Let Go of the Past--Embrace Your Second Chance You have a destiny. You may have lost sight of it, opened a wrong door, taken a misleading path, but it's there--you haven't missed your chance! Yet it can be hard to see, hard to find, when the only things in front of you are challenging circumstances, lost opportunities, or overwhelming obstacles. But there is hope! With warmth and insight, Pat Smith shares the truths she and other women have learned on their own journeys from heartache to hope. She encourages and empowers you to recommit to the destiny God has for you in life, love, work, and faith. She also shows how to let go of what's holding you back, reinvent yourself, and rediscover your purpose and joy. There is a second chance waiting for you--it's time to celebrate your new life!

In Second Chances, Chuck Gallagher comes clean about his past, his mistakes, and what they taught him as he rebuilt his life. Although Gallagher enjoyed a good life and a steady job, greed got the better of him, and little by little, he began to steal from his clients. It was only a matter of time before his choices caught up to him. After his stunning and public fall from the graces of his community, Gallagher describes his life in prison, the things he missed out on, and the steps he took to make things right. His inspiring story focuses on how anyone can take their worst moments of life and transform them into a better opportunity.

The author of the heartwarming Craig and Fred tells the deeply emotional and inspiring story of the next phase of their lives together: working closely with prison inmates in Maine who raise and train puppies to become service dogs. Former US Marine Craig Grossi and his dog Fred appeared on the "Today Show' and 'Rachael Ray', and in schools, bookstores, and military bases across America as they told the uplifting story of how Craig found Fred, a stray, while serving in Afghanistan--and brought him home. During their travels, Craig was invited to speak at Maine State Prison—the penitentiary that inspired Stephen King’s famous “Shawshank.” While there, he met a group of very special inmates, participants in a program run by the non-profit America’s Vet Dogs. Craig discovered that many of the prisoners are veterans—former soldiers serving their country in an entirely different way: by transforming purebred Labrador Retrievers from floppy puppies into indispensable companions for disabled vets. These service dogs literally and figuratively open doors for men and women, offering hope and a renewed sense of freedom. Yet these disabled vets are not the only lives changed by these dogs. The inmates who train them “are given a purpose, they’re given experience, and most importantly they’re given a sense of self-worth,” Craig explains. “The men at Maine State are given a second chance—something that I believe everyone deserves.” For Craig, the visit had a profound impact. “There was something special going on inside its walls and it was calling out to me. I quickly realized that the program and its men had something to show the world.” In this emotionally powerful book, he introduces these men and challenges us to look deeper, to see them as human beings deserving of a new shot at life. “We’re quick to give second chances to celebrities, politicians and famous athletes when they screw up,” Craig reminds us, “but when it comes to those who’ve been convicted for their mistakes, we too often dismiss them as forever lost.” Second Chances poignantly shows that no life is irredeemable and that each of us can make a difference if given the opportunity.

This book examines the iconic presence of second chances in everyday life. David Newman explores its various iterations in popular culture, commercial marketplaces, religion, intimate relationships, education, criminal justice, and human bodies. He analyzes how this concept—as a cultural aspiration, driver of policy, and lived personal experience—has become part and parcel of our individual sense of self and our collective national identity. While the rhetoric of redemption is familiar and ubiquitous, Newman uncovers the costs and constraints of second chances, paying particular attention to the factors that affect judgments of deservedness. Informed by an array of data sources including personal interviews, mission statements of nonprofit recovery agencies, images in popular culture, stories from the news, plot summaries of novels, and scriptural texts, Newman frames the second chance experience as the quintessential cultural paradox: a concept that simultaneously represents the pinnacle of our shared hopes for renewal and our deepest suspicions about the intransigence of human nature.

When feisty Huntington Beach entrepreneur Louisa Gibson begins filming the Mormon Bachelor, a reality dating web series, she has no idea that she will be forced to step in as a substitute bachelorette, becoming an unwitting cast member on her own show, and into the arms of Nick, her devastatingly handsome ex-boyfriend.

A charmingly quirky seaside town offers a recently separated restauranteur a fresh start and possibly a new lease on love in A Season for Second Chances, by the author of The Twelve Dates of Christmas. Annie Sharpe’s spark for life has fizzled out. Her kids are grown up, her restaurant is doing just fine on its own, and her twenty-six-year marriage has come to an unceremonious end. Untethered for the first time in her adult life, she finds a winter guardian position in a historic seaside home and decides to leave her city life behind for a brand-new beginning. When she arrives in Willow Bay, Annie is enamored by the charming house, the invigorating sea breeze, and the town’s rich seasonal traditions. Not to mention, her neighbors receive her with open arms—that is, all except the surly nephew of the homeowner, whose grand plans for the property are at odds with her residency. As Christmas approaches, tensions and tides rise in Willow Bay, and Annie’s future seems less and less certain. But with a little can-do spirit and holiday magic, the most difficult time of her life will become…a season for second chances.