Healing My Heart

By Aleya Michelle

Healing My Heart is book 2 in the My Heart series from Aleya Michelle, and follows on from where Breaking My Heart left off. These are not stand-alone novels and need to be read from the beginning and in order.

It has been six months since Kade left Roxy broken hearted, and she is still recovering from the loss. She has spent the past several months having random hook-ups and started a new relationship with a guy named Dylan. She doesn’t love him, but he’s sweet and is helping her heal so she’s grateful to have him in her life.

Until Dylan starts to change. He becomes obsessive, possessive and aggressive and Roxy comes to the conclusion she needs to let him go. Dylan was introduced to Roxy by her boss’s husband at a party. Spoiler alert, but Dylan has diagnosed mental problems and attempted to murder his ex-fiancé. I find it hard to believe that a grown man would potentially put a young woman in danger by introducing her to a man with known mental problems and a criminal past without any warning. And the behaviour of the ex-fiancé’s friends toward Roxy boggle my mind. Again, why wouldn’t they pull her aside and warn her? Instead, they were total bitches and threw a glass bottle at her.

Unfortunately, I just didn’t like Roxy in this book at all. So many times I wanted to reach into my iPad and shake the shit out of her for being so stupid, weak and a pushover. She uses Dylan. She puts herself in dangerous situations with a man who frightens her. And when Kade comes back into her life, he spends just 30 seconds apologising to her before they’re in the backseat of her car having sex. This man broke her heart. No, he shattered it. He avoided all communication with her for six months, and as soon as she sees him, she forgives him. Just like that. Their heart-to-heart doesn’t happen until several weeks later and after non-stop sex.

I’m glad Kade realised what he had done and was man enough to come back to her with apologies ready on his tongue. And at the end of the day, Kade and Roxy love each other so much, it’s good to see them back together.

There are quite a few obvious discrepancies not only in this book, but between books 1 and 2 which I’m very surprised weren’t picked up on. In all fairness, I did read both books right after the other and that might be why I noticed them while the beta readers and editor didn’t.

1 – The main issue I came across was the discrepancies between names. Ebony’s husband in book 1 is John, but in book 2 it’s Dave. Roxy is explaining a fight that Dylan had with his friend David the previous week, but during the fight the guys name was Michael. Suddenly every one of Kade’s friends is calling him Kado. Not once is he called Kado in book 1.

2 – There’s no resolution to the stealing in the neighbourhood or the fake FB profile that taunted Jemma. Why bother mentioning either if they’re not going to be resolved, confirmed or expanded on? I mean, it’s obvious who’s behind it all but I’m one of those people that think if it’s not going to be resolved or have an ending, don’t bring it up to begin with.

3 – There seems to be a huge timeline discrepancy between the whole Dylan/Cassie car accident, his jail term and his mental diagnosis. Roxy reads an article written four months before they met, which states that Dylan will be sentenced over the car crash. So in the four months between that article and their introduction, he’s sentenced, sent to jail, tried to kill himself in jail, been released from jail, sent to rehab for a month and ends up stable but only on medication. Wow, busy boy.

Sadly, I felt like the overall quality and story of this book was not as good as book 1, but I’m truly hoping the final book will be better. I just found too many scenes in this book unrealistic, and therefore unbelievable. I still think this series has potential, which is why I’m giving this book 3 hearts instead of the 2 heart I would have normally given it.

I don’t mean to sound so negative about this book, but I was truly hoping it would be as good or better than book 1, considering book 1 was Aleya’s debut novel. I may also have a bias against the second books in a trilogy as they always seem to be mainly filler, a stepping-stone to get from point A to point B. So far my experiences with book 2s haven’t been that great.

My Rating: