Broken Lights
by Dianna Hardy
What's really worth fighting for, when one second is all you have left?
Norman Smithson is at the end of the line. His wife left him, women don't look at him, he was made redundant, and at forty, he could be just that little bit slimmer. He would be a has-been if he'd ever been a 'was' in the first place. He's not the Alpha male of the 21st century - or of any century. He was the chubby oddball who used to sit silently at the back of the class so he wouldn't get picked on.
Rosa is a dreadlocked, tattooed and pierced twenty-something, who uses her image as armour to keep everyone away from every broken thing about her. But her past is about to catch up with her … at the exact moment Norman finds himself in completely the wrong place, at the worst possible time.
One gunshot, one scramble for life, one unlikely couple, one very long night … can one damaged woman and one ordinary man, find the extraordinary in the very last second they're given?
Broken Lights is a standalone story of what's really worth fighting for, when one second is all you have left.
“You're saying that like you're … not dynamic?”
He didn't mean to let out the chortle-laugh-snort thing he just did. “I'm not. I'm … 'normal Norman'."
Now, she looked like she was about to tease him without mercy. “Normal Norman?” she asked, incredulously.
He felt his neck heat up. He shouldn't have bloody said anything because any respect she might have had for him was one second short of disintegrating. “Look, I was the fat nerd at school – smart enough, but quiet. I was the one who did all his work on time and kept his head down so he wouldn't get unwanted attention. I was the one no one would sit next to by choice, just 'cause someone has to be that guy and it was me. The boys all wanted me to do their homework. The girls would all joke about how I fancied them, even though I didn't, and make very dramatic, loud plans to constantly avoid me. I learnt that if I just kept quiet and invisible, people paid less attention to me and my day went by better, so I did – keep quiet and invisible, I mean. Quiet and invisible. Not dynamic.”
My Review:
I received a free copy of the book from the author for my honest opinion.
Norman Smithson had a great life, a wife whom he loved very much and two very beautiful daughters that was his whole life. Norman also had a great job where he was making a comfortable living. It kept his family dressed, food on the table and a nice house. But then one day poor Norman had the worst day ever. He lost his job. The company where he worked didn't someone like him anymore with all of the new technology. Poor Norman is worried about how he is going to take care of his family now and if he will be able to find another job at his age. Losing his job is not the only thing that Norman has to worry about that day or feeling bad about either. His wife leaves him and takes his girls. With losing his wife and job both on the same day put Norman in a bad place. He starts hanging out at bar and trying to lose all of his problems in a bottle.
Rosa is a woman who is all broken up inside. She never had a childhood like most children with a loving mother and father. Her mother was always bringing men home with her and both of them would be flying high on one thing or another. It never really matter to her mother what it was as long as she was high. Rosa had to see and do things that no child should ever have to see or go through.
When Norman meets Rosa he just happens to be in the wrong place at the right time. He meets Rosa and her boyfriend in a dark alley one night on his way home from a bar where he had been trying to drown his troubles in the bottom of a bottle of booze. Rosa is being attacked so Norman hears her screaming and he can't just walk away and pretend he never heard anything. So he decides to step in and help Rosa. But he may have chewed off more than he can handle. He just may have caused him and Rosa their lives.
Norman and Rosa both have been through some hard times in their lives. They may not have been through the same thing but they are both broken people. Can they save each other from becoming someone they don't won't to be or will they become the people they have always wanted to be? Are they both strong enough to fix what is wrong in their lives and make it right so they can be happy and unbroken? Norman and Rosa both had to experience and go through what they did in their lives to be the people they are now so that they could be together and become the person they are today.
I have read both of Dianna's Series The Witching Pen and Eye of the Storm and loved them both. Even though Broken Lights was a different genre it did not matter in the least it was just as good as all of the others that I have read. Dianna knows how to tell each and every one of her character's story as if it was her own life that she is talking about and sometimes you feel as if she has been in your own head as if you are one of the characters.
If you haven't picked up your copy of Broken Lights then I highly recommend that you do. If you have read it or already have your own copy then I am sure that you know a book lover out there that would love receiving Broken Lights as a Christmas present with Christmas just right around the corner.
Dianna Hardy is the international bestselling author of The Witching Pen series and the Eye Of The Storm series. She combines a titillating mix of contemporary and paranormal romance in to her writing, as well as urban and dark fantasy, to bring you stories that are action-packed, fast- paced and not short of heat, with the focus on both character development and the plot. She writes full-length novels and short fiction.
She live in Surrey, UK, with her partner and their daughter, where she writes full time.
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