Book Review: Broken by Lauren Layne (@_laurenlayne)

Broken (Redemption #1) by Lauren Layne
Publication Date: September 2, 2014
Published: Flirt
Source: Netgalley

My Rating:

When Olivia Middleton abandons the glamour of Park Avenue for a remote, coastal town in Maine, everyone assumes she’s being the kind do-gooder she’s always been. But Olivia has a secret: helping an injured war veteran reenter society isn’t about charity—it’s about penance. Only, Olivia’s client isn’t the grateful elderly man she’s expecting. Instead, he’s a brooding twenty-four-year-old who has no intention of being Olivia’s path to redemption . . . and whose smoldering gaze and forbidden touch might be her undoing.
Paul Langdon doesn’t need a mirror to show him he’s no longer the hotshot quarterback he was before the war. He knows he’s ugly—inside and out. He’ll do anything to stay in self-imposed exile, even accept his father’s ultimatum that Paul tolerate the newest caretaker for three months or lose his inheritance. But Paul doesn’t count on the beautiful twenty-two-year-old who makes him long for things that he can never have. And the more she slips past his defenses, the more keeping his distance is impossible.
Now Paul and Olivia have to decide: Will they help each other heal? Or are they forever broken?

Thank you to Netgalley for this read.

Having recently read another one of Lauren Layne’s books, I was really excited to start this one. As well as a little apprehensive to be honest. After reading the synopsis, it seemed a little dark. Being the fluff queen that I am, it gave me a little pause. However, after I started Broken, I could not put it down.

As we meet Olivia, she is a socialite seeking redemption from an unsavory situation between her ex-boyfriend. This is why she is self-exiling herself to Bar Harbor, Maine to take care of what she believes to be an old crippled vet. The crippled vet part she had right. Old? Not so much. Paul Langdon is beautifully damaged marine injured in Afghanistan that has cut himself off from society as he lets guilt and anger eat away at him.

I immediately got a Beauty and the Beast vibe when reading. Paul, injured both physically (his face was also scarred) and emotionally, he was the beast in this. And he didn't disappoint. He was a major dick! But you knew that it was a defensive mechanism and the whole time I found myself wanting Olivia to just come in and break down his walls.

Beauty Olivia was, but she wasn't some timid bookworm. She seemed to come alive when she was with Paul in a way she never had before. And it helped that they were both kindred spirits running from pasts that threatened to break them individually.

The attraction between these two basically melted the words off the page. Paul was someone Olivia should be scared of and he tried so hard to push his new caregiver away but Olivia went toe for toe with him. I liked that she didn't back down from him. I also loved that they had really great banter from the beginning. They just seemed to complement each other in ways others couldn't.

Lauren Layne seriously knows how to balance the sexy with the heart wrenching plots. The times that she went into the war aspect, I didn't feel overwhelmed by the heavy subject. It was tasteful and respectful. Sometimes I did find myself predicting some of the things that were going to happen. However, it didn't take away from the story at hand which in my opinion went hand in hand with the love story in the forefront.