Leap of Faith

second-chance-at-the-dream_kindleLeap of Faith – Second Chance at the Dream

This is my sixth novel and first in a new series about turning points, possibilities, and second chances (see Crossroads Collection).

At first glance, you might think Leap of Faith has little in common with the five that came before it. After all, there’s a modern setting, baseball, and a time-travel element! Actually, when I began writing the book, I did intend that it would be something completely different, but then the romance began creeping in. I couldn’t seem to help it! In the end, the story deals with the competing incentives of love and ambition, the forces that bring people together or keep them apart… like any good Jane Austen tale.

So this is NOT primarily a sports story. Baseball is simply the rich and interesting backdrop for what happens when Ben Lewis gets his giant, world-class “do-over.” But Leap of Faith isn’t only a romance either, and I’m hoping it will have appeal across a wide spectrum of the population.

Here’s the blurb, followed by an excerpt from chapter 1. (Read the prologue here)

At the Crossroads Center, they’re in the business of granting second chances.  And their newest client is Ben Lewis, a former star athlete who never recovered from the death of his dream to make it big in the big leagues. Now he’s being offered the opportunity to return to 1991 and try again, this time without the illness that originally ended his baseball hopes.  What’s the catch?  He will pay for his second chance by forfeiting his memories of the first… and possibly along with them, the love of his life. Can he find his way home to the woman he’s long forgotten but never stopped missing? Or will reaching for the brass ring with both hands cause the treasure he once possessed to slip forever from his grasp?

Leap of Faith is currently available in Kindle and paperback.

Part 1: Ben’s Log

What would the average guy give to turn back the clock and set his life straight? Probably anything short of his right arm… that is if he’d made as much of a mess of things as I have. I hit bottom in September of 1997. Then, just when I thought I couldn’t go on, when I was at a point so low I had to look up to see outfield grass grow, I received a genuine, world-class do-over. Now I’m praying I still have time to salvage it.

It came as a gift. No charge. And I appreciate how lucky I am. Except I’m discovering there is a kind of cost after all, which I’m belatedly paying.

To be fair, I was forewarned. A year ago, I barely thought twice about exchanging my lackluster past for a chance at resurrecting my dream. But now that they’re at risk, I suddenly realize some memories from those discarded months and years are too precious to part with: the satisfaction of helping one of my students succeed, friendships with Jeff and the others at the Center, and most importantly, every mental picture of Abby from a time she knew and loved me. The thought of those treasures being sucked irretrievably down a black hole…

Well, I simply can’t let that happen. While I’m still able, I have to write down how I got to this point – what took place the first time around and everything that has changed since. But where should I begin? With my past, which hasn’t happened yet and now won’t? With the future, which I lived once but now is subject to reinterpretation? Or with the odd people and place that made it all possible?

Time is the issue, and now time is my enemy as well. With every tick of the clock, another valuable scrap of my memory is stripped away forever. But it’s not only my original history that’s at stake. My entire future hangs in the balance as well, and this time it’s going to be permanent. No more do-overs, so I can’t afford to blow it. This log will be my guide going forward. I’m depending on it, and I don’t have a minute to lose…