Second to None

A Second Glances Novella

By: Nancy Herkness

Narrated by: Megan Tusing

Length: 4 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

Billionaire chemist Max Varela is selling his company and leaving New York for good when Emily Wade bursts into his office, desperate for his help in funding her program for disadvantaged kids and shelter dogs. Seven years ago, he fell in love with her when she was married to another man. To fight the unbidden attraction, he cut off all contact - but he's never forgotten her.

Ever since her husband died, Emily has poured her heart and soul into the after-school care center. Seeing Max reawakens the pain of her loss, but it also brings unexpected hope for the future. As emotions thought long gone resurface, the two begin a passionate affair that seems destined for a fairy-tale ending.

That is, until Max reveals that he's moving to Chicago in a matter of weeks and wants Emily to uproot her daughter and her life to come with him. If a second chance at love is possible, someone's got to give.

©2017 Nancy Herkness (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Le Jeune

The person performing kept adding an r into Le Jeune and it drove me crazy

Puppies!

A lovely story of hope and love. Max and Emily are a sweet couple whose time has come. Interesting ending, if one wants to call it an ending. Sounded more like a beginning. Nicely done.

camp lejune

i enjoyed the story but it drove me nuts every time she said camp lejourne instead of camp lejune. if its a real place its important to pronounce it correctly - especially since they talk about it so much!

delightful story of unrequited love...requited...

This is not a 2nd chance romance. In fact, this is a story of unrequited love! Many years ago, Max was a graduate student working on a body armor prototype for the marines. He was paired up with marine captain, Jake Wade. He grew close with Jake and became smitten with Mrs. Wade (Emily). In order to avoid hurting his friends, Max pulled away, not even bothering to respond to emails/texts. He did not even know when Jake was killed. Now he is a billionaire and 'living large', when Emily barges in requesting aid for her pilot program to help disadvantaged kids and canines. Max decides that it's time to show Emily how he feels. Emily is a struggling single mom and desperately needs funding for her kids' program. As a last resort, she turns to Max for help...and gets it...but does Max's help come with strings? Will Emily deny her attraction to Max? You can't help but love this story...kids and puppies...oh, and hot, nerdy billionaire. Loved the ending...swoon.

Oh FFS it isn't pronounced Camp Le Journe

So for the first hour of this book I had no clue what Camp Le Journe was, then in dawned me .... the narrator is talking about Camp LeJune.... pronounced Le-June..... where the heck an R and a N came from... no clue... but it was super annoying.

As for the story it was good, the performance wasn't bad, just the annoying butchering of LeJune...

Second to None

I found this one after I read the other two in this series but still loved it! Max is a chemist who made it big and is about to move to Chicago when Emily walks, no barges, into his office. They knew each other years before when she was married and he worked with her deceased husband on a project. Now she is hoping she can get him to sponsor her community center. He still has feelings for Emily and when he visits the center he is hooked, or is he hooked on her. This was sweet story that starts off this great series.

Barely okay book and bad narration..

I don’t know how I feel about this novella at all. I liked that Max stopped having contact with Jake and Emily because Jake was a friend and Max had feelings for Emily. BUT 3 years had passed since Jake was killed, and 7 years since they’d seen each other, and when Max and Emily met again it should have been seen as something new and something exciting. It really wasn’t. There was a lot of desire for each other throughout the story BUT there was too much talk about Jake, I thought. His name was mentioned 71 times in this novella and that’s too much as far as I’m concerned. He was even mentioned right after sex. Really?

I think this could have been a much better if Jake could have been talked about a lot less. The story was called Second to None but I got the feeling Max would always take second place to Jake. I liked Max and Emily and Izzy but there was too much Jake.

So, no swearing to speak of but NH sure likes to write very explicit sex scenes.

As for the narration: There was nothing memorable about Megan Tusing’s performance. Her women’s voices were just okay, her men’s voices definitely need some serious help and she doesn’t read with any emotions to speak of. I might have listened to Ms. Herkness’s other books but when a man is the “star” of the book it doesn’t make any sense to me that a woman should narrate AND, I’m sorry to say, all of the female narrators that narrate NH's books fit in the same category as Ms. Tusing, they all suck and men’s voices. Every man in every book sounds just like a girl. All the 4 and 5 star reviews have to be from readers who don't care if the men sound like men.

Nice listen

New author for me. This was a nice heartwarming taboo listen of pining for what you couldn't have. 😉