Reviewed by Jess
TITLE: Second Wind
AUTHOR: Ceillie Simkiss
PUBLISHER: Foxglove Fiction
LENGTH: 99 pages
RELEASE DATE: July 23, 2019
BLURB:
No matter how old you are, there’s always a chance for romance.
After the death of her husband, 71-year-old homemaker Martha Appleby is taking her first long-distance trip alone. That loss has derailed many of her plans for her twilight years, and she hopes to come to peace with not knowing what will come next.
70-year-old service dog trainer Pamela Thornton is hoping to take advantage of a well-timed work trip to figure out what to do next. Crouton is the last service dog of the litter, and she’s not sure she wants to keep raising dogs by herself.
These two childhood sweethearts haven’t seen each other in fifty years when they each board the same airplane, only to find they’ve been booked for the same seat.
If they can get past the ghosts of their past and decide what path they want to chart for their futures, this chance meeting could give their long lost relationship its second wind.
REVIEW:
It’s rare to find a romance with characters over the age of 40, so to have an F/F romance about childhood sweethearts reconnecting in their 70’s is a wonderful treat! This is a perfectly sweet romance with main characters who will melt your heart.
Martha and Pamela were best friends when they were 13, but when Pamela unexpectedly moved away with her family, the two lost touch. Now fate has thrown them together on a flight to Scotland, but their reunion is bittersweet. Martha is travelling to spread her late husband’s ashes, and though she’s still attracted to Pamela, she’s not sure she’s ready to open her heart again. After all, Pamela walked out of her life once…would she do it again?
I love these characters, both together and apart. Martha is more a traditional elderly character—widowed, uses a mobility aid, has kids and grandkids. But so rarely do we see these traits in romantic leads, so I really enjoyed it. Pamela is more on the eccentric side, with eclectic clothing and brightly dyed hair. She trains service dogs for a living, so seeing the ways those dogs are trained to new owners was really interesting (and the dog’s name is Crouton, which is too cute for words). The lengthy scenes of Scotland and all the tourist areas felt a little shoehorned at times, but it was a nice, calm, romantic setting for the women. There are also some good details about Martha and Pamela acknowledging nonbinary people respectfully, showing that, of course, age doesn’t have to correlate with ignorance.
While this story is good, it could’ve been great if it was a little longer and had a bit more backstory. We definitely needed a few more flashbacks to when Pamela and Martha were young. Even though they have an instant connection when they meet again, I wanted to feel their chemistry as girls. It’s a short work, so it’s harder to convey that sense of “long lost love,” but it got pretty close.
This is a quick, sweet story that won’t feel like anything you’ve read this year. I hope this sparks a new trend of romances between older characters!
RATING: 
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