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A Thousand Second Chances
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A Thousand Second Chances, by Elric Shaw (A Dash of Modern Magic, 1)
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By Elric Shaw
Published by the author, 2023
Four stars
Is the film “Groundhog Day” the pop-culture source of the time-loop novel? So far, I’ve read two M/M novels with this as the guiding motif, and both of them reference the 1993 Bill Murray film. It’s a tantalizing idea, getting trapped in a single day, trying to figure out why you’re there and how to break the loop.
Chris Rawley is on his way to Mackinac Island with his friend Quinn, to join a college weekend trip—all expenses paid. Chris is only tagging along because it’s free and because Quinn egged him on to join her. As they board the ferry from the mainland, Chris spots two people who he’d rather not see: Devon, the captain of his former track team, and Percy Wentworth, the boy who ruined his life.
Right from the beginning, the reader THINKS they know the problem, the key to the puzzle of the loop once it appears. The hurdle to be leapt before happiness is possible is another time-honored trope in M/M (this one being a mature Young Adult variant). Here it is a classic: young men who refuse to actually talk about anything and thus exacerbate their problems fivefold. Oh, Lord, is that true here, to a frustrating degree that I’m sure the author calculated.
Chris and Percy were a couple in high school and college—until they weren’t. The reasons for their bitter breakup are as simple and as frustrating as one could possibly want. There is heartbreak here, more than enough, and of course one suspects that getting at the core of this emotional trauma is going to be the solution.
Well, not really.
The surprise toward the end brought me to tears, and ratcheted up the emotional punch of this story another level. The author neatly manipulated the expectations of his M/M readers, and then tripped us up. We all know that M/M has to end a certain way, but there are no rules about how the author gets us there. Well played, Elric Shaw, well played.