Synopsis
Caroline Weber was a normal girl who thought she had her life figured out. After graduating from college in New York, she moved to San Francisco with her boyfriend, Clay. Everything in her life felt perfect. There wasn’t anything she would change…
…until she met Jackson Parks.
Is it possible that a chance meeting with a stranger can make you question EVERYTHING you thought you wanted? Caroline tries to carry on with her life as if nothing has changed…but the truth is, nothing can ever be the same.
Chance Encounters is an emotional love story about trusting and following your heart, even when it’s leading you down a difficult path.
Sometimes other hearts have to break in order to keep yours intact.
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My Review
Caroline Weber has been with her boyfriend Clay for many years. They moved from New York to San Francisco together after graduating college. After a tragic accident in New York, Caroline goes back to New York but on the return plane, everything she thought was perfect in her life suddenly changes when a stranger sits in the seat besides her.
His name? Jackson Parks and during the flight, he seems to be making Caroline question everything and the attraction between them is anything but. Once landed in San Fran, Caroline tries her best to continue with her life, but the truth is, everything has changed and she can’t go back to how life was before. It can never be the same.
Caroline did have a good heart, albeit, it was a heart used to doing ‘boring’ things – in the words of Bailey, her best friend. When she met Jax on the plane, she was instantly attracted to him and it was a kind of love/lust at first sight. You could see her inner dilemmas over both Clay and Jackson and she really didn’t want to hurt anyone, especially Clay, but loving two people, someone was bound to have their heart broken and she just didn’t know what to do. I’ve heard this saying and said this saying a few times in my 22 years and its “If you love two men, pick the second one, because if you really loved the first, you wouldn’t have fallen for the second.” And this is totally true to Chance Encounters. If she truly loved Clay with all her heart, she wouldn’t have felt such strong feelings for Jax and she wouldn’t be talking to him every single day and would have told Clay about it, not kept it a secret.
I did, at times, feel so infuriated with Caroline, much because of the things she said at the start of the book about life and then she just contradicts herself and does the complete opposite of what she said she wouldn’t do. In a way, I suppose she never expected anything of this scale to occur and for her to think over what she should do – stay in the comfortable relationship and marry Clay or give up everything and go head first into a relationship with Jackson and find everything she didn’t know she was looking for?
I know the talking to Jax behind Clays back is completely wrong, but would it be considered cheating? It’s a hard thing to determine and I’ll leave it up to you to decide.
Oh Jackson. Jackson, Jackson, Jackson. You fell for an unavailable girl, and by God, you fell for her hard. I loved Jax from the start. He was playful, charismatic and has never loved a woman as much as he loved Caroline. Hell, he’s never loved a woman, especially one who has a boyfriend and he has standards – he would never split up a relationship and be a homewrecker. As much as there was a voice saying he should stay away, there was too much of an electric pull between the two, and they both felt it. It was pretty easy to see why Caroline developed feelings so quickly for Jax, he was the type of guy who would always be there and say the right things. I completely fell for him too and I was rooting for Caroline to make the right decision regarding Jax and pick him, because the things he would say and do in this book would make my heart swell. It was hard to see him love her so much yet be caused pain over Caroline’s actions – although she didn’t mean to.
Bailey, Caroline’s best friend was the greatest friend EVER! She was there for Caroline through thick and thin, trying to help her through her battles with both Jax and Clay. Her advice and support was magical and she never once judged Caroline was her actions. Their friendship is something special and Bailey really did crack me up laughing at times. That is what you want in a great friendship! Jackson’s best friend, Alex was much the same as Bailey was to Caroline. They were both so loyal to Caroline and Jax and would do anything to try and make them happy. I’m so glad they both had amazing friends to help them through the situation.
And finally Clay. He was such a sweetheart, although he worked late nearly every night, but it never seemed to bother Caroline. He knew something was up when she returned from New York and he just wanted everything to go back to the way it was before she left. He genuinely loved Caroline and would do anything for her. The birthday date he set up was magical and I would love to have that date myself. I could understand his anger towards Caroline when she told him about Jackson. It would hurt and sting like hell to know your girlfriend has been speaking to another guy behind your back and fallen in love but then I think, if he hadn’t worked so late all the time, maybe it wouldn’t have happened? But because Clay was such a nice and lovely guy, in time he was able to forgive Caroline for what she had done and he went to live his own life after her.
It is a beautiful book to read and the way it was written is totally respectful towards what the book is about. I felt the emotions of all the characters and it was easy to fall into becoming attached to each character as they were easy to associate with and care for. It is definitely a page turner and I couldn’t put it down at all, I needed to know what was going to happen.
Give this book a read, it will not disappoint.
Z. Elizabeth 