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"The Shattered Path"
Vanessa Templeton, the formidable head of a global media empire, has it all. Until she doesn’t. Her world changes in an instant, tumbling her into the unknown.
Eden Ford, a renowned photographer, has been travelling the world in her quest for the perfect pictures. She thought she was past finding love, especially on an isolated island in the middle of the sea. That is until Vanessa falls into her world.
When they meet, the attraction is powerful, but is it real?
The Shattered Path is a poignant story of love, loss, and the enduring hope that even the most fractured memories can find a way back to the heart where they belong.
Eden Ford, a renowned photographer, has been travelling the world in her quest for the perfect pictures. She thought she was past finding love, especially on an isolated island in the middle of the sea. That is until Vanessa falls into her world.
When they meet, the attraction is powerful, but is it real?
The Shattered Path is a poignant story of love, loss, and the enduring hope that even the most fractured memories can find a way back to the heart where they belong.
318 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 5, 2024
56 people are currently reading
79 people want to read
About the author
Maggie Brown
15 books117 followersBorn and bred in Queensland, Australia, Maggie Brown has always been an advocate for women’s rights. An avid reader, she only discovered lesbian literature ten years ago, which opened a whole new world to her. A long-term artist, she turned her hand to writing for a different challenge. It’s become her passion, and she now has eight books on the shelves, two of which were finalists in the Golden Crown Literary awards. Her novels vary from thrillers to romances. Maggie loves dotting her pages with lots of interesting characters, and writes about relationships with a humorous eye. When she’s not writing, she’s a golf hacker, card sharp and movie buff, and particularly likes to chill out at night with a glass of wine and a good book.
Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
November 30, 2025
Lovely book that had me totally enthralled. Not too sure by the confident medical changes that drove the book, but the journey was perfect. Thank you.
August 13, 2024
Entertaining and fast-moving story with likeable characters, and a couple of not so likeable ones. What happens when a high-powered city lifestyle gets transported into a laid-back isolated environment? Stir in a surge of unexpected attraction and choices (with no spoilers included) will have to be made.
July 23, 2025
Wow, wow, wow!
This is an excellent book. Drama, mystery, romance, and two cases of amnesia. I loved it, and would recommend to all my fellow hopeless romantics out there.
This is an excellent book. Drama, mystery, romance, and two cases of amnesia. I loved it, and would recommend to all my fellow hopeless romantics out there.
August 23, 2025
Couldn’t put it down. What a wonderful and unique story. The two lovely MCs were so perfect for each other. Even the epilogue left me with warm felllings forthe two MCs. I’ll reread this book in the future - for sure. Goes to my all favorite book list.
Looking forward to read more from this new to me author.
Highly recommended and 5 ⭐️ are not enough.
Looking forward to read more from this new to me author.
Highly recommended and 5 ⭐️ are not enough.
January 13, 2026
The Shattered Path is not just a love story—it’s a quiet reckoning with memory, identity, and the fragile courage it takes to love again when the past refuses to stay whole. Maggie Brown writes with a restrained, aching elegance, allowing silence, loss, and longing to do as much work as dialogue ever could.
At the heart of the novel is the unlikely, unforgettable connection between Vanessa Templeton, the commanding head of a global media empire in New York, and Eden Ford, a renowned photographer whose life revolves around patience, light, and truth. Vanessa’s world is one of sharp edges and relentless momentum—glass towers, power lunches, public certainty. Eden’s is softer, shaped by landscapes and moments most people overlook. They should never have crossed paths. And yet, fate places them together on an isolated Australian island, far from ambition, expectation, and noise. They seem, at first glance, incompatible. Yet Brown’s genius lies in showing how opposites don’t just attract—they recognize each other.
Their meeting on an isolated Australian island feels almost mythic, suspended outside time. Removed from Vanessa’s power and Eden’s acclaim, they encounter each other as simply two women stripped down to presence. The island becomes a sanctuary where names, titles, and expectations dissolve. Love grows there not loudly, but inevitably—through shared silences, unguarded laughter, and the slow realization that being seen can be both terrifying and salvational.
