Second Chance Store

Can a person get a fresh start the way a secondhand coat does? That question sits at the center of this warm, funny novel about ordinary objects that carry other people's histories, and about what it takes to rebuild a life after a setback.

Gwen is thirty-eight, lives alone in the city, and has begun to feel that her days belong to someone else. Her old friends have settled into family life in the countryside, while phone calls with her parents tend to center on garden hedges and bin collection days. Gwen is lonely, and she has little idea how she ended up here. When she loses a job she slipped into a decade ago and never quite left, she decides it is finally time to change course, starting with a clear-out of her apartment.

That clear-out leads her to a local charity shop, where she sorts through donations and, in a sense, through her own life. The shop is staffed by an unconventional group of volunteers who find new homes for belongings their original owners no longer need. Gwen signs on to help out, gradually finds a place for herself among her coworkers, and begins to appreciate the stories attached to secondhand things.

The novel follows Gwen as she steps out of the holding pattern her life has become and looks for a way forward that is brave and generous and open to other people. It is a story about friendship, loss, and the slow work of starting over, with plenty of humor along the way, and it ends with Gwen resolving to look after herself a little better, including her teeth.