Dr. Chance Ramsey has built the most successful sports medicine practice in the Southwest. Then, on the eve of his fiftieth birthday, he receives an unsettling letter from his wily, aged godfather, Manny Montoya, promising to reveal secrets “about who you are and are not.”

The letter upends Ramsey’s life. He takes a leave of absence from his medical practice to return, after forty years, to Hermosa, the tiny New Mexico mountain town where he was born. There, his first contacts with his godfather are nostalgic, but also testy. Montoya, a key figure in Chance’s life, is a teasing, reluctant witness to the past, leaving Chance to be guided in his search for his own origins by a rich and varied collection of local acquaintances — both old and new.

Over the course of a year, Chance’s search expands to cross generations and geographical divides as he resolves the mystery of his origins and absorbs the events of his evolving life — the death of Manny Montoya and a new relationship with Vangie Ramírez, the straight-forward, captivating, vice-principal of an Hermosa elementary school, who draws Chance to a small desert town along the border of Mexico — as he considers how to live his life going forward.

Set against vividly drawn landscapes and historical events — imbued with humor, tenderness, sorrow, and joy — Second Chance is a compelling story that is both intensely personal and expansive in scope as it explores the forces that determine who we become and whether we have the power to change.