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Barlow-Barretts #4
Broken Heart
Perfection isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Stacey Barlow-Barrett has the perfect life–or, at least, the illusion of one. She's married to the man her parents approved, and she's making it work. But keeping up appearances is wearing her down. Her husband, Jace, wants to start a family. Her former lover, Mason, is a business associate she can't cut off, and he twists the knife at every opportunity. Trying to make everyone happy–everyone except herself–has her on the verge of a breakdown.
When Jace's best friend moves in, everything that seemed tenuously tolerable is now completely unbearable, and Stacey realizes something is very wrong in her marriage. Jace is keeping up appearances too, and it's at Stacey's expense.
Mason is the only one she can turn to for help. . .if he can forgive her for marrying Jace while the sheets were still warm from their last encounter. And even if he does forgive her, and she does dig her way out of the mess her marriage has become, Stacey may not be ready for what he needs in love.
CONTENT This book contains some mild m/m encounters, language and violent situations that may make some readers uncomfortable.
69,000 Words
Stacey Barlow-Barrett has the perfect life–or, at least, the illusion of one. She's married to the man her parents approved, and she's making it work. But keeping up appearances is wearing her down. Her husband, Jace, wants to start a family. Her former lover, Mason, is a business associate she can't cut off, and he twists the knife at every opportunity. Trying to make everyone happy–everyone except herself–has her on the verge of a breakdown.
When Jace's best friend moves in, everything that seemed tenuously tolerable is now completely unbearable, and Stacey realizes something is very wrong in her marriage. Jace is keeping up appearances too, and it's at Stacey's expense.
Mason is the only one she can turn to for help. . .if he can forgive her for marrying Jace while the sheets were still warm from their last encounter. And even if he does forgive her, and she does dig her way out of the mess her marriage has become, Stacey may not be ready for what he needs in love.
CONTENT This book contains some mild m/m encounters, language and violent situations that may make some readers uncomfortable.
69,000 Words
230 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2013
1 person is currently reading
12 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 11, 2018
Sometimes perfection isn’t really as perfect as it seems to be. Stacey Barlow-Barrett has the perfect life, or at least that’s the way it looks to the people on the outside. She has the perfect career and is married to the perfect man, whom her perfect family approves of. So, she should be perfectly happy, right? But, what nobody knows is how hard she’s working just to make things work and keep from buckling under the pressure. And keeping up appearances is slowly taking its toll. Her husband, Jace, has suddenly become determined to start a family but Stacey isn’t sure that she’s ready. Mason, her former lover that she can’t seem to fully forget about, is a business associate that is invaluable to her business, so she can’t completely cut ties with him. But, he takes every opportunity to twist the knife and remind her that she’s still strongly affected by him and that he’s fully aware of this fact. Stacey is starting to realize that while she’s been putting all of her efforts into making everyone else happy, she’s the only one that isn’t happy. In fact, she’s miserable, and all she has to show for it is that she’s so stressed out that she’s on the verge of a breakdown. After Jace’s longtime best friend moves in with them, while his own home is being renovated, a situation that has been barely tolerable becomes even more difficult, exposing some serious, potentially irresolvable problems in her marriage. It turns out that Jace has been busy keeping up appearances, and all at Stacey’s expense. Stacey has no one to turn to for help, except for Mason, and that’s only if he’s willing to forgive her for marrying Jace in the first place. And, even if he does manage to forgive her and she finds a way to dig her way out of the disaster her marriage has become, does Stacey have the courage to give Mason what he truly wants, her heart?
I’ll be honest, this isn’t the type of book that I normally get into and enjoy. Im just not usually into regular romance novels, they usually have to have some kind of additional elements to set it apart. I’m not even completely sure why I started reading it, other than I was bored and it caught my eye, as I searched Scribd for something new to read. So, the fact that I truly enjoyed it and was hooked from the very beginning, really says a lot about this novel. Now, I generally skip over sex scenes in the books I read, I can’t tell you if they were well written or not. You’ll have to judge that for yourself. The rest of the novel was incredibly well written and Laura Browning has a true talent for captivating the reader’s attention and holding onto it. She also is very skilled at character development and I really liked Stacey and Mason, and Stacey’s brothers and their wives, as people. Her parents were well written but really frustrated me and, while Jace was well written, too, I couldn’t stand him. His friend was only marginally better, as a person. Despite this not being my typical style of book, I’m definitely going to be reading the rest of the series.
