"Breaking Love" is the second book in the Full Heart series but I was assured that it can be read as a stand alone novel as well, and it's true. But after reading this hot, steamy story I will be for sure checking the first book as soon as possible.
Luke has it all. He's the owner of bars, has money, impact, cars and as many women as he wants. He's half - American but is currently living in Paris and enjoying his single life totally. But that is until he meets Megan...
Megan lives in a small town in America and is a single mum to 6 - years - old Elliott. She concentrates on building her photography business and being the best mum in the world. The last thing that she has on her mind is a man, a fling, a romance or... to travel to Paris with her best friend Phoebe. But well, everybody (ie. Elliott and her own mum too) says she deserves a break and so Megan finds herself on the plane to the capital of France. And then she meets Luc...
Neither of those two is ready for another person in their lives but they are both open for one hot night together... They only can't predict the consequences...
The story was full of questions: should you follow your head or heart? Should you risk your set life and your comfort for a new, uncertain relationship? Do you want to change your life totally for relationship? What are you going to do when love, that you actually aren't looking for, just comes and smacks you on your head? Can you eventually forget about your past, about being hurt, and learn how to trust anew? And while answering all this questions, the author takes us on a great journey, together with the brilliant, vivid characters, characters larger than life, characters that popped out of the pages and were so different that everybody is for sure going to find somebody to relate to. Megan was so badly hurt in the past and she doesn't want to open to another man in case he's going to hurt her again. Her and Elliott, because she must think of her little boy as well. I totally understood her to be honest, she knew exactly where her priorities are. I liked her, she was normal, easy - going and was just a great person. Through Megan the author shows also all the pros and cons of being a single mum. She subtly and sublime describes how Megan must have counted on other people when it came to the smallest things in her life related to Elliott, and how hard it was for her when her mother found herself in a hospital.
I guess that some of the readers may despise Luc, as he behaved as if the whole world belong to him, but there was something in him that immediately drawn me to him. Well, he was honest, brutally honest and he said things as they were, he didn't promise anything and you knew what you get into. But. Ha! There is always a woman somewhere that is going to wrap the guy around the little finger, only sometimes she lives on the other continent. And a woman who's going to say NO to all his charms. What is he going to do in such situation? Is he, confirmed bachelor, going to lost his heart?
All the other characters added so much to the story, they all had their own voices and personalities and all of them, no matter if they were Megan's family or Luc's very jealous PA Simone, were a real joy to read. What didn't work for me personally though in the story was Elliott, who was 6 going on 60. I understand that children like to speak like adults but Elliott was really overdone and you can say what you want, I haven't seen a 6 - year - old child speaking like he did. Hell, it's not so easy to meet an adult who would speak like Elliott!
I totally adored the way the relationship started and developed. Luc and Megan were two adults who knew exactly what they wanted from life and there was nothing wishy - washy to them both. One could say it was not romantic, but in my eyes it, in some ways, was. And the way it developed only shows that ha, good people, we can plan whatever we want but we can't joke with the feelings. It was fantastic to be a witness how the feelings between our two characters blossomed, no matter if they wanted it or not, and how they were slowly realising this fact. And I must say that really, this running away and then catching up did work out in this story. Although I must admit that there were moments that I wanted to grab them both and bang their heads together, as long as they eventually see sense.
What other authors so often fail, MJ championed in this book: in many books this long process of will they/won't they is just too long and after some time it loses the whole appeal, but here, although Luc and Megan were all the time looking for arguments that they can't be together, (though it was Obvious that they belong together) it was not flat or boring for a second, it was all the time gripping and had you on the tips of your toes.
Altogether, the book has made a fascinating, steamy (but not too steamy), quick read. Why quick? Well, because I couldn't put it down, so engrossed was I in Megan and Luc's lives. It is a brilliant love story written with a lot of feeling and understanding, not too pushy, not too forced, everything was kept in bounds. MJ Summers can really write a hot romance with great characters in it, full of misunderstandings, twist and turns, heartbreaks and hurt but still with a lot of joy and that is a great entertainment. I have really enjoyed this book and will be keeping my eye on MJ Summers in the future.
Copy received from publisher in exchange for a review.