Second Breath

by Earleen Devine

All her life, Daisy O’Dey has felt like some kind of alien, one whose oversized heart thumped far too loudly and far too fast, a creature too timid to breathe deeply for fear of being seen. She allowed her inherent timidity to blow her down whichever trail of least resistance presented itself. She imagines herself as dandelion fluff, drifting invisibly across the paths of others—no colour, no mass, no effect, no value.

During a brief hospital stay, Daisy shares a room with Maddie Zinn, a dying woman with an engaging manner and expansive spirit, whose own life has been scarred by cruelty and weighed down by regret. Maddie becomes the catalyst that begins to swell the contours of Daisy’s existence.

Second Breath is a story of clambering out of ruts, a story of personal growth; it is a chronicle of how one woman’s efforts to overcome the inertia that has defined her life impacts the lives of the people who come to know and love her.

586 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 7, 2012