Title: Broken
Author: Megan Hart
Publisher: Spice
Publication Date: May 2007
Genre: Romance/Erotica
Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone
Synopsis can be found here.
Review:
Once a month, Sadie sits with her lunchmate Joe and he tells her about his latest conquest. Sadie listens intently to each escapade, dreaming that she is the girl in Joe’s story. The escape is a time Sadie looks forward to as her real life is far more complicated than Joe’s one night stands. And what is Joe to Sadie? And what is Sadie to Joe?
I don’t normally read or review erotica, but I felt so strongly about this story, I had to post. If you’re not used to reading erotica, and I wasn’t, the many explicit sex scenes may make you want to put the book down. But under it all, and the sex does serve as a function of revelation for both Sadie and Joe’s character developments, it is a beautiful story of two people who are broken in many ways, and their chance to heal.
Sadie’s husband Adam, who she loves, was in an accident and is a quadriplegic. She cares for him in every way she can and their love-hate relationship is so complex it’s heartbreaking. Who Adam was before the accident and how their marriage changed afterwards, shows not only Adam’s transformation but also Sadie’s retreat within herself, adding to the complications between her and Joe.
Joe is a playboy, a seemingly shallow ladies’ man who is going through the motions because he can. But Joe is actually looking for more, more than he lets on. But he doesn’t know how to get it.
Hart’s fantastic writing is hot, sensual and sorrowful. I felt Sadie’s pain, her confusion over her marriage and relationship with her husband, her unrequited feelings for Joe. Again, it is erotica so there is a lot of sex in this book but I didn’t feel like it was gratuitous (and I’ve even felt that in some romance novels, let alone erotica). And Joe’s story is equally as fulfilling.

Don’t push this book aside because it is labeled erotica. I became weepy a couple of times; I was so involved in Sadie and Joe’s journey. And I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this tale.

Rating  10 One of the Best