Only One Beginning: A Circle of Friends Novel

by Cathryn Chandler

He’s a contented man, with a good life and a good woman to love. Until his past comes calling… Forced from the only life he’d ever known, Edward left it far behind him to sail to the young and rowdy gold rush town of San Francisco. Here he reinvents himself as Cook, a former seaman with a mysterious past. As the years pass, he's gathered a large group of friends around him. Abandoned or castoff, they've banded together and become a family by choice. And now, at last, he’s found Dina. The woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with. Cook is a contented man. Until his past comes calling again, with a desperate plea that he keep a promise he’d made long ago. His sense of duty, and his conscience, demands that he honor the decades-old promise to his family by blood, but his heart yearns to stay with his family by choice and fight for a future with the woman he loves... but he can't do both. He'll have to choose one and leave the other behind forever. His birthright or love? Which will win? Set in San Francisco during the gold rush, Only One Beginning is the seventh book in the Circle of Friends Series. Come meet Cook and Dina and all the unusual, bold and engaging people around them, who band together and form an unbreakable Circle of Friends. Only One Beginning is part of a series that includes recurring characters but can be read as a stand-alone novel.

156 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 13, 2018

Reviews

[Tammy Rolle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Happy endings and new beginnings

Sadly, this is the last of the Circle of Friends series. Appropriately, it is Cook's tale. He has been the silent strength in the many lives making up the family circle, and it is only right that he have his own family with his female counterpart, Dina. All is not lost though. As Cathryn has promised a new series featuring the children, now grown. Surely, the original circle will make their presence known in "A Crimson Rose".

[Pamela Hastings · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful Final Book to Series

I loved this series A Circle of Friends and thought this final story of Cook and Dina a great ending. Re-read entire series again before reading this last story. Great character terms throughout the series. Drew me quickly and kept my attention! Looking forward to Cathryn Chandlers new series The Crimson Rose which spins off this series to tell the stories of the children when they're grown.

[Earlene Click · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only One Beginning

I absolutely adored the series A Circle of Friends! The recurring characters was wonderful as each entwined in the others lives as the series progressed. Well worth reading. Can't wait for A Crimson Rose series to continue the lives and stories to come.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing

My favorite author. So sad the series is ending but very excited to know there is more coming!!!!! Thank You

[Melissa Dobbins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read

And once again this book kept me awake all night! I just couldn’t put it down and I’m soooo sorry it’s the end of the series. But what an end!!! Enjoy 👍👍👍💜