The Second Half by Lauraine Snelling

Retirement is a stage of life most of us dream about through the years. We save up and think about doing all of our favorite things with lots of "free" time. In The Second Half by Lauraine Snelling Mona and Kenneth Sorenson are in their retirement years. . .dreaming about traveling and spending time doing all of their favorite things. Kenneth is only days away from retirement when the book begins. Meanwhile, Mona is working at and dreaming of managing her own part-time event business while traveling with Kenneth to dreamed-of places on the side.

Then suddenly their life changes. Mona and Ken's son, Steig, who is in the special forces with the army receives a call for deployment. Since his wife walked out on him and his children awhile back, he asks his parents to assume guardianship while he is gone on the mission. From that point on, Mona and Ken have a new set of adventures.

In The Second Half, Mona and Ken learn how to deal with the curves that life has thrown at them and embrace retirement in an entirely different way than they anticipated in more ways than one. Lauraine Snelling writes a book that I imagine many mature adults can relate to. This would be a good book to read and discuss together for a book club, church discussion group for older couples, or even as a married couple looking ahead to retirement. In the back The Second Half, there is a list of questions for a book discussion group that could offer insights to issues mature adults face as they look towards retirement. While I am not at that age yet, I could see where these issues are important to look at and think about. As a Christian, I like that the main characters, Mona and Ken, are also Christians and share how they look to God for answers in the midst of life's challenges. We can all learn from that kind of example. I also think Snelling writes about life in a realistic way that makes it easy to relate to various issues and aspects of the story no matter what your age.

I received this book from Faith Words/Hachette Book Group. I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for the book.