Review: Broken Hero

Broken Hero by Olivia Hayle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Broken Hero" by Olivia Hayle started off kind of slow IMO, and I was a bit frustrated with all of the mystery surrounding the main characters' pasts. It's one thing for the main characters not to reveal all of their secrets to each other at first, but it's always nice for the author to give readers a few details early on to sustain interest in the story. In this case, however, it seemed like the author chose to hold a lot of details back until very late in the book. For example, while there were some hints dropped along the way, we did not learn the exact circumstances behind Lucy, the female lead's, firing from her job in Dallas until almost 3/4 of the way through the book.

Despite that small frustration, I really liked the main characters, Lucy and Oliver, and thought that their relationship developed at a nice pace. Oliver, the titular "broken hero" of the story, didn't seem to be very "broken" to me for about the first third of the book; he came across as kind of moody, but that was all. It wasn't until he ventured out to the crowded town fair that his PTSD really started to manifest. After it did and it became apparent that it was causing problems in his growing relationship with Lucy, I really appreciated that Oliver made the decision to seek therapy on his own, and didn't need to be pushed into it. I also liked how hard he tried to be more open with Lucy, and thought it was incredibly sweet that Lucy made the effort to learn more about his condition so that she would know how to be a supportive partner for Oliver.

In some ways, Lucy seemed to be more "broken" than Oliver. She certainly had a hard time letting go of what happened with her job in Dallas, and as a result found it next to impossible to ignore town gossip about her and Oliver's relationship, even when it turned out that most of the gossip was not as bad as she thought it was. To be fair, her trauma was fresher than Oliver's, but it still seemed to me like she might benefit from therapy just as much as Oliver did.

In addition to Oliver and Lucy, the secondary characters were a lot of fun and added interest to the story. I especially enjoyed Oliver's matchmaking sister, Sarah, and her young daughters, as well as receptionist Mandy and Oliver's Marine buddy, Logan. I would definitely be interested in reading more about Mandy and Logan's relationship. Based on the epilogue, there's obviously a lot more to their story!

Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it. There were some minor frustrations for me, but the likeable characters and nicely paced relationship development were more than enough to make up for those.

*ARC provided by the author via BookSirens. All opinions expressed are my own.

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