’s a cutesy story that fans of second chance romances might enjoy, this one wasn’t quite a winner for me.
It earns 3 out of 5 cocktails.
What do you think about second chances romances — in books and IRL? Tell me about it in the comments, below.
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*I was provided a gifted copy of this title by the publisher*
