Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

The Girl with the Broken Heart

Rate this book
"Sorry, John Green fans, but McDaniel's been making us cry . . . for decades ." --Bustle.com

An inspirational story about love, tragedy, heartbreak, and renewal as a young woman deals with her serious health issues, a fractured family life, and the prospect of romantic love while trying to remain focused on her studies and a lifelong dream.

Kenzie Caine is enrolled at Vanderbilt University, with the goal of becoming a veterinarian. When she lands a summer job caring for and helping to rehabilitate abused horses at the Bellmeade Estate stables, she is over-the-moon happy. One place she does not want to be is at home with her parents. Since the tragic death of Kenzie's younger sister, her mother has unraveled and her father has lost Kenzie's trust.

At the stables, Kenzie is in her element. But a serious heart condition limits her ability to complete the more physical aspects of the job, so her employers have tasked the charming Austin Boyd with helping her. But Austin has secrets. And as Kenzie and Austin become closer, those secrets threaten to harm their relationship, as well as reveal other startling truths.

Once again Lurlene McDaniel delivers the type of story for which she is famous--and readers everywhere will be reaching for their tissues.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published December 18, 2018

33 people are currently reading
837 people want to read

About the author

Lurlene McDaniel

138 books2,737 followers
Lurlene McDaniel (born c. 1948) is an author who has written over 50 young adult books. She is well known for writing about characters struggling with chronic and terminal illnesses, such as cancer, diabetes, and organ failure.


Other places to find her are...
https://www.facebook.com/lurlenemcdan...
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/aut...
http://www.youtube.com/user/LurleneMc

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
116 (34%)
4 stars
96 (28%)
3 stars
89 (26%)
2 stars
32 (9%)
1 star
6 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
Profile Image for Rose | Adventurous Bookworm.
1,211 reviews174 followers
April 18, 2022
This was the first of Lurlene's recent books that I have read. It was a lot more romancy and had a more complex plot than her older books.
This one took me two weeks to read, and I am not quite sure why. Every time I picked it up, I read until I had to stop but then had no interest in picking it back up later.
I loved the plot twist! I knew there was one coming, but I did not expect it to be what it was.

Tropes: secret identity

Age: NA since characters are college-aged but with a ya writing style

Content: kissing, mentions of sending nudes and suicide and depression and sibling loss

4 Stars
Profile Image for Grace.
380 reviews43 followers
December 27, 2018
THE GIRL WITH THE BROKEN HEART is easy to read and focused on the two main characters and the three horses --- Blue, Sparkle, and Mamie --- they are hoping to rehabilitate. Kenzie and Austin are closed off from each other for different reasons, but they slowly become friends as they spend almost all of their time working with these horses together. The romance that readers know is coming takes a long time to develop. The story includes death, animal abuse, and severe health problems without being a “heavy” story. I became very hopeful for all of the characters’ --- and horses --- well-being. I appreciated just how much I learned about horses in this book. The story weaves in animal rights and activism as an essential cause of tension between Kenzie and her family and succeeds in educating readers about those topics.

Even though Lurlene McDaniel has been writing for many years and published an extraordinary number of books, this is the first book by her that I have ever read or heard of. Her writing style is interesting to me because she doesn’t switch to alternate points-of-view each chapter but often switches between every paragraph, moving fluidly into the minds of both Kenzie and Austin. I am not sure if I have ever read a contemporary romance with this style. I liked reading from Kenzie’s point of view, and Austin’s point of view continually brought up a mystery of who he was also working for. He lives a sort of a double life, but readers do not know the details of that. The book is short, and the characters are frustrating at times, but I was still very much invested in these characters.

