Author: Michael Wegman
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Year Published: 2025
Nerdection Rating:
“Nerdection Must Read”
Three weeks and twelve thousand, eight hundred forty-seven dollars and thirty two cents later, Diane Sterling finds herself on the fifty-third story of the Bank of San Diego building, contemplating the merits of her body meeting the concrete sidewalk below.
It would be the end of everything. The final inheritance passed down to her. Ensuring her mother’s prophetic gaze cast across a casket would not go to waste even when her own body would.
The accumulation of small moments led Diane to the ledge; the encouragement of the wind and the steep drop awaiting would lead her back to the start of it all. 1979 is as good a year as any to try to fix a life’s worth of mistakes.
Spoiler-Free Plot
The knowledge accumulated over thirty-eight years of living, and trying and failing is entirely too much for an eight-year-old body to bear. Every bit of her, flesh, nerves and all, fights to repel the unnatural state they have been bound to by memories of a future that is yet to happen. Not everyone gets a second chance, and especially not in this way.
Diane Sterling is sent back in time, to a place of significance decades in her past. Her loved ones are there: her pragmatic mother, her troubled father, her sweet little brother, Tommy, Marcus, Mrs Henderson. Exactly as she remembered.
The rules are simple; actions can be changed but their outcomes cannot be controlled, every day must be lived through in its entirety—no skipping, and lastly, learning to forgive herself is a mandatory condition of remaining in the parallel existence she finds herself in. To stay—learn the lessons the world had distracted her from taking a closer look at her first time around—or to return to the brink of life and death is the choice she must make whenever she is ready.
My Take on The Second Life of Diane Sterling
This book does not present a premise that is new to us: we’ve got the element of redemption, traveling back into the protagonist’s past, a coming of age story, a profound perspective on the themes of substance abuse and addiction, what that might mean for a multi-generational family unit, and plenty more.
What matters is the material used to glue everything together. Michael Wegman seems to have found the substance of what we humans are made of. Each chapter is wrought with the type of candor that’s almost a little too difficult to look at directly for fear of its familiarity staring you straight in the eye when you try.
Confronting would be a very apt adjective one could use to summarise this story. Readers don’t have to identify with the specifics of the different conflicts this story holds to glean the overarching message embedded within.
Michael Wegman’s style of writing hits you where you will feel it most. He strings together sentences with emotional intention. When dissected, the writing itself proves to be uncomplicated. It means exactly what it says and can be taken at face value. Aside from the speculative element, there is a sense of commonality running through that is kindred. Because of this, a reduction of repeated phrasing should be taken into consideration. In an already condensed read, the effectiveness of those punchy quotes tends to bleed out quite quickly. Knowing how nitpicky some readers can be, I would hate for the masses to miss out on such a good read based on something corrigible.
To cap off my opinions, I must say this review would be remiss without commenting on how masterfully written the self-inserted character was. Words have failed me in describing this any further, and perhaps that’s for the best (no spoilers!). I hope it will be enjoyed by others just as much as I enjoyed it.
The essence of debilitating shame, the redemption from oneself and the redemption for oneself ink the pages of this book. It soothes the shower thoughts, the late night tossing and turning when disturbed by the vapours of regret. The Second Life of Diane Sterling teaches us to choose the honest choice; whatever one that may be.
Age Rating
15 years and above
Content Warnings
Addiction, Domestic Violence, Graphic Injuries, Substance Abuse, Suicide.
About The Author Of The Second Life of Diane Sterling
Michael Wegman is a retired public school educator and naval officer who has written for 21 years under his own name and a pen name in a different genre’. A member of the North Carolina Writer’s Network, he and his wife of 45 years reside in Eastern North Carolina. They have two married daughters and three grandkids.
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