Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Review: Broken Knight - L.J. Shen

Broken Knight
(All Saints High #2)
by L.J. Shen
Published: August 18, 2019
Genre: Romance, Contemporary, New Adult

Not all love stories are written the same way. Ours had torn chapters, missing paragraphs, and a bittersweet ending.

Luna Rexroth is everyone’s favorite wallflower.

Sweet.
Caring.
Charitable.
Quiet.
Fake.
Underneath the meek, tomboy exterior everyone loves (yet pities) is a girl who knows exactly what, and who, she wants—namely, the boy from the treehouse who taught her how to curse in sign language.
Who taught her how to laugh.
To live.
To love.
Knight Cole is everyone’s favorite football hero.
Gorgeous.
Athletic.
Rugged.
Popular.
Liar.

This daredevil hell-raiser could knock you up with his gaze alone, but he only has eyes for the girl across the street: Luna.

But Luna is not who she used to be. She doesn’t need his protection anymore.
When life throws a curveball at All Saints’ golden boy, he’s forced to realize not all knights are heroes.

Sometimes, the greatest love stories flourish in tragedy.
Available Now
Review
4 stars

I'm kicking off this review by sharing that Broken Knight took me out of my book slump within the first 15% of the novel. I had struggled for two weeks to read anything, starting and stopping books like it was my job, but this book, this book stuck. I already knew I loved Knight's parents and we all remember little Luna, but slumps are hard and I didn't know upon opening the pages of this novel that I'd be pulled back into the All Saints High world so quickly. Every character's face, personalities, their stories, came rushing back to me. L.J Shen has created a world that is impossible to forget and in this case, felt like a place I was coming home to.

“There were two Knight Coles. One was mine. The other was everyone else's.”

Like the previous novels in this series and the Sinners of Saint series, Broken Knight takes us into the world of teens Knight and Luna, best friends from the wealthy Todos Santos neighborhood in California. They are surrounded by money, the guys in Knight's friendship circle are treated like Gods, and mute Luna escapes social torture due to her role as Knight's closest confidante. Their high school experience features similarities to our own and in other ways is vastly different. The alcohol, the drugs, the sex, and the unique parenting styles done by our favorite sinners have these teens growing up so quickly. Luna and Knight have been friends forever, but this isn't a story of their friendship, Broken Knight is the story of their falling. Falling out of friendship and falling into love, lust, something, all while denying each other their honesty.

“'Moonshine,' he whispered. 'You fill up the empty, dark space—like the moon owns the sky. It is quiet. It is bright. It doesn’t need to be a ball of flame to be noticed. It simply exists. It forever glows.'”

Oh my word, the relationship between these two is a wild one. It's all smooth sailing and then a ginormous wave crashes over them and at various times each is caught in the undertow. The love they have for one another is as deep as the ocean they visit, but it's equally as dark. Fraught with tension and a lifetime of half truths, Broken Knight finds Knight Cole and Luna Rexroth grappling with the realities of growing up. Knight's mother's health is failing, Luna is forced to find strength in herself, and together or apart, the two must finally face their long buried feelings. At times it was hard to continue reading, I did cry (are you surprised) quite a bit, but I also found myself so angry, matching the emotions of the characters. The push and pull in this novel can be overwhelming and admittedly takes this novel into a different territory than the previous associated novels did for me. It was difficult to see light at the end, L.J. Shen really outdid herself with the angst this time, but just like every mountain you overcome, Broken Knight gives readers a beautiful peak at the top.

"'Baby'
'Don't baby me. I'm not your home. People don't ruin their homes; they build them. They cherish them.'"

Broken Knight is a passionate, volatile story about love and loss, an intense friends-to-lovers romance that will have you reading well into the night to finish. L.J. Shen takes readers on a tumultuous journey that at times was so heavy and at others as bright as a rainbow in the sky. If you're looking for your next emotional romance read, this is it, no need to search further.
 
About LJ Shen:
LJShen.jpgL.J. Shen is an International #1 best-selling author of Contemporary Romance and New Adult novels. She lives in Northern California with her husband, young son and chubby cat.
Before she’d settled down, L.J. (who thinks referring to herself in the third person is really silly, by the way) traveled the world, and collected friends from all across the globe. Friends who’d be happy to report that she is a rubbish companion, always forgets people's’ birthdays and never sends Christmas cards.
She enjoys the simple things in life, like spending time with her family and friends, reading, HBO, Netflix and internet-stalking Stephen James. She reads between three to five books a week and firmly believes Crocs shoes and mullets should be outlawed.

Connect with L.J. Shen:
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