Reviews
I read this in one sitting while I had insomnia.. it felt like 5 stars but I want to reread it in a better mental state LOL. It was a captivating story!
This book absolutely broke me. I cried so much throughout the entire thing, but I'm pretty sure I ugly cried for the last like.. 40% of it. I normally don't care to read any book dealing with the U.S. Military, but oof this one was worth it. So, if you feel like getting your heart just completely wrecked, this is the book for you. I am not ok and it will take me a bit to recover from this lmao.
Whoa. This book is intense. It’s angst. It’ll rip you apart and then it’ll put you back together again, only to do it all over again. It’s not for the faint hearted. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, your heart will break and at the end you’ll say, that was a story that is going to stay with me for a while. There’s triggers galore here, so if you’re sensitive, perhaps take that into consideration.
"Never did I think myself capable of finding what I lost, but as it turns out, sometimes you don’t have to go looking for it. Sometimes it finds you.". 5 absolutely rising Stars. this book was on one of my most favourite book toopers list of favourite books of 2020. And since I watched the video, I was really excited to read it. I actually haven't read a love triangle story before, but this one was definitely a wonderful one. This book talks about katy who was already married and had a sweet family. But when she goes on a mition with the army to Iraq, it seems that her heart and fait have other things in mind, and there she meets soldier christofar Brigs who thought that life is just army and warr. This book was phenomenal and the whole plot was really amazing. Heather M. Orgeron, and Kate Stewart wrote a marvellous, breathtaking, and memorable story with an extreme greatness of an imotional roller coaster of a story. I definitely highly recommend it. Really really loved every second while reading it
You have to know that I have an open mind, a really open mind. But betrayal, especially cheating, is usually a big no for me. This book started well, I was intrigued and I kind of liked both main characters and I loved how the female protagonist kept talking about her son and husband, like it was the only way to remember them? Then, the second part of the book happened. I hated that part, I felt like I was watching an Italian tv series and I swear, I couldn’t bear reading about both characters. This book was not for me, I didn’t like how the authors developed everything in the last part of the book. 3 stars just because I think the epilogue actually saves a lot of the book and because I think the first part was really good. Final vote: 3/5
Broken but still beautiful “In another lifetime, I know we’d have been perfect together, and I’m certain you feel that too. I see it in your eyes, and I felt it. I still feel it. And I have half a mind to beg life to repeat that hell, just to be with you. I’d do anything to keep you with me.” All Katy ever wanted was to help people. She had one goal in mind. Get through this deployment, and come home to her everything: her husband and her son. She didn’t expect her entire world to be tipped on its axis. Briggs lived and breathed as a soldier. He treated every day as if it was last - as it was a reality being on the front lines day in and out. He teetered between what his heart secretly longed for, but didn’t act upon. Together they had an unspoken bond, and quickly became allies. “Heartbreak Warfare,” is a contemporary war romance by Heather M Orgeron and Kate Stewart. It is an unforeseen forbidden and love triangle romance. Katy leaves loving her husband, and after being a POW - she comes home a different person; leaving with a bone deep connection to Briggs - who was captured with her. It pulled on my heart, and I just ached for each of them. For the woman Katy is and was, the husband that she built a life with - and for the hope that Briggs also had. They each held a piece of the puzzle in their hands, and ultimately had to overcome so much to get a HEA.
Well, that was a literal sob fest. A highly emotional tale that is told in a stripped-down and fairly basic style. Some people have said it was beautifully written, I disagree but that is not a criticism, just an observation. This story didn't need bells and whistles and lyricism to be good, it stood on its own for that. This is also the type of romance that I prefer because it is firmly grounded in the realities of what makes us human, rather than the fantasy of what a romance book should or should not include. There are a couple of parts where there is mention of being able to afford things (and the characters are nowhere near the breadline) and even such a small thing as that gains major approval from me. It is a story of flawed human beings, normal and realistic people. Two of them act selfishly as they become connected in a way that most of us could never imagine - through a shared and extended highly traumatic experience. The actual things that happened in this book are obviously make-believe, but they are based on very real experiences had by people in life and include some of the same real-life struggles, mistakes and actions in the aftermath that I'm sure many people make too, whether in similar or different types of traumatic situations. It doesn't shy away from the wrongs that was done, or who they affected and how, it just told the story as it happened to the humans who survived what happened to them. Apart from being a solid romance, it's also the story of multiple relationships and the effects of war created PTSD has not just on the individuals who are living with it but those of their loved ones and that was the ultimate strength of it to me. So, the main portions of the book were about Katy (Scottie) and Gavin (her husband), and Scottie and Briggs (the third party), and the effects of the experiences and the bonds on both of those relationships. However, we also get to see the after-effects on the relationships between Scottie and her son (who my heart broke for more than once) and Scottie and her sister Sammie, the person who was kind of like her emotional backbone and tried to keep her accountable whilst still providing unconditional love and support. We also see how 'ride or die' the bond between Scottie and her BFF Mullins is, and this is possibly the one that struck me the most reading this book. Through all of these different relationships, the book demonstrates how even if we are surrounded by those that love us, in times of high trauma that can still not be enough. The triple POV we got through the entirety of it (Scotty, Briggs and Gavin) is a major bonus, because like lots of other people have said, Gavin is an absolutely decent person who didn't deserve what he got... as so often happens in life. And at least he got to fight back in the ways that he could. Many others think that this was what made the actions of Scottie and Briggs much more reprehensible, I just think it made it more grounded in reality. I absolutely can't condone Scottie's actions against (towards) either of the men because wrong is wrong, BUT I can understand the how and why, and feel empathy for the situation that lead to it all. After all, try as we might, we can't turn off our emotions, only how we react to them. Also, (view spoiler)[she was in deep denial (hide spoiler)]and I think that made her PTSD and subsequently her behaviour worse. Heartbreak Warfare is a true love triangle in that it is not really obvious who we should root for. But despite being written in such a back and forth manner meant to put the reader off the scent of who Scottie would ultimately end up with, (view spoiler)[I felt personally that it could have only gone one way. I also felt that because of the cover, it was pretty obvious who that would be, even though there were a couple of times because of thins that happened, I questioned myself on that. As far as I'm concerned, the bond they formed, that was initially an attraction Scottie tried hard to ignore, but grew from their months together whilst captured, would always overcome whatever the relationship was with Gavin because those types of bonds are unique and can either make or break a person. And I have to say, that even though Gavin seemed like an ideal husband who would give his wife any reason to look elsewhere, the chemistry with Briggs, and his devotion to trying his best to save her in that bunker destroyed me. He was perhaps a bit cocky and slightly sexist early on, but he was funny too with all of his bad jokes and that can sometimes win me round. He was also at times wanting to fight for her and selfish or not, I can't blame him because of the depth of his feelings. And in the end, he came to understand that actually, it wasn't him but Scottie was the one that did the saving on the day of the ambush, and that reveal at the end was one that I didn't see coming. And, while there was a lot of talk about how Scottie and Gavin were the love of each other's lives, I don't really believe that. Scotty was 19 when she married Gavin and had her son, she also admitted to Briggs that Gavin was her first... and it seemed to me that she meant first in every way, not just sex. I don't get how someone so young but mostly someone so inexperienced with romantic love can feel that she has met the ONE for her. I'm not saying that it can't and doesn't happen because it does, but it is fairly rare. So whilst the connection between her and Briggs felt a little on the insta-love-y side once they got taken, the little I understand about human behaviours meant that it was more believable to me that theirs was the 'written in the stars' story. (hide spoiler)] Some reviewers are saying how inappropriate some of the lustful feelings that were being shared whilst they were in captivity and how Scottie could have been feeling lust in the extreme situation they were in, and following the brutality they witnessed, but TBH some of this I put down to the authors' wanting to convey the growing connection between them and also because sometimes in extreme moments, the human psyche does resort to whatever base nature will help us survive... it's like an unconscious coping mechanism. It's similar to how many of us turn to sexual gratification as the ultimate proof of our own life when someone close to us dies. And I also think that judgements over how she could fawn over another man when she was still in love with her husband just ignores the blatant fact that chemistry and attraction do not care about those things and has no relation to how strong (or not) an already existing partnership is. I have to say though, that as decent and loving a man and husband as Gavin seemed... how totally in love with her he was, there was a little something that I couldn't help feel was him thinking about and treating Scottie like a possession, and that didn't sit right with me. It may be because he was older than her (although his age is never mentioned), and because he is much further ahead in his career than she was (he was an army Captain), but I am generally not a huge fan of that sort of love interest in a romance. This line in particular, whenever I come across something even vaguely similar always pisses me off ... I pride myself at being her only lover. because not only does it stink of the woman being treated like an object, it also stinks of the myth of purity in sexually inexperienced females and is a big fucking disgusting double standard. I'm not saying that I didn't feel for Gavin and what he was going through because I did, but that whole thing about his attitude soured me a little towards him. One thing I did love about him though, was the narrative choice made to allow him to freely express himself through tears, multiple times (without shame or being shamed) when it could have easily gone the stereotypical other way where he only vents with violence and destruction. I SO appreciated that as men crying is just as normal as women crying and should be normalised far more in all types of art and media as well as in life period. There is nothing about expressing their human emotions in this cathartic way that strips any level of masculinity from any man, quite the opposite in fact. I honestly never thought that I'd have so much to say about this book. I loved the exploration of real humanity, rather than the genre norms we get most of the time in romance, even though I obviously had a few issues. The things that Noah, Scottie and Gavin's son saw and said (this little boy proved beyond a doubt that he loved his mom so much and just wanted her to get better) had my with my heart in my mouth and I loved the fact that he started the book with a mommy and daddy, but by the end and a couple of years (18 months?) down the line he had a mom and dad. I loved that the man who 'lost' Scottie was able to step away like an adult despite the immense hurt he was feeling, and I loved that we saw the other one try to initially bury his hurt in other ways than landed him back down to earth with a bang. And the epilogue at the end... was the icing on the cake for me. The one thing I would have loved to see different would have been a total twist on the gender expectations in this situation, would have been if Scottie was the one to (view spoiler)[stay in the army, despite all the things she had experienced and Briggs had been the one to back away. (hide spoiler)] That would have made for a real conversation piece.
