That Second Chance

That Second Chance is the first book in Meghan Quinn’s Bishop Brothers series, the contemporary romance project that follows three brothers in the small Maine town of Port Snow. The premise is built around a very Quinn central conceit. The three Bishop brothers, Griffin, Reid, and Rogan, have been carrying around a curse for years. They believe that any romantic relationship they pursue is doomed to fail because of an old family curse that has been hanging over the Bishop men for generations. After yet another set of failed relationships, they make a pact to swear off love entirely and focus on their family business.

The novel turns on what happens when Ren Winters, a young woman who has come to Port Snow to escape from her own complicated past, walks into Griffin Bishop’s life and disrupts the carefully maintained pact almost immediately. Griffin, the eldest of the three brothers, has the most invested in the no romance commitment, and his slowly developing feelings for Ren force him to confront whether the curse he has been believing in is actually real or whether the Bishop men’s romantic difficulties have been the result of something else entirely.

Meghan Quinn writes contemporary romance with the kind of warmth and humor that her readers return to her for. The Bishop Brothers series gives her a small Maine town setting with three brothers, a connected family business, and the kind of recurring cast that makes the series rewarding to read in order. Each subsequent book in the trilogy continues the Bishop family story, with Reid and Rogan getting their own central romances in the follow up novels. The wider Port Snow setting and the connected friend group provide the kind of warm community feeling that her readers love.

The curse premise gives Quinn room to play with the kind of comedic disruption that her novels excel at while also delivering the central romance with the emotional weight that her best work shows. Griffin and Ren’s developing relationship has to navigate both the practical complications of small town life and the more interior complication of Griffin’s commitment to the no romance pact. The slow recognition that what is developing between them is real and that the curse may be more about the brothers’ choices than about any actual supernatural intervention drives the novel toward its resolution.

For longtime Meghan Quinn fans, That Second Chance is the foundation of one of her most beloved connected series. For new readers, this is a strong introduction to her work and to the small town romance subgenre at its warmest. Readers who enjoy Lauren Layne, Christina Lauren, Helena Hunting, or Tessa Bailey will find familiar pleasure in Quinn’s catalogue.