When I began reading THE GIRL WITH THE BROKEN HEART, I had no idea that the novel was interconnected with a few other books by McDaniel. Readers who are invested in the lives of Lani and Ciana are bound to appreciate their cameos in this book more than I was able to. I do not think that reading the other books is necessary to have an enjoyable reading experience. The idea of interconnected romance novels reminds me a lot of Miranda Kenneally’s Hundred Oaks series, which also happens to be set in Tennessee. I loved Kenneally’s series and fans of her books will likely also love McDaniel’s Bellmeade novels.
Profile Image for Stephanie Fitzgerald.
1,211 reviews
August 4, 2019
What stood out for me:
The way the author wrote about the harm that cyber-bullying can cause.
What I learned about the way many Tennessee Walking horses are trained made me tear up at the absolute cruelty.
I wanted the rehab horses to be my friends!😊
Profile Image for Zuriii₊˚.⋆⁺₊.
9 reviews2 followers
August 28, 2025
I didn't except to love this book as much as I did but here I am. the ending is shocking but if your not into horses don't even pick this book up because there is A LOT but anyways love you guys and this book... and I realized I have a love for horses now because of this book
Profile Image for Nicole.
88 reviews1 follower
March 6, 2019
So I only read the first four pages, but once I read, “Not me, little sister I love the big smelly beasts” as said by a 20 year old, I closed this book and moved on.
Profile Image for Teenreadsdotcom.
696 reviews39 followers
January 28, 2019
Lurlene McDaniel has written an impressive 50 young adult books. Most of her books follow characters with chronic and terminal illnesses. Some of her previous books include SOMEBODY’S BABY and LOSING GABRIEL: A Love Story. She now lives in Chatanooga, Tennessee, but grew up in Florida. Her newest young adult novel is THE GIRL WITH THE BROKEN HEART.

Kenzie Caine is a Vanderbilt University student with a passion for caring for horses. She has dealt with a lot lately: her younger sister died tragically, her mother is not dealing with it well and she had a falling out with her father. Kenzie is spending her summer rehabilitating horses at the Bellmeade Estates stables and could not be happier about it. Kenzie’s heart condition means that she has a hired helper for the summer to do the heavy lifting. Austin Boyd and Kenzie spend their summer together, but there are some secrets they must learn about each other.

THE GIRL WITH THE BROKEN HEART is easy to read and focused on the two main characters and the three horses --- Blue, Sparkle and Mamie --- they are hoping to rehabilitate. Kenzie and Austin are closed off from each other for different reasons, but they slowly become friends as they spend almost all of their time working with these horses together. The romance that readers know is coming takes a long time to develop. The story includes death, animal abuse and severe health problems without being a “heavy” story. I became very hopeful for all of the characters’ --- and horses --- well-being. I appreciated just how much I learned about horses in this book. The story weaves in animal rights and activism as an essential cause of tension between Kenzie and her family and succeeds in educating readers about those topics.

Even though Lurlene McDaniel has been writing for many years and published an extraordinary number of books, this is the first book by her that I have ever read or heard of. Her writing style is interesting to me because she doesn’t switch to alternate points-of-view each chapter but often switches between every paragraph, moving fluidly into the minds of both Kenzie and Austin. I am not sure if I have ever read a contemporary romance with this style. I liked reading from Kenzie’s point of view, and Austin’s point of view continually brought up a mystery of who he was also working for. He lives a sort of a double life, but readers do not know the details of that. The book is short, and the characters are frustrating at times, but I was still very much invested in these characters.

When I began reading THE GIRL WITH THE BROKEN HEART, I had no idea that the novel was interconnected with a few other books by McDaniel. Readers who are invested in the lives of Lani and Ciana are bound to appreciate their cameos in this book more than I was able to. I do not think that reading the other books is necessary to have an enjoyable reading experience. The idea of interconnected romance novels reminds me a lot of Miranda Kenneally’s Hundred Oaks series, which also happens to be set in Tennessee. I loved Kenneally’s series and fans of her books will likely also love McDaniel’s Bellmeade novels.
Profile Image for Stephanie A..
2,937 reviews95 followers
August 1, 2025
If I had been able to read this when it was new and I had first added it to my TBR, I think I would have given it 5 stars to match the first two Windemere books (starting with The Year of Luminous Love), because its horse-centric nature automatically makes me like it more than books 3 and 4, but alas, I have slightly outgrown my allowance for the more juvenile and info-dumping aspects of the writing.

Still, as her final book in both this series and overall, it is a highlight. I love Kenzie; I love her working relationship with Ciana -- she & Jon continue to be #CoupleGoals as the farm continues to thrive under their management -- and I love that there's just TONS of focus on Kenzie's job, which is All About Horses, including a solid spotlight on Tennessee Walkers (and the problems of abusive training methods). All three of the rescue horses endeared themselves to me.

Kenzie's heart condition is almost a footnote -- she gets short of breath and dizzy a couple of times, and there's a scene of heatstroke that her condition exacerbates but which could nevertheless happen to anyone, but overall? This is one of the lowest amounts of health crisis any of McDaniel's books contain.

I also really appreciated Oro's One Last Wish style role in making a terminal cancer patient happy to have her "own" horse on her property in her final days. It's equally nice that Lani continues to make regular appearances in this one.

The cloak-and-dagger aspects of Austin apparently Having Secrets and Surveilling Kenzie, Ooooh! were frankly a bit silly, but it turns out all right in the end (the deets: . The romance is pretty minimal here because he keeps putting a stop to it out of Moral Obligation, so it mostly just simmers with Feelings, but the last chapter is pretty great. :)
Profile Image for Elisha Jachetti.
228 reviews4 followers
March 13, 2019
THE GIRL WITH THE BROKEN HEART is Lurlene McDaniel’s latest YA contemporary novel. The story follows Kenzie as she throws herself into her summer job, putting all her attention on recuperating rescued horses. She’s hoping this will be enough of a distraction from her heart condition, her problematic relationship with her father, and her sister’s recent passing, but Austin, Kenzie’s stableman hired to help her, seems intent on dredging all of those feelings out of her, plus some more. Kenzie can’t deny her growing attraction to Austin, but she doesn’t know his full story and he’s not too willing to share it.

What works well in this book is how McDaniel’s sets up the air of mystery around Austin. She doesn’t give him just one secret, but instead leaves room for multiple surprises. By cluing the readers in on this fact from the beginning, she seamlessly injects thriller aspects into an otherwise straightforward romance story. I couldn’t guess Austin’s final twist, but I really like where McDaniel takes his character. In fact, I would have loved to know about him earlier on, because it would have made more sense as to why he needed to keep his distance from Kenzie and it would have heightened the tension between them.

For a lot of the book, the relationship between Kenzie and Austin feels difficult just for the sake of being difficult. Kenzie’s dislike of him from the beginning is a little forced and sometimes their dialogue is stilted. There is also a weird shifting perspective that happens between the two of them at random intervals. A consistent POV would have helped with the pacing and even the suspense.

With that being said, THE GIRL WITH THE BROKEN HEART is completely on brand for McDaniel and will appeal to any of her fans, especially those who have read LOSING GABRIEL or SOMEBODY’S BABY. McDaniel sets her most recent novel back in Windemere, Tennessee, and it’s really fun to see her former characters, Lani, Dawson, and Cole make brief cameos.

Review originally published on YA Books Central: http://www.yabookscentral.com/yaficti...
Profile Image for Lovely Loveday.
2,870 reviews
December 15, 2018
The Girl with the Broken Heart by Lurlene McDaniel is a fast-paced young adult novel that is the perfect leisurely read with a hint of mystery. A wonderful story that I simply could not put down. The characters are realistic and well-developed. You will fall in love with the characters from the beginning and only grow more attached with each page you read. A story full of love, loss, heartbreak, and second chances that is sure to warm your heart. The perfect read for horse-lovers and romance readers. This romantic action-packed page-turner is sure to draw you in and hold your attention until the end, even staying with you long after you finish reading. I highly recommend The Girl with the Broken Heart and look forward to reading more from Lurlene McDaniel.
Profile Image for Melanie.
108 reviews24 followers
October 7, 2018
Thank you @kidlitexchange and the publisher for a copy of this book to read. All thoughts and opinions are my own. .
.
This book was wonderful. I couldn't put it down. I loved the characters from the beginning which I'm discovering is important for me. Watching Kenzie struggle with such a tragic event is heartbreaking and yet we also get to see her blossom. The focus she has because of her weakened heart is amazing. She knows where her calling is and fully embraces that. When Austin comes into her life she begins to see how love can enhance her life. I'm so glad I read this book and am definitely going to check out more from this author.
Profile Image for Kibbenza.
305 reviews3 followers
January 5, 2019
Kenzie Caine is a horse lover with a heart problem. She doesn't let it slow her down, and takes a summer job working with rescue horses. There she meets Austin Boyd, who initially rubs her the wrong way. Over the course of the summer, working with their rescues, the two of them become closer. It's obvious they have feelings for each other, but they dance around it. Kenzie's healing from a painful past, and Austin is torn between keeping his distance and letting himself fall for the girl he's there to help.

The two of them were frustrating sometimes, but in the end, I liked both characters pretty well.

