Reviewer: Tracy
How to Mend a Broken Heart by Amy Andrews
Publisher: Harlequin Medical Romance
Publication Date: September 1st 2012
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Point-of-View: Alternating Third
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 134
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Facing her estranged husband Fletcher was always going to be heartbreaking for nurse Tessa King.

Especially as Fletcher has one last favour to ask – with his mother critically ill, he needs Tessa to pretend tragedy never tore their marriage apart. Impossible when your husband’s the one man it hurts your heart to touch...but the one man you can’t resist...

Fletcher and Tessa were madly in love with each other at one point.  After the accidental death of their toddler they divorced, and Tessa insisted on no communication whatsoever.  They had been living in Brisbane, Australia but Fletcher had ended up moving to Canada and Tessa to England.  Tessa returns on the anniversary of her son’s death to visit his grave.  Fletcher, unbeknownst to Tessa, has been watching every year.  He hates the fact that they’re divorced and wants Tessa back in his life.

Fletcher approaches Tessa with a proposition – she stays in Brisbane to help him take care of his mother, who was at one point a second mother to Tessa, who now has Alzheimer’s disease.  The mom, Jean, thinks that Tessa and Fletcher are still married and has no clue that they ever had a child.  Fletcher’s sister is usually Jean’s caregiver but she’s pregnant and on bed rest so Fletcher took over.  Since Tessa takes care of elderly Alzheimer patients in England, Fletcher believes she’s the perfect fit.  On top to that, he’ll have Tessa in his life again.

This book.  I’m not even sure where to begin this review.  I guess I’ll start by saying that I didn’t like the book.

Tessa was the one who asked for the divorce. She was grieving the death of her son, Ryan, and couldn’t handle even being around Fletcher.  She wouldn’t talk about Ryan and just tried to get through each day.  She didn’t support Fletcher at all and now, 10 years later, she’s just now seeing how selfish she’s been when Fletch finally says that he’s sick of not talking about his son. I got his frustration. I really didn’t like Tessa at all (even before that Fletch said that).  I got that she’s grieving and has horrible guilt about it all, but she’s not the only one who lost a child!  Maybe that makes me callous, but I don’t think so.

Fletcher seemed like a good guy at first, but I hated that he used his mentally ill mother to get Tessa to stick around.  Really? sigh Then of course he insists that she stay with him in case his mother wakes up in the night and he conveniently only has 2 bedrooms.  You can guess where this is going, they end up having to share a bed. Let me add that Fletcher moved down 9 out of 10 spaces in my opinion when he does a reveal of something that happened 9 years prior.  Why was this added???  Was there not enough drama?  Apparently not.

The book was slow, depressing, and a complete emotional drain.  There was seriously not one happy part in this book.  Even when there was a chance for the author to make Tessa see that she could take care of a child (Fletcher’s nephew) and have no issues, Andrews had the child sick and Tessa having to call an ambulance to save his life.  It was just too much! I can’t recommend this book at all as I didn’t like it, but if you want to be ripped apart emotionally then go for it.

Rating: 2 out of 5

(This was a 1 star read for me but it wasn’t badly written, so I gave it another star.)