Anything But Broken, by Joelle Knox

Title: Anything But Broken
Author: Joelle Knox
Release date: August 2015
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Won

Description: After five years, tragedy brings Hannah Casey back to Hurricane Creek to bury what’s left of her family.  She’s flunking out of college, haunted by scandal, and the only person who cares is Sean Whitlow, an irresistible bad boy with a soft spot for her. The problem? He’s her dead sister’s ex.
Sean doesn’t bleed red, he bleeds motor oil. During the week, he struggles to turn his auto repair shop into a profitable business.  But when Saturday night rolls around, he’s the reigning stock-car king of the local race track.  He doesn’t know how to lose–or how to walk away and leave Hannah alone with her grief.
Between her grades and her wealthy family’s dark secrets, Hannah’s barely holding her life together.  And the last thing Sean needs is to get tangled up with another Casey girl.  As the attraction between them spins out of control, they’ll either find a love with no limits–or go up in flames.

My thoughts: Yes, this is another contemporary romance where something emotionally traumatic happened in the characters' past which they're now trying to deal with and it affects a new romance. Yes, this type of story comes up again and again. But I love them. As with any romance novel, it's about the journey.

Hannah has come back to the town she grew up in after she inherits her childhood home. She wants to come back, do the dutiful daughter stuff, and then leave again as quickly as possible. Of course it doesn't go that smoothly and as she struggles to deal with what happened in the past and what is happening now, she finds other things to lean on to 'help'. And while she really wants to like Sean, there are secrets her late sister confided in her which would tear him apart.

The chapters alternate between the two perspectives of Hannah and Sean and I really liked getting to see what was going on in Sean's head and life from his own perspective. Another thing I really liked was the community of Hurricane Creek which Joelle Knox introduces. There are some great side characters who I'm looking forward to seeing more of. However, I felt like a bit too much time in this story was spent focussing on the couple who star in book two of the series. They're Hannah & Sean's best friends (of course) so it's understandable that they should feature heavily in this story but at times I felt like Anything But Broken was their story as much as Hannah & Sean's. The problems of a first-in-the-series book, I guess. The other criticism I have is that I thought some of Hannah's 'big secrets' about her sister were very easy to guess.

Overall, I did find this a very enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to the sequel. This was a fun contemporary romance and introduced some characters who I really want to see a happy ending for in future books. Joelle Knox is the pen name for one of my favourite authors but if I hadn't known that, I would never have guessed! This book really proves the versatility of the author. Overall I'm giving this book 6 out of 10.