Genre: Science
Fiction/Time Travel
Description:
“A second chance to make it right; a second
chance to screw it up again.
Tragedy is the name of the game for
fifty-five-year-old Thomas. At least that's what he tells himself as he washes
down the handful of little white sleeping pills stolen from his mother. Lying
back on his bed, he waits for the reaper to take away the despair. Instead he
is transported to a different kind of hell--puberty. Thomas wakes in his
childhood bedroom, with his teenage body, and all his memories intact. With a
new lease on life he has a chance to do it all right. He will save his brother,
change the course of history, find love, and stop a horrific killer. That is,
if he can overcome being a pathetic screw-up.”
Author:
Former DJ, business consultant, and real
estate agent, Shawn Inmon is now a fulltime author. A regular contributor at
Indies Unlimited, Inmon can't seem to decide whether to write fiction (Rock'n
Roll Heaven), or non-fiction, like the book based on a trip he took called A
Lap Around America. Then there are his first two books that were novels
based on truth or fictionalized memoirs or … I don't know what to call them,
but they were somewhere in the middle.
Appraisal:
One
reason I always seem to like Shawn Inmon's books is that we're around the same
age and overly obsessed with music. So his books have references like the character
in this book saying “Oh, and Pablo Cruise sucks. Ten years from now, no one
will know who they are,” and I agree and laugh. More importantly, I get the
reference. Many of you won't. If your high school years were sometime in the
70s and you haven't read all of Inmon's books, you should.
If high school was before or (even more so) after the 70s there are
still plenty of universal and timeless themes in all of Inmon's books. The
Unusual Second Life of Thomas Weaver possibly more so than any other. We've all
made decisions in our life that we wonder about. Was that a good decision? What
would have happened if I'd done this instead? If I'd have known this was going
to happen, I wouldn't have done that.
The basis of this story is a different twist on time travel when the
protagonist who has been haunted by a big mistake in high school finds himself
transported back to before that mistake. He's not only back in time, but he
looks like he did back then. The only difference is that he knows what's
coming. Unless he can change that. It's a great premise. I found myself pulling
for Thomas, wondering what he should do, and hoping he'd figure it out. That's
at least part of what you'd hope for in a story like this. And really that's
enough. However, if it sparks a little introspection, if you start wondering
what you'd do differently if you were transported back in time, even better.
(If you wake up tomorrow and find out that I've become a major shareholder in
Amazon, that means my plan worked.)
Buy now
from: Amazon US Amazon UK
FYI:
A small amount of adult language.
Original review posted on December 21, 2016.
Format/Typo
Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: *****
Five Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate word count: 75-80,000 words
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