**Now, I don’t normally do this, but because of the variety of people on my friend’s list, I am going to include a content warning so that nobody is surprised. “This book contains “mild” m/m encounters, language, and some violent situations that may make some readers uncomfortable.”**
I’ll be honest, this isn’t the type of book that I normally get into and enjoy. Im just not usually into regular romance novels, they usually have to have some kind of additional elements to set it apart. I’m not even completely sure why I started reading it, other than I was bored and it caught my eye, as I searched Scribd for something new to read. So, the fact that I truly enjoyed it and was hooked from the very beginning, really says a lot about this novel. Now, I generally skip over sex scenes in the books I read, I can’t tell you if they were well written or not. You’ll have to judge that for yourself. The rest of the novel was incredibly well written and Laura Browning has a true talent for captivating the reader’s attention and holding onto it. She also is very skilled at character development and I really liked Stacey and Mason, and Stacey’s brothers and their wives, as people. Her parents were well written but really frustrated me and, while Jace was well written, too, I couldn’t stand him. His friend was only marginally better, as a person. Despite this not being my typical style of book, I’m definitely going to be reading the rest of the series.
**Now, I don’t normally do this, but because of the variety of people on my friend’s list, I am going to include a content warning so that nobody is surprised. “This book contains “mild” m/m encounters, language, and some violent situations that may make some readers uncomfortable.”**
November 26, 2013
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Brought to you by OBS reviewer Sammy
This is a super fast read, with some very dark plot lines and others that were more of the fluffy romance type. I enjoyed this book and found it to be an interesting read. The writing was good, the pacing was off in a few places, but mostly spot on.
I gave this a 4 star rating because the story held my interest and had many new things pop up that you didn’t see coming. With that said, here’s why the story didn’t get 5 stars. Stacey seemed very young and immature and was a shock to me that she was turning thirty years old. She missed so many things that were going on right under her nose. But, even more than that the way she “listened” to what her parents wanted was ridiculous. Keep in mind I am not a rich person so I have no idea of how something like this would work in a real life family dynamic, such as she was brought up with.
Jace was unbalanced, vile and just a plain loser. He never did get what was coming to him. Stacey and Justin tried very hard to help him as best as they could. I did feel some pity for Jace because he must have really hated himself and who he was to act the way he did. But overall I would have like to see him get his.
There were many characters in this story, which I thought could be in other stories, so when I got done reading this story I checked and low and behold it is a series. Which is good as I will be going back and reading more by this author.
One thing I do want to say is about the synopsis, it doesn’t convey what the story is about clearly. The first time I read it, it seemed to almost sound like Stacey was having an affair, which is not the case in this book.
I recommend this story to adults, not because of explicit sex or violent scenes those were written very well and on the lighter side. However, what they did to Stacey without her knowing was over the line of a happy romance with some Alpha male punching each other, it was extremely harsh part of the story.
This is the first story by this author I have read, but I am looking forward to reading more of her work.
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Sammy
This is a super fast read, with some very dark plot lines and others that were more of the fluffy romance type. I enjoyed this book and found it to be an interesting read. The writing was good, the pacing was off in a few places, but mostly spot on.
I gave this a 4 star rating because the story held my interest and had many new things pop up that you didn’t see coming. With that said, here’s why the story didn’t get 5 stars. Stacey seemed very young and immature and was a shock to me that she was turning thirty years old. She missed so many things that were going on right under her nose. But, even more than that the way she “listened” to what her parents wanted was ridiculous. Keep in mind I am not a rich person so I have no idea of how something like this would work in a real life family dynamic, such as she was brought up with.
Jace was unbalanced, vile and just a plain loser. He never did get what was coming to him. Stacey and Justin tried very hard to help him as best as they could. I did feel some pity for Jace because he must have really hated himself and who he was to act the way he did. But overall I would have like to see him get his.
There were many characters in this story, which I thought could be in other stories, so when I got done reading this story I checked and low and behold it is a series. Which is good as I will be going back and reading more by this author.
One thing I do want to say is about the synopsis, it doesn’t convey what the story is about clearly. The first time I read it, it seemed to almost sound like Stacey was having an affair, which is not the case in this book.
I recommend this story to adults, not because of explicit sex or violent scenes those were written very well and on the lighter side. However, what they did to Stacey without her knowing was over the line of a happy romance with some Alpha male punching each other, it was extremely harsh part of the story.
This is the first story by this author I have read, but I am looking forward to reading more of her work.
July 15, 2017
Glorious
Laura Browning did it again. I love her writing and her stories. I read this so fast and now I am sorry. I sure hope she writes more about this family. This book had more tension in it but the love was there. I don't review and give details. I like not knowing before I read a book.
Laura Browning did it again. I love her writing and her stories. I read this so fast and now I am sorry. I sure hope she writes more about this family. This book had more tension in it but the love was there. I don't review and give details. I like not knowing before I read a book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews