What We Broke
(standalone)
Publication Date: June 1, 2023
Genre/Tropes: MM Romance/Hurt-Comfort/Second Chance Romance
Author: Marley Valentine
Review Rating: 5 Gold Stars
Review/Synopsis:
Review:
Beautifully crafted heartache wrapped up in a beautiful love story.
Leo is broken, he’s depressed, and he’s circling the drain. His life is clouded in grief and he can’t find a way out of it. His husband, the man he promised to love, and cherish through sickness and health…Leo can’t come to terms with what those vows mean after suffering a major loss.
Jesse is the stability and light between the two of them and wholeheartedly believes in forever after. He knows Leo is suffering, but he also wishes that Leo gave him one moment to allow his own grief to escape. Instead Jesse is the rock for everyone around him and as the rock he can’t break.
From the beginning of the book, Marley writes this story in such a way that Leo always appears to have one foot out the door while Jesse is all in and desperately pulling on both of Leo’s arms to stay. You see, Leo never had faith in himself even from the beginning of their relationship, so he was already half depleted when their world fell apart. So the question stands…how do you find the strength to support your partner when you have nothing left to even support yourself?
Marley wrote, yes, an intense, but meaningful look at the inside of marriage when it’s not all shiny and rose colored, but instead what can happen to two happy people when the unthinkable occurs.
Leo and Jesse suffer a tragedy and together they each battle through their own grief, but in completely different ways. The highs and lows they faced came in waves throughout this story and I was completely engrossed in each part of the story, grasping for answers, and wanting conclucions before the next wave hit. I loved how Marley wove their past and present together interchanging back and forth so I constantly wanted more and more of their story until the very end.
If you love a really good story mixed with heartache, angst, and a tremendous love, than this book is all of that and more.
Synopsis:
If someone asked me to describe our love story, I would only need to use two words.
Before and After.
• • • •
When I met Leonardo Ricci, he was determined I would only be a fling, while I was certain he was my forever.
Seven years later, we’re the perfect couple. Happy, married, and in love-in sickness and health, till death do us part.
At least until the unthinkable happens.
Now we can’t look at each other. We don’t sleep in the same bed. We can’t even be in the same room. The loss is too great and the pain runs too deep.
But this man is the love of my life. I convinced him once, and I would be damned if I couldn’t do it again. I would be damned if I couldn’t fix what we broke.
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