Title:  A Chance of a Lifetime
Series:  Tallgrass #5
Author:  Marilyn Pappano
Genre:  Contemporary Romance
Published:  December 22, 2015
Publisher:  Forever
My Rating:  4 stars
Source:  NetGalley
Cover Description:

Sometimes love finds you when you least expect it…

To Benita Ford, Tallgrass, Oklahoma, will always be home. It’s where her beloved grandmother raised her and where she rode bikes with her two best friends—the man who became her husband and Calvin. And Tallgrass is where she stayed, even after her husband died while serving his country. Now Calvin is home from that same war, and the sensitive, mischievous boy she once knew is today a man scarred by wounds no one else can see. Falling in love with him is something Bennie never imagined.

Tallgrass still haunts Captain Calvin Sweet. Yet it’s where he must go to see Bennie—the one woman he always loved but could never have. Calvin regrets so much about what happened years ago. Still he can’t deny being with Bennie makes his future feel bright, like anything is possible. But the demons of his past won’t be quieted that easily. As old hurts linger, threatening to pull them apart, Calvin and Bennie must take the ultimate risk for the love of a lifetime.

Read on for my thoughts on A Chance of a Lifetime.  No true spoilers, promise.

I believe it’s impossible for an outsider to truly understand what the men and women serving our country go through in order to keep the rest of us safe.  At times (if not all the time), the families of those who serve go through a different side of war that cannot be imagined outside of that group.  I feel we can empathize, and try to understand but we can’t, not really.  One of the reasons I have loved Marilyn Pappano’s Tallgrass series is the sense of being allowed into that circle to perhaps understand a bit better how serving one’s country, at any time, filters down through the other people in that military person’s lives.  I am proud and humbled by the sacrifices so many people have and currently are experiencing in order to maintain my freedoms.  A simple thank you can never be enough.

I enjoyed Bennie and Calvin’s story very much.  It’s always a delight to catch up with the many characters in this community.  Three friends from childhood face a very different adulthood.  Two will marry.  Two will serve.  And one of those who served will return to a very different life than he left behind.

Calvin has loved Bennie for, well as long as he can remember.  But she married another, the third member of their three musketeer childhood circle.  He’s still certain that Bennie never knew how he felt about her back then.  And he’s certain she doesn’t know what changed between him and her husband that forever ended that friendship.

Bennie has lost her husband to war.  And she’s also lost her best friend.  Oh, Calvin returned but he’s not the carefree man he once was.  PTSD is an insidious experience.  One that every person affected by it reacts to a bit differently.  Reaching a loved one going through this can be difficult, frightening and demanding.  As Bennie and Calvin begin to see each other as more than childhood friends, the reality of PTSD will factor into their lives.  As will the truth that has been left unsaid from years ago.

There are no easy fixes.  Calvin and Bennie will love each other, and question everything before they make that final choice to risk everything for the love of a lifetime.

A Chance of a Lifetime is emotional, gripping and a story with touches of faith and inspiration.  Combine that with believable characters that you can relate to and you have an excellent addition to the Tallgrass series.

*I received an e-ARC of A Chance of a Lifetime from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. That does not change what I think of this novel.*

Available in paperback and for the Kindle