Second Chance

by Dallas Denny

The Early Saga

The Early Chronicles follow the adventures of young Chance Early of Western North Carolina from 1834 onward.


About Second Chance

In 1836, America is a wilderness. 16 year-old Chance Early finds himself hired by statesman Oliver Pressley to accompany Pressley’s nephew Noah, a haughty young lawyer-in-training as they journey via stagecoach, farm cart, and boat from Columbia, South Carolina to Nashville, Tennessee on a political mission that is revealed to Chance only upon their arrival. Chance has a mission of his own—to acquire and enslaved woman and free her—but first he will meet the President of the United States and two future Presidents. This is a tale full of adventure, humor, political intrigue, and love won and lost, set in a tumultuous decade.

367 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 7, 2022

About the author

Dallas Denny has been called a “rather charming writer.” She appreciates and does her best to convey the wit of Mark Twain, the straightforward writing style of Ernest Hemingway, the terse dialogue of Elmore Leonard, and Louis L’Amour’s knowledge of the American frontier. She’s far too modest to compare herself to any of the above, but she adores their work and is happy to be influenced by them. She writes in any number of genres and has had the good fortune to be widely published. She is happy to receive a royalty check, but writes for the sheer joy of the experience.

Dallas was born in Asheville, North Carolina. Except for a four-year stretch in France when she was a child, Dallas spent her life in the American South—until 2015, when she ventured north of the Mason-Dixon line to the mountains of northern New Jersey, where she experienced her first true winter and learned that sometimes you just must shovel snow.