In this moving parable of personal growth and change, Burchard has created a rich, emotional journey of transformation that, buy its end, readers feel like they can truly start their lives anew, as if they’ve received a “golden ticket”--a second chance at life. Life’s Golden Ticket tells the story of a man who is so trapped in the prisons of his past that he cannot see the possibilities, the choices, and the gifts he has right in front of him. At the behest of his fiancée, who is clinging to life in a hospital bed, he takes the envelope she hands him and makes his way to an old, abandoned amusement park to appease her delirious pleadings. But when he steps through the rusted entrance gates, the abandoned park magically comes to life. He soon meets Harry, an old groundskeeper, and together they set out to uncover what happened to his fiancée Mary. Along the way, the narrator visits a number of caring yet confrontational park employees--a hypnotist, a fortune-teller, high-wire performers, screaming carnies, and a lion tamer--who all somehow know about his life and his relationship with Mary. Through each encounter he must answer difficult questions, overcome obstacles, listen to lessons from those wiser than he and take a good hard look at himself. At the end of his journey, he opens Mary’s mysterious envelope and discovers a golden ticket--the final phase in turning his tragic life’s story of loss and regret into a triumphant tale of love and redemption.