A duty to dream

Be careful what you wish for.

The warning, from The Old Man and Death, one of Aesop's Fables, is one of the oldest themes in literature. It is also, for all practical purposes, the central theme of the Second Chance series.

In The Fountain and Annie's Apple, the first two books in the trilogy, characters wish for one thing and get another. They find that the road to happiness is littered with potholes, rocks, and nails.

Then they find it again. In Duties and Dreams, several adults, linked by blood, marriage, and history, discover that even innocent wishes come with a price.

As World War I rages in Europe, the Carpenters and the Lees make a home in Southern California. Bill and Cassie add to their family. Andy and Annie start one of their own. Paul, a bachelor, enters the world of business. All find peace in a turbulent time. Then draft notices arrive, illness strikes a child, and life for two intertwined families takes a troubling turn. Thirty years later, Emilie Perot, a beautiful resistance fighter, and Steve and Shannon Taylor, an American couple with ties to Paul Carpenter, conspire to escape Nazi occupation. Each seeks freedom and a new life in France's Vosges Mountains, home of a legendary fountain of youth that can restore health and send visitors through time. As events unfold in the different eras, the participants march on. All are unaware of the forces that seem determined to throw them together.

Paul, 30, takes a star turn in this one. From the first chapter to the last, he is the focus of the story. Readers follow the quiet member of a secretive family as he returns to the U.S. Army, travels to wartime France, and battles one life challenge after another. They see a luckless-in-love soldier make a friend from the future.

Others also step up. Annie, 27, shines as a young wife and mother. Bill and Cassie, both 36, do the same as spouses and parents. Even Andy, the curmudgeon of book two, finds his place. Now 30, the lieutenant rolls with the punches of an unpredictable war.

Though Duties and Dreams is a plot-driven novel, complete with a nasty villain, action, and running clocks, it is a character-focused story, one that examines the impact of war, disease, and separation on ordinary human beings. Set in seven countries during the most difficult days of the twentieth century, it brings to a conclusion a sweeping family saga that began with a leap of faith.

Duties and Dreams is my twenty-third novel. It goes on sale today as a Kindle book at Amazon.com and its international web sites.