Broken by Lauren Layne

I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Miss Layne and Random House for this opportunity.

Synopisis via Goodreads:

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?

I have to admit that I am a sucker for a soldier story. But even more so for a Wounded Warrior.
I was very impressed with Miss Layne's writing. Paul was very realistic and believable. There were a few things about Olivia I wasn't too sure about, but that did not stop me from becoming engrossed with the story and quickly falling in love with Paul and Olivia.

Paul and Olivia, two spoiled rich kids. Paul, a rich, spoiled boy who decides to serve his country. His reality check comes in the form of war. A war where he loses all of his friends and he is left with the scars of battle and survivor's guilt. A rich kid who has the benefit of daddy's money to come home and hide from the world as well as himself.
And then there is Olivia, another rich kid. She has a different kind of guilt to contend with. She has hurt someone very close to her. So she decides the only way to run away is to help someone else. With daddy's help, she lands a job helping an injured war vet-in luxury just like it would be if she were living at home.
Of course Paul doesn't want help, He would rather suffer by himself and never venture back out into the world, living in his bubble of self-exile.  After all, isn't that what daddy's money is for? And Olivia, she feels that if she can help someone else in need it will erase the hurt she has caused-a little unrealistic on her part don't you think? Of course, isn't that what most of us think about rich kids? They don't know what reality is really like, that they live in their glass towers and eat their caviar and the real world is beneath them?
Well, actually, Miss Layne has done a wonderful job of bringing these two "caviar kids" (as I call them) into the real world.
Paul and Olivia are exactly what the other needs. They are straight forward and brutally honest with each other. They begin to see that their pain isn't the only pain being felt in this great big world. Their time together teaches them to start worrying about how another person feels. Their romance grows, but like real world relationships, has a few stumbles.
I found myself rooting for Paul and Olivia, hoping that they would each open their own little world up and let hope and sunshine in.The plot is not a simple he has problems, she has problems, they get together and BOOM! Happily-ever-after happens. Miss Layne takes you on a few twists and turns and makes you wonder what will happen between them next. While not a suspense, it isn't a mindless story either.
Miss Layne delivers a wonderful happily-ever-after with characters that the reader can't help but fall in love with. So, as I see it, she has lived up to her "serious weakness for happily-ever-afters".
Check out BROKEN. It is worth your time.

Happy Reading