Second Chances, by Dannye Williamsen

I found myself reading Second Chances in a period in which I had precious little time to devote to reading… and after the first few pages I was so hooked that I started carving out every possible moment to go on reading… during meals and even in the bathtub, something I never do for fear of damaging the reader!
Today, I finished the book, and I must confess I did not read the incipit for the following book, Threads that Bind, because I want to be surprised and enchanted again by the dexterity with which Dannye Williamsen manages to bind the reader, both with the plot and with her fluent, rich style, full of beautiful descriptions so well calibrated that they become precious ornaments to the story without suffocating it.
Another gift this book has to offer is the underlying philosophy of the eternal struggle between good and evil, faced here from a new, original perspective, that of two twins, parted at birth and forced by life along totally different paths. Is evil something we are born with? And is there something good even in the most evil person? These are some of the questions Dannye Williamsen addresses in her book, and while she gives, of course, her own answer to them, Second Chances offers the reader the possibility of lingering and pondering on the mystery of ying and yang, present in each of us, but that we often tend to ignore.
Add to all this a plot that verges on horror in a very new way, which reminded me of Dan Simmons’ Carrion Comfort (for Darian has something in common with the “mind vampires” we find there, even if he uses his power in a very self-centered and distorted way) and you have the recipe for the perfect book to keep you company in a long and cold January evening!
A five star book, no doubt!