On that island, Maggie Brown gives us something rare: a love born without performance. Vanessa is no longer an executive; Eden is not defined by acclaim. They meet as two women learning how to breathe again. Their connection unfolds gently—through shared silences, long walks, and the unspoken understanding that this place exists outside the rules of their real lives. It’s a love rooted in presence, not promises. And that is precisely what makes it so fragile.
Then comes the novel’s most devastating turn: shattered memory. Memory loss in The Shattered Path is not treated as a plot device, but as a moral and emotional wound. When memory fractures, love doesn’t vanish all at once—it erodes. Brown captures this loss with painful intimacy: the way recognition flickers and fails, how affection lingers without context, how the body remembers what the mind cannot. Eden becomes a ghost in a life that once held her fully. Vanessa, powerful and resourceful in every other arena, is rendered helpless in the face of forgetting.
What makes this story extraordinary is its refusal to romanticize suffering. Love does not “fix” memory, and memory does not guarantee love. Instead, the author asks a harder question: If you forget someone you once loved, was that love ever real? Her answer is quietly radical—love is real precisely because it leaves a mark, even when the mind lets go.
When memory loss fractures Vanessa’s life, the novel turns achingly intimate. Brown does not treat shattered memory as a dramatic twist, but as a slow, cruel erasure. Vanessa forgets Eden not all at once, but in pieces—names slipping away, faces blurring, emotions remaining without explanation. Love becomes a feeling without a story. Eden, once central, becomes a stranger in the narrative of Vanessa’s own life.
Yet the most haunting element of the novel is this: Vanessa dreams of Eden.
She dreams of a woman she cannot name.
She wakes with a sense of longing she cannot place.
She feels love without memory—and grief without loss.
These dreams are where The Shattered Path truly breaks your heart. Brown suggests that memory may fail, but the heart keeps its own archive. Eden survives in Vanessa’s subconscious as warmth, safety, and absence. It’s a powerful exploration of how real love imprints itself beyond logic—how it lingers even when identity and context are gone.
Their reunion in New York is painfully restrained and beautifully written. The city, cold and overwhelming, mirrors the imbalance between them. Eden remembers everything. Vanessa remembers nothing—and yet feels everything. There is no easy reclaiming of the past, no magical restoration. There is no cinematic rush back into each other’s arms. Instead, there is hesitation, grief, hope, and the terrifying possibility that love might have to begin again from nothing. Instead, there is tension, restraint, and the unbearable question: Can you fall in love again with the same person when only one of you remembers the first time?
This is a novel for anyone who has loved deeply, lost painfully, and wondered whether the heart remembers what the mind cannot. Quiet, devastating, and profoundly human, The Shattered Path reminds us that even when memory shatters, love may still be waiting—unfinished, unresolved, and achingly alive.
The Shattered Path understands that real love is not just found—it is lost, mourned, misremembered, and sometimes rediscovered in unfamiliar forms. Maggie Brown writes with deep compassion for women who are strong yet broken, successful yet lonely, capable of giving the world everything except certainty in love.
This is a novel for anyone who has ever wondered whether love survives when memory fails—and whether choosing each other again, without guarantees, might be the bravest act of all.
The Shattered Path is a tender, devastating meditation on love that survives even when memory does not. Maggie Brown writes with a quiet intensity, crafting a story that lingers long after the final page—like a half-remembered dream you can’t quite let go of, but feel deep in your bones.
At the heart of the novel is the unlikely, unforgettable connection between Vanessa Templeton, the commanding head of a global media empire in New York, and Eden Ford, a renowned photographer whose life revolves around patience, light, and truth. Vanessa’s world is one of sharp edges and relentless momentum—glass towers, power lunches, public certainty. Eden’s is softer, shaped by landscapes and moments most people overlook. They should never have crossed paths. And yet, fate places them together on an isolated Australian island, far from ambition, expectation, and noise. They seem, at first glance, incompatible. Yet Brown’s genius lies in showing how opposites don’t just attract—they recognize each other.
Their meeting on an isolated Australian island feels almost mythic, suspended outside time. Removed from Vanessa’s power and Eden’s acclaim, they encounter each other as simply two women stripped down to presence. The island becomes a sanctuary where names, titles, and expectations dissolve. Love grows there not loudly, but inevitably—through shared silences, unguarded laughter, and the slow realization that being seen can be both terrifying and salvational.
