A Home for Broken Hearts

I sometimes find it hard to get into books about England because even though they are written in English the slang and differences in language make it difficult for me to fully grasp what the characters are saying. While I did experience a bit of that with this book for the most part it was pretty easy for me to pick up on. I'm finding that the more I read from English authors, the easier the language differences are to decipher. Having said that I really thought this was a great book.

The whole premise of the book is that Ellen's life is ripped apart by the death of her husband and she is trying to rebuild. What ensues in that rebuilding is a great story of family and friendship. The relationship that Ellen has with her young son and show more her sister are already strained and the fact that a year after Ellen's husband's death she is still not sure on how to "recover" make the relationships even more strained. Then the lodgers come into the story and everything Ellen has thought about her life, her future, her ability to cope are turned upside down.

The characters are very well developed. I really liked Ellen, she needs some work, but who doesn't... And given that her husband was her life she's very lost. She comes off as being meek and weak-willed, but as the story gets going she finds her strength and her ability to live a life without her husband.

I really liked the writing. It was humorous at times, not poking fun at the situation, but humorous none the less. It was also very emotional. Understanding what emotions Ellen is feeling is almost painful at times. I could feel the grief she was dealing with. Although the main plot was a bit predictable there were more than enough twists thrown in to make the story really stand out.

I think I'm going to have to pick up some of Coleman's other novels. And I have to say that as I'm writing this I'm thinking of ways that the story could continue into a series with all these characters. It was truly an engaging story. show less

Ellen Woods, freelance editor, grieving widow and the mother of a nearly twelve year old son has realized her late husband left them broke and she has to find a way to keep her house and home. After her sister, Hannah, insists she take three lodgers in her spare rooms, she reluctantly agrees, and between Hannah and her editor she soon has three very different people living under her roof. There is Sabine, a beautiful German woman escaping an unfaithful husband, Allegra Howard, one of the erotic romance authors whose books Ellen Woods not only copy edits but finds herself caught up in for her fantasy escape from her life, and Matt, a new columnist for a men’s weekly called Bang It!. It doesn’t take long to see that Ellen’s happy show more marriage wasn’t all she remembers it to be, that she and Hannah don’t seem to get along well and that her lodgers each have their own baggage to carry.

This is a beach read ChickLit, semi-pure and simple, and may be my one “chick lit” book for the year (but there’s no point in being too serious about a prediction like that since at any time I feel like I might either read another because I’m in the right mood or I want to finish a challenge). I liked some of the characters quite a bit and was able to get it read in a few longish chunks of time, so I’m giving it a three. However, there is nothing brilliant about this, some of it was rather silly, and no doubt I’ll forget the story down the road, but it was a good break from some of the heavier reads I’ve been doing and I read it for two current reading challenges. show less

This book reads a bit like a first novel. However, it is not Coleman's first. The fact that it was a fast read and fairly entertaining gives this one just a notch above 2 stars, and I round up (I would probably actually give this one 2.5, but I think 1/2 stars are cheating at bit, although I have been known to do it).

It was extremely predictable, especially (spoiler alert) with what I suspect was supposed to be a huge revelatory twist at the end in Hannah's affair with Nick. It consistently stuck with the novel-formula of older rude woman hard on the outside and sweet as a marshmallow on the inside; good-looking, single man who becomes the love-interest; tweenage kid struggling with growing up in the shadow of losing his father, yet show more still coming of age nicely in the end; female protagonist, in this case the sister, who is just irritating enough to want to slap but just pathetic enough to keep you from it. Sabine is the only character who defied the mix, and she was a bit of a milquetoast in that she was strong and weak at the same time. Hey, maybe that DOES fit the formulaic scenario.

While this was a fast read, I can't recommend it and probably won't read more by Coleman unless it is highly recommended. show less

Beautifully written, loved all the characters. Warm understated and funny.

THE HOME FOR BROKEN HEARTS by Rowan Coleman is a contemporary romance set in London. It is well written with details,depth, twists and turns. It has grieving widows,love,lost, boardinghouse, mothers, sons, single parenthood, struggles, secrets, friendship, family, renewal and finding yourself. The characters are interesting, charming, bold and have struggles with life and other issues. The story interweaves several characters together living in a boardinghouse. It shows their struggles, their fears, heartbreak and coming together of true friends and family. If you enjoy chick flics you will enjoy this one. This book was reveived for review from Simon and Schuster and details can be found at Gallery Books and My Book Addiction and More.

This was an interesting book. I thought it was going to be a typical chick lit book, but it brought up some difficult questions. I do not want to give anything away, but it was about forgiveness.