Series: Contours Of The Heart #2
Author: Tammara Webber
Published: May 6, 2014 Penguin Berkley
Format: Print copy received for review
He was lost and alone. Then he found her.
And the future seemed more fragile than ever.
As a child, Landon Lucas Maxfield believed his life was perfect and looked forward to a future filled with promise — until tragedy tore his family apart and made him doubt everything he ever believed.
All he wanted was to leave the past behind. When he met Jacqueline Wallace, his desire to be everything she needed came so easy…
As easy as it could be for a man who learned that the soul is breakable and that everything you hoped for could be ripped away in a heartbeat.
I finished Easy and I was oh-so-more-than-ready to read Breakable. I mean, I was like a rabid dog, frothing at the mouth to take a bite. What I found inside Breakable drove me insane – in all the best ways. I was expecting a basic retelling of Easy, but in Lucas’ point of view. WRONG!! I mean, yes, this book does cover a lot of the things in Easy, but it is SO much more. Today is release day for Breakable, and I’m ecstatic to share my thoughts on the book with you.
Lucas – I love you.
Ok, I had to get that out of the way. But now let me tell you about Lucas, and why I love him so much. It’s not that he’s an artist, and a bit dark, protective, sensitive, and caring – because he is all of those things and more. But this man is built on a foundation of so many things, his complexity could barely be contained within these pages. He practically leapt off the pages and demanded his story told. If you haven’t read this series yet, I won’t spoil his secret for you. But let me say that Lucas had something in his young teen years that was an unspeakable horrible tragedy. In Breakable the time frame switches from present to past, showing us the man he is, and the way he got to be there. It isn’t confusing, for those who might be worried about the constant time switch. Tammara Webber does such a fabulous job with this. You can tell that this is him and his book, the whole way through. But when his past story is shown, you definitely feel that he is younger. I can’t say he’s naïve, because his naivete was stolen from him. I can’t say he is immature, because he definitely grew up fast. But he is younger, and you feel the difference between then and now. Maybe it’s a wildness, a flair, a spark… I don’t know. But it was so wonderful to see the events in his life unfold, and watch the building blocks fall into place, to see him grow into this wonderful man that stands before us now. Lucas is…. Lucas is wonderful. Still waters run very deep with this old soul, and if you are looking for complex and beautiful perfection, just look to Lucas.
Now, as I said, this book does cover many of the things that were shown to us in Easy. But what I really liked – a lot – is that it wasn’t a replay of each scene, with dialog just repeated out for the sake of being there. If Lucas and Jacqueline were having a conversation, it was more like the conversation was paraphrased and explained to us, rather than a word for word replay. I really liked this approach, it kept it fresh for me.
It was pretty awesome to see Jacqueline through Lucas’ eyes, even before she recognized him. The time he held the door for her in the rain, when he watched her in class, when he watched her approach him in line at Starbucks… it was perfect. I felt like we get to fall in love with her just as Lucas does. And while in Easy, we got to see mysterious Lucas through her eyes, and wonder how she ever missed him in passing, now we see the whole picture. It's an odd dichotomy. He's devoted and distant, drawn to her and he knows he needs to stay away.
I tossed the glasses I wore late at night, uncaring whether they hit the side table or flew across the room. I ripped off my T-shirt and then slowed to remove hers, my hands shaking with a gentleness I had to force. As I slid my hands to her sides, she huddled closer, slipper her arms around my neck and her hands into my hair. I kissed the side of her mouth, her sigh containing the softest little moan, and ducked below her chin to kiss and suck the fragile skin of her lovely throat - the origin of the passionate sounds and garbled words she uttered as her head fell back.
I paid particular attention to the singular freckle that drove me insane - it was like a tiny clue, put there for me to find - the start here on a treasure map. I lapped my tongue across it, and she pitched against me, hands gripping my hair. Fantasies exploded in my mind, too good, too perfect. I wanted her, like this - all of her.
This book… sigh. It broke me and fixed me, all in one. Love was built and grew, it wasn’t thrown together because these two people were just too hot for each other. There were issues and drama, and complexities that were bigger than the two of them. And even though we know how it ends, since we learned so in Easy, it still gave me worry each time a roadblock presented itself. Tammara Webber is a fantastic author, her tactics for laying each book out were impeccable. If you are a fan of New Adult romance you need to read this book. It has all the drama, heat, and tension that you are looking for – plus more. This book was emotional without being angsty, and I loved it. Every.Single.Minute.
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