Rating: 5🌈

“This book is set in a small, British independent school specialising in trauma-informed teaching.”

Second Song sees a return to beloved place and school from Riley’s heartwarming Learning to Love series, one of my absolute favorites of contemporary fiction. That’s the Glenn Harber School near Porthperrin, Cornwall.

As the quote indicates above, it’s a very special school, full of talented and passionate teachers and students who have their own heartfelt stories to share.

Into this amazing environment, Riley sets up the first in another series, Second Chance School, and the beginning book, Second Song, about Rowan Bryn, a hopeful music teacher, who’s traumatized past has caused him to lose his ability to sing in front of others. It’s also about Liam Sexton, ex forces Army Royal Engineers, injured by an explosion on tour that left him with a hearing disorder.

A school in need of temporary teaching help and a crumbling library in need of demolition brings both men to the Glenn Harber School, second chances to rebuild their lives, and gain a new love and community that will help them overcome their past trauma.

Some of my favorite characters are present here from the Learning to Love books. There’s the ever wonderful Charles Heppel-Eaves who always arrives surrounded by glitter and an aura of love, Dom Dymond and his child, Maisie, and Luke, naturally. And so many other standouts throughout this incredibly moving novel, like Teo, little brave Hadi, Noah and his lamb who started it all.

But it’s Rowan and Liam in their own tenuous brave journeys towards dealing with their past trauma and their own new relationship that captures our hearts and engages us totally in this story.

Riley writes with such sensitivity and compassion about the stages of grief and understanding that it takes for Rowan and Liam to go through in order to overcome their own fears and pain in order to be able to heal and support each other as they too deal with their trauma.

The men are real and what they have undergone feels raw and believable. So do all the events as they occur to get them through to a moving and loving ending.

I can’t help but hope we get more tales where Matt, Blake, Neck Brace and the rest of Liam’s Royal Engineers family get their own stories and HEA. If they too are located near Porthperrin and this school, then I’d be a happy reader indeed.

Second Song: Second Chance School by Con Riley is a highly recommended book, as is the connected series, Learning to Love. Put all on your must read list!

Second Chance School:

✓ Second Song #1

◦ Second Shot #2 – April 30,2025

Buy link

Second Song: Second Chance School

Blurb:

Second Song (Second Chance School #1)

Page-turning heat and hurt-comfort start on a Cornish cliffside and end at a school where not only students heal from past pain.

Do first times count if you forget them?

Rowan: I once lost a national singing contest. My consolation prize? A night I can’t remember and the tattoo on my bare bottom going viral. Six years later, I’m ready to rise like a phoenix from those shameful public ashes even if my singing days are over. Training as a music teacher is the second chance I need to prove I can be trusted to help children with their own trauma.

I can’t get distracted by falling for the wounded hero who saved me on my first day in Cornwall.

Liam: Blast damage forced me to leave the Army, and guilt keeps me running from those I hurt in the process. I don’t intend to fall for a pretty stranger trapped on a cliffside, but something about Rowan makes me crave more than our one heated night together, especially when he responds like I’m the first man to ever touch his heart or body.

If he wants a second chance here in Cornwall, I’ll stay and fight until he gets one.

Featuring a musician too bruised to sing and the soldier ready to battle for him, Second Song starts the Second Chance School series. Expect found family, a spectrum of diverse characters, and a HEA fit for angsty heroes.

This spin-off shared-world series aligns with the much-adored Learning to Love series. No prior knowledge is necessary to enjoy this standalone full-length novel.

• Publisher: Figment Ink (May 8, 2024)

• Publication date: May 8, 2024

• Language: English

• Print length: 314 pages

Artist: Natasha Snow