Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

 

My thoughts

This was such a beautiful story. Told with so much feeling and heartfelt love. Even in the worst parts it’s beautiful. Perfection in a book is rare but this one truly is perfection. 

This book starts out kind of sad. A boy and his dog. The dog attacks the lambs killing three and the farmer kills the dog. I hated that part. But it's a means to the beginning of one of the most beautiful books I have read. This is definitely my favorite book for this year.

A girl meets a boy. They fall madly in love. He mother doesn't approve. A whole lot happens but ultimately they break up. She returns home and marries another. Years go by before she ever sees the one who swept her off her feet.

This story is told in the time it happened. In the before. In the after. During the trial. There was a killing and a husband goes on trial for his life. His wife stands by him. His family stands by him. Actually he has no family, blood family, except for his wife and her family now. 

Frank and Beth are married. They had a son, Bobby. Frank has loved Beth since he was thirteen years old. Beth loves him too. She also still has strong feelings for her first love Gabriel. For the boy she was meant to marry if things had been different. Frank and Beth have a farm and his brother Jimmy lives with them. Jimmy has always been a trouble person even as a very young lad. 

You will be taken from 1968 back to 1955. To the time before Beth and Frank to when it was Beth and Gabriel. You will get to know them all. The love that is between Beth and Gabriel is so intense and so strong. But something happens. Beth marries Frank and thus this story unfolds. 

This book is full of so much good. So much sad. So much happiness. A time when things should have been simpler I suppose but it wasn't. Not for these three. It's a love triangle gone desperately wrong. I loved all the characters except Gabriels mother. She was not likable in any way. Not even a tiny bit. This is a story of two loves. Two men and one woman. Actually three men but only two that Beth had been in love with. 

A tragedy strikes and these people's lives are never the same. Maybe in some ways better. Not really better but stronger. Friendships made. Love lost. A family interrupted. This is a story that will stay with you for a good long time.

Thank you #NetGalley, #Simon&Schuster, for this ARC. This is my feelings about this story.

About

A love triangle unearths dangerous, deadly secrets from the past in this thrilling tale perfect for fans of The Paper Palace and Where the Crawdads Sing.

“The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.”

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.