Book: One More Chance by Abbi Glines

Published September 2014 by Atria Books|272 pages

Where I Got It: I borrowed the e-book from the library

Series: Chance #2, Rosemary Beach #8

Genre: NA/Contemporary Romance

The unforgettable story of Grant and Harlow from Take a Chance continues in this brand-new novel in the Rosemary Beach series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Abbi Glines.

She was it. His one. His only. Then he made the mistake of letting her go.

After fighting his way into Harlow Manning’s heart—and revealing a side of himself no one had ever seen before—Grant Carter destroyed his own heart by giving in to his greatest fears and doubts. Months later, he’s stuck in a miserable routine. Work relentlessly. Beg his best friend Rush for news about Harlow. Avoid all other friends. Leave nightly voicemails for Harlow, pleading with her to come back to Rosemary Beach. Fall asleep alone. Repeat.

Miles away, on her brother’s Texas ranch, Harlow can’t bring herself to listen to Grant’s voicemails. Though she wants to be with him, and knows he regrets letting her go, she doesn’t know if she can trust him. When he discovered the truth behind her sheltered upbringing, it shattered their relationship, but the secret she carries now has far greater consequences. Can she risk giving Grant one more chance, or will the gamble ultimately destroy her?

Even though I didn’t like the first Harlow/Grant book, I still wanted to see what would happen.  I think I hated this book more than I did the first one.

It’s mostly because Harlow is a selfish idiot.  Even though she has a heart condition AND HAVING A BABY CAN LITERALLY KILL HER, she insists on going through with her pregnancy, even though everyone around her wants her to have an abortion.  I did hate that people were trying to force her to change her mind and get an abortion, because it is her decision, and if she wants to keep a baby that could kill her, it’s her decision, as much as everyone doesn’t like her decision.  I felt like Mase’s mom was the only one who seemed supportive of Harlow’s decision. Grant seemed to come around a little bit but not completely.  At the same time, though, I felt like it was incredibly selfish for Harlow to insist on going through with the pregnancy.

I know it’s Grant’s baby, and she wants the baby, and he made her want things she could never have, but I felt like she cared more about the baby and sacrificing herself for the baby than living.  I felt like she was either too stupid to realize SHE was more important to people than her baby, or she realized it but didn’t care that SHE was important to people and that they didn’t want to lose her.  I don’t understand her decision, and I’ve never had to make that decision, but I also feel like it’s her decision to make…and Grant’s too, being the father.  We never see her talk with Mase or his family about it, and we’re just told what her decision is.  Grant’s opinion doesn’t seem to matter either, and I feel like she doesn’t want to take into account what other people think, because all that matters is what she wants.  Which is true to a point, but…it just bothered me that she didn’t care if she lived or died.

I also hated that Mase called Rush, knowing that he’d tell Grant, who’d go running to find her.  His voice mails were pretty pathetic, and I am utterly clueless as to why Harlow is in love with him, and why she’d give him a chance after everything he did.  And after the way he treated her after finding out about her heart condition. She really should have made him work to get her back.

I did like that Nan donated blood, and I felt like I understood Nan a lot better.  I still don’t completely get why people dislike Nan and why the other characters treat her the way they do, but what she did for Harlow did was really nice. I didn’t like how everyone suspected she was up to something, and unable to do anything nice for anyone.  And that she was trying to manipulate someone or something by donating blood.

The letters Harlow wrote to her unborn child were really morbid, and I didn’t like them at all.  And Harlow thinking she live just based off wanting to be there for her child…hope can go a long way, but again, her pregnancy could very will kill her, and hope can’t overcome that.  Plus, it’s something that she can pass on to her child, so I am having a hard time understanding why she’d want to keep this baby.

Something I thought was weird was her grandma.  Early on in the book, Harlow’s thinking about her grandma (who didn’t believe in abortion), and what her grandma what think if it were Harlow getting an abortion.  And then Kiro mentions her grandma, and wants to know if it’s a religious thing and if it’s something her grandma taught her. I am confused about what religion has to do with it, because someone not wanting an abortion doesn’t necessarily have to be because of religious beliefs.

I get Kiro is trying to understand why she’s not getting an abortion, but that, combined with Harlow’s earlier thoughts of her grandma made me think that her grandma was religious and didn’t believe in abortions.  I don’t understand the emphasis on her grandma’s beliefs when one, grandma isn’t with us anymore. and two, it doesn’t actually go anywhere.  Given it comes up a couple of times, I thought it would have more of a role, and it doesn’t, so I don’t get why it’s brought up.

After giving birth, it takes her a while to open up her eyes, but, of course, she ends up being fine…it seemed like a major cop-out that she ended up being fine.  Other than people freaking out because she insists on having a child, she ends up fine, with nothing other than a coma.  Why have her have this serious heart condition in which having a child could kill her if she’s going to be fine?  It felt manipulative in the last book, like it was there for drama, but it felt extremely, intensely manipulative for her to be fine.  Because Harlow just can’t be pregnant, she has to be pregnant with a serious, life-threatening heart condition and somehow end up okay. Granted, she was in pretty good health, which probably was a factor, and she was high-risk but at the lower end of high-risk, but I wanted more complications with it.

1 star.  The only thing I liked was Nan donating blood to Harlow, but overall, this was a frustrating book to read.