If You Leave (Beautifully Broken, #2)

by Courtney Cole

[Rowena]

This is the follow up book to Courtney Cole’s If You Stay. It follows the sister of the heroine from the first book, Madison Hill.

Madison is the older sister to Mila Hill and she’s running the family business and living in their parent’s old house. When her parents died, she was living in New York and working as a model. But guilt and grief brought her home, giving up the life she had in New York and taking over the life that belonged to her parents. She took care of her younger sister, Mila and now that Mila is an adult and married, Maddy is free to do what she wants but the guilt she feels over not being around when her parents were alive keeps her locked in at the family restaurant that she co-owns with her sister. And it also keeps her from packing up her parents things and not moving into their bigger room. She’s got a lot of emotional baggage and getting to see all of that, made for a great reading experience.

When she meets Gabriel Vincent, she wasn’t expecting to ever see him again. It was a one night stand gone wrong and even though she never got to the happy ending she was looking forward to, she was glad to be rid of him because it was apparent that he had even more baggage than she did and she couldn’t deal with her baggage, let alone some complete strangers. But when Gabe turns out to be her best friend’s brother that never showed at the club the other night, Maddy deals with his presence in her life in the only way she knows how…by starting to date someone completely wrong for her in hopes of forgetting Gabe.

But Gabe’s not going away and he’s very persistent in his quest to finish what they started on that first night they met.

Gabe just got home from overseas and he’s suffering from a huge case of PTSD. He’s dealing with it in the only way that he knows how…by pretending it doesn’t exist and hoping like hell that he doesn’t hurt anyone in the process. Seeing him come into his own and finally get the help that he needed, felt rewarding. I enjoyed getting to know him and I’ve got to hand it to Courtney Cole. Her characters are completely broken when we first meet them, they’re so imperfect and so in need of someone to help them with their burdens and to see each character find the other and help each other heal was pretty damned great.

I enjoyed getting to know both Gabe and Maddy. I liked the way that they came together. The chemistry was strong between them and seeing them battle wits until they figure out their feelings for each other made for an interesting read. I think I liked this book better than the first book and I cannot wait to read the next book. I was hoping that Gabe’s sister would end up with Gabe’s best friend but I guess he’s got his own happy ending in some other story (fingers crossed). This was an enjoyable book. One that I couldn’t read fast enough to suit my greedy eyes. Well done, Ms. Cole.