A New Chance

LOCAL AUTHOR

A New Chance is a remarkable tale of new beginnings, unlikely connections, and bright futures. Kevin E. Ready does an amazing job of character development and creating realistic military scenarios.

Ex-Army operative Mark Kelleher is on his way to a date with a girl he met in his online dating app when a drunk driver in a Ford truck on the Bay Area highway is headed right for Mark in his BMW. Mark has nowhere to go, and as the emergency team tries to get him out of his car with the jaws of life, there is a massive explosion. Mark screams as he burns to death.

Eighteen-year-old Naomi Donnelly has been in a coma for three months after finding herself in a situation that ended up with her swallowing several baggies of different narcotics. Those narcotics seeped into her system, and the nurses call her Sleeping Beauty, expecting her to pass at any time.

At the exact moment Mark dies in the explosion, Naomi wakes up with Mark’s memories. She remembers nothing about how she ended up in the hospital, and even as the medical staff monitor her vital signs and perform tests on her, there is no sign of her body deteriorating except for the fact that she is underweight after being in a coma for so long.

This is where I thought the book would take a supernatural or religious turn. But instead, the two characters seem to mesh seamlessly the more the story progresses. With Mark’s memories and Naomi’s gorgeous physical features, it’s as if the perfect person has been created. Although this part of the book was very unrealistic, it sparked my interest, and I was very pleased when Naomi moves on to become a nurse and then enlists in the Army. Before enlisting, she meets Jesse who was also in the Army. They fit together perfectly, although they both have some very big secrets that they are keeping from one another.

A New Chance is filled with exciting military scenes while we follow Naomi as she uses Mark’s knowledge to become a super nurse. The description of warfare, battle scenes, and medical set-up were so realistic that it is obvious these details were collected firsthand by the author himself. These scenes were the most exciting parts of the book.

On the other hand, there were a few random parts where the author was describing something not hugely relevant to the storyline, and the dialogue seemed to drag on a bit. For example, when Naomi went to put things in a locker, she asks someone if the locker was taken, and so on and so forth. Or when Naomi and Jesse were sitting on the couch, there was a whole paragraph on the remote control and how Jesse turned the TV off and Naomi snuggled with him. I felt there were certain parts that could have been summed up a lot quicker.

Another thing that was odd was how Naomi and Jesse spoke to one another in the third person sometimes. Naomi would be talking to Jesse, and then she would say something like, “I see Jesse got a new car” or “I know this about Jesse.” Instead of saying the word you. It read very strangely in those parts.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I felt it was put together and planned out very well, had amazing characters, and was very exciting during the military scenes.