Brokenness is the second book in the Broken series and focuses on Echo and Dustin (Dax’s brother). I have been waiting for this book since I read Broken Wings.

The first part of the book is a look back at where Dustin and Echo began. We get to see the beginning to their love story and the tragedy that rips them apart. I loved watching them fall in love, even if it was young love, love is love. You felt the heartbreak that these two went through at the hands of someone else. All the feels where definitely there!

Echo has had to move on from the angry, heart broken girl she left behind. She has no choice but to make the best life possible for her son. She is married and has a good, successful life. What happens when the past meets the present?

Dustin threw himself into his military career, anything to try to forget Echo and the heart break that he suffered and the anger that he feels. A chance encounter can change the course of the future. What happens when Dustin finds out he’s been closer to Echo than he realized the entire time?

An injury ends the career that Dustin has worked so hard for but will it end his life? Echo is married now – he won’t be that man. Is the love they shared as teenagers still there? Will Echo choose to live for love or live for stability?

I loved this book but I wish there was a little more to it. My only complaints is that I felt like things were a little rushed once we were brought up to the future. I would definitely recommend this series!

“I want to applaud Erika Ashby on a phenomenal story that left me soooo happy, and yet, I wish there was more!! Thank you for these wonderful characters that will always have a place in my heart<3” ~ Amazon Reviewer

“This is a definite must read series that hooks you from the beginning. It’s raw, real, and emotional! I can’t wait to read more!!!!” ~ Amazon Reviewer

“WOW I mean WOW! I think Ms Erika did a fantastic job. Reading some of her FB posts she was worried it might not be long enough and how she struggled to make it happen. Well Ms Erika you did super job!” ~ Amazon Reviewer

TEN YEARS AGO I fell in love with a boy. All it took was one sideways grin with his perfectly dimpled cheek for me to know I was a goner. My days and nights were consumed by him—if not physically, he was there mentally—and always on my mind. I loved him with everything that I had. The love we shared was the kind I thought would stand the test of time.

Everyone says your first true love isn’t in fact your one true love, but more of a fling. That epic love comes from enduring every facet of life with that person. Whether it is happiness, sadness, loss, or gain, you can’t truly love someone until it had been tested.

But I didn’t believe that. The bounds of love shouldn’t need to be tested to be known.

Then one day, in a blink of an eye, the boy I loved was ripped from me. My overly religious parents didn’t like their daughter falling in love so young. It was simply unacceptable to them when I was supposed to focus on God, school, my future and nothing else.

He was my future, and when they ripped my future away, I rebelled. I was barely showing by the time graduation rolled around. Thank God, because I would have surely been an outcast at my new school. Not to mention what would have happened if my parents would have found out. There was no way I was letting them get their hands on the last thing I had of the boy I loved.

Eighteen, pregnant and sitting at the bus station, I found a friend. One that took me under his wing and who I grew to love. It was then I realized there were different types of love. He was everything I needed when I had nothing. I loved him for the life he had given me when every option I had was filled with uncertainty. I would forever be in his debt.

TEN YEARS LATER, I ran into the boy I had loved, yet he was no longer a boy. He was a man. A deeply wounded man. His inner wounds far exceeded the outer ones. Nothing compared to the scars and pain he’d carried around on the inside for so long.

TEN YEARS LATER and I still had the same feelings for him…but they seem so much more intense. Was my first love my one true love? Now that he’s reappeared in my life, my thoughts are consumed by him. But now they are paralleled with guilt. I love two men, but I love them differently. And, as of right now, I only know one for sure loved me back.

I’m caught between what’s wrong and what’s right…what’s fair and what’s unjust. I know what my heart wants, but is what it wants what’s right? Feelings can cloud moral judgment. I don’t want what I feel to take over what I know to be right. But I’m having a hard time sorting out the differences. I’m walking an emotion packed tight rope, and I know I’m going to fall. I’m just unsure who’s going to catch me.