Unbreak My Heart by Nicole Jacquelyn

What do you do when your soul mate marries your best friend?

If you're Kate Evans, you keep your friend Rachel, bond with her kids, and bury your feelings for her husband. The fact that Shane's in the military and away for long periods helps-but when tragedy strikes, everything changes.

After Rachel, pregnant with her fourth child, dies in a car accident and the baby miraculously survives, Kate upends her entire life to share parenting duties. Then on the first anniversary of Rachel's death, Kate and Shane take comfort in each other in a night that they both soon regret.

Shane's been angry for a year, and now he feels guilty too - for sleeping with his wife's best friend and liking it . . . liking her. Kate's ability to read him like a book may have once sent Shane running, but their lives are forever entwined and they are growing closer.

Now with Shane deployed for seven months, Kate is on her own and struggling with being a single parent. Shane is loving and supportive from thousands of miles away, but his homecoming brings a betrayal Kate never saw coming. So Kate's only choice is to fight for the future she deserves - with or without Shane. . .

 

Series: Unbreak My Heart #1 | Publisher: Forever | Genre: Contemporary Romance| Source: Publisher | Rating: 2.5 Cups

Challenges Read For: Pick Your Own Genre: Contemporary

 

 

Kate Evans has been in love with Shane Anderson since the day he showed up at her aunt’s foster home when they were both teenagers. She continued to love him even after he married her best friend and started a family. When Shane’s wife dies in a car accident, Kate steps in to care for Shane’s four children all under the age of ten. When a drunken night ends with Shane and Kate sleeping together and Kate ends up pregnant, Shane’s angry, guilty, and blames Kate for seducing him. With Shane soon deploying, he has no choice but to try to work things out with Kate although Shane’s homecoming brings with it more hurt and Kate must decide what she wants.

 

This book was easy to read—I read 100 pages without even realizing that I read that much—yet I really struggled to like the characters.

 

Shane’s a wanker from the first sentence and, sadly, I never really spotted a redeeming quality about him. He knew how Kate felt about him and he continuously treated her like dirt. He used her when it suited him then treated her as though she had the plague. And it’s not just Kate that he was a wanker to. Anytime someone tried to say anything to him, besides his kids, he turned into a grade A jackass. And he was so quick to blame everyone else.

 

I have no problems with heroes that are broody wankers and a few of them have turned out to be my favorites  but I understood what made them the way they were. There was a solid reason behind their actions. I never really understood the reason behind Shane’s actions. Yes, he was a foster kid—I’m not a fan of the whole angry foster kid trope—but it was mentioned in passing and not really used as the reasoning behind his actions. The fact that he was an angry wanker with no explanation as to why made him unredeemable.

 

I just wanted to shake Kate until she saw a spot of reason. Her entire character seemed to be defined by this crazy one-sided love for a man who treated her like dirt. Yes, she loved the kids, I mean, she practically raised them while he was deployed. Other than the fact that she was a web designer, I didn’t really learn much else about Kate.

 

Characters that are doormats crawl under my skin so it was a bit hard to like Kate because she was content to allow Shane to walk all over her. Even after she claimed she couldn’t put up with it any longer, she still allowed him walk all over her. Honestly, I wanted to see Kate put Shane in his place not allow him to continuously treated her like dirt, but that never happened.

 

I never really felt the chemistry between Kate and Shane. Of course, she loved him and would do anything for him and he occasionally seemed to care for her but there was no chemistry. There was the occasional tumble in bed, but most of the vital relationship building stage happened while he was deployed overseas. When Shane finally decides he’s in love with Kate, I never really felt he was actually sorry or was actually going to change. It almost seemed a little too little, a little too late.

 

While I like angst-driven reads, they need balance to fully satisfy me and there was never really a break in the angst. The plot and the characters were angst-driven and it eventually became annoying.

 

Overall, I’m not really sure why I kept reading this one but I couldn’t put it down. I think I was hoping that I would find a redeeming quality to Shane but, sadly, that never happened. I was a little let down that nothing really seemed to change.

 

Do you like angsty reads?