Browsing through NetGalley for interesting books to read and review, I stumbled upon this romance novel. The cover is quite interesting and I also liked the description so I requested to review it. I got the permission so here is my review of Heartbreaker by Kat Bastion, the first book in her Unbreakable series.
The blurb reads like your typical romance novel:
Kiki Michaelson wants one wild night to forget her starving-artist worries. Simple. Only instead of Darren Cole becoming her one-night stand, he taunts her with a challenge. Then while she’s trying to best him at his own game, he turns out to be the last thing she’s prepared for: someone she wants to keep. Which means all he can ever be…is a friend.
Darren Cole never allows a girl to get close—not close enough to matter. Then storms in Kiki Michaelson, a beautiful, fearless temptation that rocks his world off-balance. But he fights their attraction, unwilling to gamble something physical with their close ties. Until the passionate sculptor exposes her heart and breaks his wide open. In that moment it becomes clear: she could never be just a friend.
Sometimes what you run from…is exactly what you need.
It’s about the relationship between a 22-year-old drummer who is under enormous pressure taking care of his younger sister after their mother committed suicide, and a 27-year-old artist who feels less than her enormously successful and practical siblings and is on the verge of bankruptcy. He has never really had a serious relationship and takes his responsibilities towards his sister (of whom he is the guardian) very seriously. She went out with a boy in high school who slept with her and then never talked to her again, and is in trouble after she got ripped off by a fraudulent gallery owner.
They both had a lot of baggage, and the author tried to keep things mysterious by not naming it until halfway through the book. I didn’t find it mysterious myself, I was mostly bothered by it. I felt like there would be this immense thing, but then it wasn’t really (at least for her). The female character got burned once in high school and has been afraid to get near guys ever again, which is a bit of an overreaction in my opinion. To kind of explain this away, the author makes what happened to her female character very bad, but also a little unbelievable. The male character’s back story was more believable: struggling with a depressed sister after their depressed mother committed suicide. I thought the ending was a little fast: they decide to do the party, and all of a sudden the IRS is there to clear things up. And the sister also all of a sudden feels so much better.
All in all, a good story. I did like the development of the relationship between the two. It was a little bit long in my opinion, and the ending felt a little rushed. But I would recommend it to fans of the genre.
Have you read this book yet? Do you have any similar romance novels to recommend to me? I’d love to read about it in the comments!
Happy reading,
Loes M.