BkRv: Love me, love me not

Book Review: Broken Wing by Judith James

Romance | Historical

First Line: Sarah, Lady Munroe, was also known as the Gypsy Countess, a moniker given her on account of her unfortunate parentage and her even more unfortunate behavior.

{Prologue: Wearing a new suit, shoes pinching, blinking from the searing sun, his eyes are riveted on the door, black and menacing.}

Rating: 3. Love just isn't the same without pirates...

I’m not going to lie – the pirate on the cover first drew my attention to this book. Not sure what he’s doing, but definitely not the usual hot pirate stance as I would expect with a romance. Instead I find him to be quite haunting with those trailing bandages from his forearms – which seems a little weird to say for a guy since I expect them to be standing all manly and muscle-ly.

Gabriel St. Croix does not know what it means to love and be loved. He grows up in a brothel and trains as a sex slave. All emotions have been buried so deep within him that even Gabriel has forgotten what it means to be human. His only link to humanity is a young boy who gets thrown into the brothel – and for the next 5 years, Gabriel tries his best to shield him from the sex-crazed clientele until the young boy’s family finds him.

To his surprise, the Munroe family offers to house Gabriel as a reward for taking care of the young boy. He accepts, though with some reservations, and suddenly finds himself immersed in high society and, more alarming, a close-knit family environment.

Page 30
Miraculously, he was being offered another chance, and despite his best efforts to strangle it, hope was born again. He knew he shouldn’t trust it. Vile temptress, she betrayed him every time, leaving him weak and wounded in ways too cruel to endure without the familiar palliatives of brandy and blood.

Sarah Munroe has never met anyone like Gabriel before. Instead of being disgusted with his past, she sympathizes with what he has had to endure – and that sparks an awkward friendship that slowly blooms into more.

Page 106
He’d needed to know if she would still welcome him, still accept him, if she knew, really knew, what his life had been like. He’d allowed her a glimpse into the dark horror of his past, and foolish girl, wise in all ways but this, she’d extended her friendship. She knew what it meant, as much as anyone could, but she couldn’t possibly have known what it meant to him.

But, in a world where prim and proper never mixes with grim and ugly, will Sarah be able to bring Gabriel back to humanity? Or is he too far gone to save?

I don’t think that I have read a romance quite like Broken Wing where the gentleman has such emotional backstory. This was more of the old-fashioned romance where sex barely touched the page. And the main character was Gabriel – not Sarah – which is surprising since typically the female gets the internal struggle. I had been amazed at how patient Sarah had been as Gabriel tried to push her farther from his ugly history.

Overall I thought Broken Wing too serious for me, not enough lightness (or pirates!). I would probably recommend this for those who enjoy a romance cut from a different cloth where the hero has a tortured past that may always haunt the rest of his life.
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Disclosure 10/7/09:
This is a review copy sent by the author.