How My Heart Breaks - Book Review

By Stephanie Smith

Synopsis

Is love really enough to put the past where it belongs?

Lana Washington chooses to hide. She hides from life. Hides from her abusive ex-husband. From the fact that everyone she loves eventually she loses, but when Lana’s house catches fire she is forced out of the predictable comfort her life has become.

Jake Weston had led a simple life, ever since he was called home from war for a family emergency four years ago, leaving only him and Hallie. Then one phone call throws his neatly-pieced world upside down.

Jake wasn’t supposed to be there. This wasn’t his problem. But as soon as those piercing green eyes focused in on him, he knew he was done for.

Can Jake hold onto his secret, all the while still holding onto Lana?

Will Lana be able to let go of the past and the hurt that binds her to her lonely existence?

Or will one small white lie ruin it all?

Review

HOW MY HEART BREAKS is another great read from Stephanie Smith. Jake is a single dad to five year old Hallie and raising his daughter while working full time hasn’t left him any time to date. He hasn’t even had the desire to…until he meets Lana. After a passionate night, they go their separate ways only to meet again months later when Hallie turns up to Lana’s kindergarten class. After getting out of an abusive marriage, dating isn’t really on Lana’s radar, but Jake is persistent and determined to change her “No” to a “Yes”.

I liked Lana. She’s got some emotional baggage from enduring an abusive marriage. She also believes everyone she loves gets taken away from her after losing her parents at a young age and then losing her grandparents later on. After a little reluctance, she dives head first into her relationship with Jake and even steps into the mother role with Hallie, which she’s a natural at. An accident causes her to throw away what they have out of fear, but I liked that she didn’t spend the whole book wallowing in her fear, that it was a single event that set her off.

I liked Jake as well and thought he was a good man for Lana and a good father to Hallie, but he did run a little hot and cold when it came to Lana’s relationship with Hallie. Jake dealt with a lot of guilt over the lie about the fire and I could understand how he struggled to figure out how and when to tell her the truth the longer the lie went on. My favourite part about Jake? He was an animal when it came to sex and reading their scenes was HOT!!! I know where my dirty mind is going to go when I see a freshly painted wall in the future.

HOW MY HEART BREAKS is told in Jake & Lana’s POVs and can be read as a standalone. Once again, we get little updates as to how the previous couples, Brooke & Saxon and Harper & Tate, are doing. I’m looking forward to book # 4.