How to Mend a Broken Heart by Amy Andrews
Harlequin Medical Romances
Contemporary
ISBN: 978-0-263-89188-1
Reviewed by Vanessa




Fletcher and Tessa King seem to be quite happy in their marriage.  Then a horrific blow pulls their world asunder.  Ten years on, Fletcher needs Tessa’s help to deal with the awful predicament that his mother is facing.  Fletcher wants Tessa to help care for his ill mother pretending that their lives are the same as they were ten years before, and….he just needs Tessa!  Can Fletcher convince Tessa that they can move past that awful heartbreak from their pasts, find forgiveness with one another, and move on with their lives together, or will they be better apart after dealing with what led them to their estrangement?

How to Mend a Broken Heart was an emotionally evocative novel that had me weeping and then smiling through my tears as the last page was turned.  How to Mend a Broken Heart tears up the reader with the heartbreak that the characters endured and their attempts to rebuild a stronger foundation.  Fletcher and Tessa needed to learn to lean on one another through their incredibly heart wrenching ordeal instead of trying to deal with it on their own, and they seemed to realize some of this over the course of How to Mend a Broken Heart.

Both their feelings of blame, guilt, and closing themselves off were brought to life in How to Mend a Broken Heart.  The contrition that they both felt was understandable, and the way they dealt with it seemed realistic even if the reader didn’t always agree. When Fletcher confessed to Tessa, I truly loved that she questioned his conscience-clearing and his need for it as well.  She said what so many others would be thinking about his action.  Fletcher’s blame emerged and formed through the course of How to Mend a Broken Heart showing that he wasn’t necessarily an innocent party to their tragedy— he has his own cross to bear as well.  I know that How to Mend a Broken Heart doesn’t end with the clichéd HEA, but it does end more realistically given what Fletcher and Tessa had come through.

Because I was so thoroughly engaged in the lives of Fletcher and Tessa King in How to Mend a Broken Heart, I must Joyfully Recommend this heartbreaking romance!