A Thousand Second Chances (A Dash of Modern Magic Book 1)
£3.10
The only thing worse than waking up stuck in a time loop is realizing your ex is trapped there with you.
When Chris begrudgingly agrees to accompany his best friend Quinn on a university trip to Michigan’s picturesque Mackinac Island, he expects to suffer through a weekend of sightseeing, school-mandated activities, and entirely too much souvenir shopping. What he doesn’t anticipate is also having to avoid the boy who broke his heart.
Percy used to love his family’s annual excursions to Mackinac Island, but that all changed with the loss of his mother. This school trip is his chance to revisit some of their favorite haunts and honor her memory. However, what’s already guaranteed to be an emotionally charged weekend grows only more fraught when he discovers that he’s not only caught in a time loop, but that the boy he’d walked away from two years ago is his sole companion.
Forced together by the fickle whims of the universe, Chris and Percy must reopen old wounds and confront their painful pasts if they ever hope to escape their infinite Saturday. But even as they grow closer across myriad iterations of the same unending day, they grapple with one terrifying question: can the fragile connection they’re rebuilding survive their inevitable return to the real world?
A Thousand Second Chances is a standalone M/M contemporary romance novel in the A Dash of Modern Magic series.
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Additional information
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| File size | 3087 KB |
| Simultaneous device usage | Unlimited |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 364 pages |
by Louise
I enjoyed following Percy and Chris as they muddled through trying to figure out their situation, although the story felt slow to start, and it was harder to connect with Chris at first as we don’t find out until chapter two why he’s so standoffish. Once the time loop started and the characters grew on me it was an enjoyable story. The worldbuilding surrounding the island paradise was well done, and the island and its people came to life more and more in each iteration of the time loop.
I love the concept of time loops, and whilst I would’ve liked a bit more explanation on how it happened, it didn’t get repetitive despite the characters repeating the same day so many times. At first I wasn’t sure how to feel about the reason Percy and Chris broke up. Part of me felt Percy should’ve been able to confide in his best friend/boyfriend, but as the time loop continues we learn Percy struggled a lot with grief, life got on top of him, and communication broke down as he struggled to exist from day to day. The fallout of their breakup when they meet again wasn’t brushed over, and it took a while for them to come to terms with the past to earn a happy ending. I enjoyed the side characters too, and Quinn especially deserves a medal for sticking by Chris at his worst.
There are a few content warnings, loss of a parent and the grief surrounding it, homophobia, suicide ideation, but these issues were all handled well.
Overall an enjoyable M/M romance with a time loop, no cliff hanger and a satisfying epilogue to end on a high note.
Complimentary copy received from Hidden Gems Books, review voluntary.