On that island, Maggie Brown gives us something rare: a love born without performance. Vanessa is no longer an executive; Eden is not defined by acclaim. They meet as two women learning how to breathe again. Their connection unfolds gently—through shared silences, long walks, and the unspoken understanding that this place exists outside the rules of their real lives. It’s a love rooted in presence, not promises. And that is precisely what makes it so fragile.
Then comes the novel’s most devastating turn: shattered memory. Memory loss in The Shattered Path is not treated as a plot device, but as a moral and emotional wound. When memory fractures, love doesn’t vanish all at once—it erodes. Brown captures this loss with painful intimacy: the way recognition flickers and fails, how affection lingers without context, how the body remembers what the mind cannot. Eden becomes a ghost in a life that once held her fully. Vanessa, powerful and resourceful in every other arena, is rendered helpless in the face of forgetting.
What makes this story extraordinary is its refusal to romanticize suffering. Love does not “fix” memory, and memory does not guarantee love. Instead, the author asks a harder question: If you forget someone you once loved, was that love ever real? Her answer is quietly radical—love is real precisely because it leaves a mark, even when the mind lets go.
When memory loss fractures Vanessa’s life, the novel turns achingly intimate. Brown does not treat shattered memory as a dramatic twist, but as a slow, cruel erasure. Vanessa forgets Eden not all at once, but in pieces—names slipping away, faces blurring, emotions remaining without explanation. Love becomes a feeling without a story. Eden, once central, becomes a stranger in the narrative of Vanessa’s own life.
Yet the most haunting element of the novel is this: Vanessa dreams of Eden.
She dreams of a woman she cannot name.
She wakes with a sense of longing she cannot place.
She feels love without memory—and grief without loss.
These dreams are where The Shattered Path truly breaks your heart. Brown suggests that memory may fail, but the heart keeps its own archive. Eden survives in Vanessa’s subconscious as warmth, safety, and absence. It’s a powerful exploration of how real love imprints itself beyond logic—how it lingers even when identity and context are gone.
Their reunion in New York is painfully restrained and beautifully written. The city, cold and overwhelming, mirrors the imbalance between them. Eden remembers everything. Vanessa remembers nothing—and yet feels everything. There is no easy reclaiming of the past, no magical restoration. There is no cinematic rush back into each other’s arms. Instead, there is hesitation, grief, hope, and the terrifying possibility that love might have to begin again from nothing. Instead, there is tension, restraint, and the unbearable question: Can you fall in love again with the same person when only one of you remembers the first time?
This is a novel for anyone who has loved deeply, lost painfully, and wondered whether the heart remembers what the mind cannot. Quiet, devastating, and profoundly human, The Shattered Path reminds us that even when memory shatters, love may still be waiting—unfinished, unresolved, and achingly alive.
The Shattered Path understands that real love is not just found—it is lost, mourned, misremembered, and sometimes rediscovered in unfamiliar forms. Maggie Brown writes with deep compassion for women who are strong yet broken, successful yet lonely, capable of giving the world everything except certainty in love.
This is a novel for anyone who has ever wondered whether love survives when memory fails—and whether choosing each other again, without guarantees, might be the bravest act of all.
The Shattered Path is a tender, devastating meditation on love that survives even when memory does not. Maggie Brown writes with a quiet intensity, crafting a story that lingers long after the final page—like a half-remembered dream you can’t quite let go of, but feel deep in your bones.
April 20, 2025
An engaging story, with interesting characters, and a slow burn romance built on friendship and mutual trust that left me missing the characters when I had finished. I loved the contrast between life on the rugged, isolated, Aussie coast and slick, bustling NYC. The romance and suspense were well balanced and kept me intrigued from start to finish.
August 11, 2024
Lovely f/f romance set in Australia and New York
This was a lovely read. I especially liked the two distinct parts of the book - set in the Australian wilderness and NYC - which complemented each other and revealed the different sides of the main characters.
The first part was set on a lonely island in the middle of Bass Strait off the Australian coast. Eden who is wildlife photographer meets Vanessa there who has lost her memory: a carefree life and a wonderful connection is forming. The vibe of sea, wildlife, freedom and love was great.
The second part of the book we get to know Vanessa in her highpowered NYC-CEO-life. I enjoyed the liberation and coming into her own of Vanessa T.
