Beauty in the Broken

by Charmaine Pauls

[Eve1972]

It is no secret that I LOVED this author's Loan Shark duet, so when I read the synopsis for this book, I was ALL over it. It should have been a slam dunk for me. Unfortunately, I struggled all the way through. Not that it was a badly written book. It wasn't. This author is a fantastic writer. I love that the book was set in South Africa. I thought it had an original plot. I adored Lina. It was relatively low angst, but there was a lot of OW and OM drama (both of them lusting after the hero). There was even a pretty good twist. All good things...

 
However, I found it to also be very slow and wordy at times. It was a long book at 350 pages, and I did find it hard to stay engaged in the story. However, by far my main issue with this one was Damian himself. I just didn't like him. He was an a$$hole who whenever Lina did ANYTHING he deemed out of line he would "punish" her. He whipped her. He caned her (drawing blood). He humiliated her. Even after he realized he loved her he was STILL kept treating her as a prisoner forcing a tattoo and tracking device. and not letting her have her freedom. There was just nothing likable about him for me. I wanted him to treat her like an actual human being, especially after all she had been though. And that happened WAY too late in the book for my taste.

Sp yea, this one ended up being a mixed bag for me. It happens, and I am just one reviewer in a sea of many.