Book Review / "Broken Boundaries" by Helen Aitchison

Broken Boundaries by Helen Aitchison

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Melody Dartford is broken. After the traumatising events she went through as a teenager, she has not healed. But is it really so? As the reader learns more about the young woman living a seemingly ordinary life in bustling London, suspicions inevitably creep in about something not being right with her in the first place.

Nate Lundie is handsome and successful. His therapy practice is thriving. Even though his marriage has failed, he cannot complain about other spheres of his life. He has enough money to spend on entertainment and comfort. He enjoys his status as a bachelor and being free to choose whom to date. It seems that only good things are waiting for him ahead.

From the outside, Melody is on the mend, and Nate has his life under control.

Until the two meet.

The physical attraction of a dangerous magnitude flares up, threatening to complicate the lives of both. Yet, it feels that both the patient and the therapist don’t care about the risks, so exciting is the chase.

Melody is young and mentally unstable. She has come to Nate seeking professional help. It should automatically place her in the position of a weak one. But as the story progresses, more facets of her personality and past actions appear to draw a completely different picture.

Nate and Melody are deliciously wicked. They are the kind of characters it would have been highly embarrassing to be able to relate to. And you absolutely cannot like them. Still, I couldn’t help but be pulled into the tantalisingly vicious tangle of their relationship, wondering if, in the end, one falls victim to the other’s game.

“Broken Boundaries” by Helen Aitchison made me think about how we, as a society, look at people with mental health issues. It seems that despite having been taught to accept their existence, we are still in the dark about how to interact with them. We assume that if such a person is being treated, they become ‘normal.’ We expect from them the behaviour and way of thinking as we consider ‘adequate.’ In short, we fully trust medicine and science to ‘heal’ them. Alas, just like a giant sequoia cannot be ‘remade’ to fit the size of a ‘regular’ tree, people with mental health issues cannot be ‘reformed’ to see the world the way those without them do.

The author demonstrates a sharp skill in portraying deeply flawed characters in such a way that the reader is forced to try to understand them. Melody follows her inner compass, where the values are set in a haphazard manner. She doesn’t act driven by a conscious wish to harm. Quite the contrary, in the moments of clarity, she shows affection and care for her family and best friend. And Nate’s amorous drive doesn’t make him a monster. A lot of people succumb to lust in different situations and move on. It is the combination of Melody’s altered perception of reality and Nate’s inability to stop her at the very beginning before she developed the obsession that caused a disaster.

Prepare to be pulled into Melody and Nate’s dance, fuelled by passion and obsession, which, with every step, leads both to the edge of an abyss.



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Broken Boundaries