A nice easy read, with a hint of mystery.
Profile Image for Rebecca.
326 reviews24 followers
May 17, 2019
I’ve loved her books since I was in middle school. They’ve gotten me through some pretty tough times. They are bittersweet stories about teens going through hardships but ultimately overcoming it with light and hope. This wasn’t my favorite out of her stories I’ve read but it was still very very good. It’s very character driven and I love that. Fans of John green should definitely check out her books and I highly recommend.🙂
Profile Image for Liz Stanton.
187 reviews3 followers
February 26, 2021
Another amazing heart wrenching story. This author had me hooked to her novels when I was 12 years old And I'm still hooked to this day.
Just like every other novel the main character faces a life altering situations but she still doesn't quit. She still manages to live the life she always wanted to.
I will always recommend Lurlene McDaniel for not only being an easy read but for writing something so beautiful and so touching
Profile Image for Kristine.
10 reviews4 followers
February 27, 2022
This book was so good. The medical side of illness and death. Interwined friendship/love. All the horses. All the hints of mystery to keep me at the fingertips for every page.

I just loved the connections Lurlene has with Bellmeade and Windemere , I hope there will be more books like A Year of Luminous Love, The Year of Chasing Dreams, Losing Gabriel, Somebody's Baby intertwined but stand alones with breadcrumbs of updates on all these characters.
Profile Image for Amber Smith.
30 reviews4 followers
November 16, 2018
I received this book in advance.

I love Lurlene McDaniel. I devoured her books as a teen. But this one was just not my cup of tea. I wanted to like this book. But there was just so much stuff about horses, and it just wasn't clicking with me. Aside from the horses, I did enjoy it, and really liked the main character.
Profile Image for Karen & Gerard.
Author 1 book26 followers
December 25, 2018
I enjoyed this book! Kenzie and Austin were really good characters. The book had good pacing so I really could not figure out the whole story. I had this book at 5 stars, but the ending par pushed it up to a 5++ stars, my highest rank! I recommend this one to anyone who likes Hallmark movies--good read. (Gerard's review)
Profile Image for Vicki.
4,958 reviews32 followers
July 30, 2019
A fast read. Interesting storyline with a lot going on.

I learned about the Big Lick step and soring related to Tennessee Walker horses-a very cruel practice.

I learned more about Kawasaki disease and it’s possible long term effects.

This story also included the timely issue of social media and bullying.
18 reviews1 follower
April 20, 2021
It was a great book! I wish I had a little warning about the hanging suicide of the main characters sister tho, as I had to take a 4 day break reading as it instantly threw me back to the image of my brother. But once I got thru that, I truly enjoyed this book. As I have every other of her books. It's such a shame this is her last book. I could easily see this being a 2 boom series!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Beckah brooks.
304 reviews7 followers
June 16, 2021
This book is amazing!
~
I do not normally read New Adult books, Young Adult is more my vibe, but this was right up my alley. There was depth and fun. Summer vibes and the raw realness of life. Also, the slow burn in this book is so worth it! I also don't know anything about horses but was able to keep up with everything. It was written so well, definitely read this book.
Profile Image for Nina.
2 reviews
January 5, 2019
As usual, Lurlene McDaniel pulled at my heart strings! She gets me so intrigued right off the bat and then keeps giving me just a tiny bit more information to keep me guessing! I love her strong yet broken characters! This was a win for me!
Profile Image for Cassie.
332 reviews3 followers
February 14, 2019
Not my favorite book, but it was compelling enough for me to finish it. I never felt like the main characters were actually their age the way they were written made them feel older to me. Overall, an okay read, but it didn't stand out for me.
Profile Image for Michele Woodward.
22 reviews3 followers
August 20, 2019
I loved the reveal at the end. There is build up and mystery about the phone calls, but it was all brought together so well in the end. Very sad this is McDaniel's last book. I've been reading her books for over 20 years. But this was a good one to go out with
Profile Image for Christy Witham.
23 reviews
March 18, 2021
Just finished this book in about 12 hours! It was great and I really home that we get to find out what the future holds for Kenzie and Austin! You won't regret reading this book! It also brings in some familiar characters from her other books.
532 reviews
January 10, 2019
I mean, as predictable as much as it was it, I was actually surprised by the ending. A nostalgic read that my preteen self would have loved.
Profile Image for Jenna.
73 reviews
April 23, 2019
Read for nostalgia--I read so many of her books when I was a kid!
Profile Image for Kim.
609 reviews12 followers
May 2, 2019
3.5*

I'm not into horses, which played heavily into the storyline. There was some mystery, a few unexpected twists, and a great ending.
Profile Image for Miriah.
92 reviews2 followers
May 16, 2019
The first half was slow getting into but the last half was great!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.