BROKEN ...by Lauren Layne......Review by Dawn

~Blurb~

When Olivia Middleton abandons the glamour of Park Avenue for a remote, coastal town in Maine, everyone assumes she’s being the kind do-gooder she’s always been. But Olivia has a secret: helping an injured war veteran reenter society isn’t about charity—it’s about penance. Only, Olivia’s client isn’t the grateful elderly man she’s expecting. Instead, he’s a brooding twenty-four-year-old who has no intention of being Olivia’s path to redemption . . . and whose smoldering gaze and forbidden touch might be her undoing.

Paul Langdon doesn’t need a mirror to show him he’s no longer the hotshot quarterback he was before the war. He knows he’s ugly—inside and out. He’ll do anything to stay in self-imposed exile, even accept his father’s ultimatum that Paul tolerate the newest caretaker for three months or lose his inheritance. But Paul doesn’t count on the beautiful twenty-two-year-old who makes him long for things that he can never have. And the more she slips past his defenses, the more keeping his distance is impossible.

Now Paul and Olivia have to decide: Will they help each other heal? Or are they forever broken?

For me this was Archer's Voice meets Making Faces, without the serious ugly crying and gut punch ,those provoked in me.
Olivia and Paul both needed to grow and you get to witness this and it really is beautifully written.

Olivia was looking for, forgiveness. She needed to get away from everyone and everything that constantly reminded her, that she had made a mistake. Taking a job so out of character for her, just might give her the forgiveness she is looking for.  

Paul, is a jerk... a justified jerk, he was not very likable in the beginning. He is a wounded war vet, with a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas! He wants to be left alone and wallow in his self imposed, self pity. His father provides his place to live, his finances and his help...help that Paul drives away. But Dad, lays down the law and gives him an ultimatum... accept help, quit drinking and move on or the money and cushy place to live are GONE!  Enter Olivia.
These two clash for the very beginning. He is rude, mean and as ass for the first introduction. Thinking he can make this "little girl" run screaming back to New York. Olivia, is no shrinking violet. She basically tells him, "you are going to have to do better than that, to make me leave!" 

It works in so many ways. They fight, they connect, they fight some more, they become "friends" and then they destroy each other. 

I would love to tell you that I just "loved everything about this book." Now, there is a lot to love, really. 

I just wished they would have dove deeper into Paul's PTSD and  just a little more angst for me. It would have given me that, hit to the heart I so wanted.  But like I said, it really is a great read and not a cookie cuter story. 

I am happily giving Broken 4.5 clocks!