Both parts and the romance were well written and engaging. I esp. loved the descriptions of the photographic art. This was an enjoyable read for a lazy day.
Thank you to the author for an ARC. The review is left voluntarily.
This was a lovely read. I especially liked the two distinct parts of the book - set in the Australian wilderness and NYC - which complemented each other and revealed the different sides of the main characters.
The first part was set on a lonely island in the middle of Bass Strait off the Australian coast. Eden who is wildlife photographer meets Vanessa there who has lost her memory: a carefree life and a wonderful connection is forming. The vibe of sea, wildlife, freedom and love was great.
The second part of the book we get to know Vanessa in her highpowered NYC-CEO-life. I enjoyed the liberation and coming into her own of Vanessa T.
Both parts and the romance were well written and engaging. I esp. loved the descriptions of the photographic art. This was an enjoyable read for a lazy day.
Thank you to the author for an ARC. The review is left voluntarily.
August 10, 2024
When life takes an unexpected turn…
Entertaining and fast-moving story with likeable characters, and a couple of not so likeable ones. What happens when a high-powered city lifestyle gets transported into a laid-back isolated environment? Stir in a surge of unexpected attraction and choices (with no spoilers included) will have to be made.
Entertaining and fast-moving story with likeable characters, and a couple of not so likeable ones. What happens when a high-powered city lifestyle gets transported into a laid-back isolated environment? Stir in a surge of unexpected attraction and choices (with no spoilers included) will have to be made.
August 23, 2024
Incredible Heart Touching Story
This is a good one! It's a story of two characters that latch onto your heart and don't let go. Through their experiences and mysteries, we want them to not let go of each other either. The Shattered Path leads the way and I'm so glad I got to experience it.
This is a good one! It's a story of two characters that latch onto your heart and don't let go. Through their experiences and mysteries, we want them to not let go of each other either. The Shattered Path leads the way and I'm so glad I got to experience it.
August 25, 2024
A Special Love Story
This book covers deceit, attempted
murder, rescue on an island, amnesia and best of all finding love. I didn’t want to stop reading until I finished it. Don’t miss this book if you love sapphic stories.
This book covers deceit, attempted
murder, rescue on an island, amnesia and best of all finding love. I didn’t want to stop reading until I finished it. Don’t miss this book if you love sapphic stories.
September 28, 2024
An unforgettable love
This is my second book by this author and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We got to experience them falling in love twice and I enjoyed the story very much. I hope there is a sequel.
This is my second book by this author and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We got to experience them falling in love twice and I enjoyed the story very much. I hope there is a sequel.
October 11, 2024
One of the most beautiful and extraordinary books I've ever read. I loved the way the two main characters fell in love twice. I originally borrowed the book through Kindle Unlimited but will definitely be buying a copy and will definitely be reading it again in the future.
October 19, 2024
Beautiful Romantic adventure
Fantastic book with a very well written plot. Charming characters, comprehensive dialogues, plenty of love scenes and intimacy. Very enjoyable and what a beautiful ending.
Fantastic book with a very well written plot. Charming characters, comprehensive dialogues, plenty of love scenes and intimacy. Very enjoyable and what a beautiful ending.
February 26, 2025
This is the perfect book to read. Loved the setting, plot, and development of the story. Highly recommend.
June 25, 2025
Oh so good
A wonderful tale with characters so well written they draw you in deep. With memories lost/found and betrayal you will not be disappointed.
A wonderful tale with characters so well written they draw you in deep. With memories lost/found and betrayal you will not be disappointed.
September 5, 2025
great story
Excellent book. Great characters, thrilling story line. Was a little worried Nessa wouldn’t get her memories back and lose Eden. Book was a pleasure to read..
Excellent book. Great characters, thrilling story line. Was a little worried Nessa wouldn’t get her memories back and lose Eden. Book was a pleasure to read..
August 11, 2024
This is a well written romance with a touching plot. The storyline has many twists and turns and kept me entralled to the end. The characters are well-developed and as usual with Maggie Brown there is a cast of interesting secondary characters. One of the best books I've read this year.
October 20, 2025
4 Stars - really fun and engaging read. Could not put it down. Loved the leads.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews