Broken: Rafferty #2

Broken
Rafferty, #2
Trade Paperback, 327 pages
Published March 2nd 2010 by Berkley Sensation
(first published January 19th 2010)
ISBN 0425232417 (ISBN13: 9780425232415)


SHATTERED
Quinn Rafferty is working as a bounty hunter and bail bondsman in St. Louis when a new neighbor catches his eye. He’s tempted by her beauty—but he knows from experience that anyone desperate enough to live in his building is damaged goods. Besides, he has his own soul to mend before he can worry about anyone else.

DESPERATE
Sarah Davis is on the run, but not for the usual reasons a woman goes on the lam. She’s not an abused wife, and she’s not a criminal. But she does have a plan for her future. And as much as she finds herself attracted to her gruff, tough neighbor, she can’t risk telling him the secrets she’s hiding. There’s just too much at stake.

DRIVEN TO DESIRE...
But Quinn must get closer to Sara when she turns out to be the target of his new missing persons case, and he discovers that there is something more complex and dangerous to her than he thought. Now, both Quinn and Sara will have to expose their true feelings—as well as their fragile hearts—if they hope their love will survive…

I've seen the ratings, heard the offhand comments, so I knew this book was being praised like God's gift to literacy. The reviews, though, I kept away from. Wanted nothing to ruin this one for me. No details at all. Not even the characters. And I've yet to read, Fragile, book one in the series.

Broken opens up in the world of a young Quinn and his drug addicted mother, reminding me so much of another of Shiloh Walker's stories- Talking With The Dead.

Twenty years later he's burying a woman he only now realizes he loved and working as a bounty hunter. The devastation experienced in his youth still haunts him, despite the salvation found with his natural father and twin brother, Luke. There is still a part of him that's well... broken.

It's not difficult to see the obvious charm that has seduced so many readers. Quinn's a cutie. A lost, wounded warrior who is completely blindsided by the fact that he finds himself wanting small talk with his new neighbor, Sara Davis. And flirting, well he yearns to do that too, among some other more graphic, adult pastimes.

Sara, meanwhile, is on the run from a man who wants her dead so he can move on to his next victim and it wasn't until she had to run again -and believe me, you can't possibly guess why she's running- that this story actually picked up for me. When Quinn opened up that file, it was then that the story actually turned captivating. Up until then the juvenile relationship between he and Sara was just *interesting* at best. Must be something about a man, bleeding from his heart and soul, as he confronts the only woman ever able to really hurt him that just hits a nerve with me. 5 out of 5 stars. The ending really makes the story.

"Lights out, door down," he muttered. "Now lift your hips."

Last note- There are numerous references to Fragile so I wouldn't recommend reading them out of order like I am. Definitely looking forward to a taste of Luke though. =)

Other books in the series