Heartbroken. Finished 7-19-18, 3.5/5 stars, fiction, pub. 2012

Kate has written a novel based on a tragic love story from her family’s past. Emily is a struggling waitress whose toxic relationship with the wrong man has led her to make a horrible, life-altering decision.

Without knowing each other, and with lives that couldn’t be more different, they head to the same point on the map: Heart Island. It’s an idyllic place in the middle of an Adirondack lake, and home to harsh and unyielding matriarch Birdie Burke. These three women find themselves on a heart-wrenching collision course–with dark memories, restless ghosts, and one another. And unbeknownst to them all, Heart Island has a terrifying history of its own.

Heartbroken is a tense, mesmerizing novel about the limits of dysfunctional families, of an island haunted by dark memories, and of the all-too-real demons we must battle.    from Goodreads

Sometimes when I’m listening to a book in the car I’m willing to put up with a slower story since I’m only half listening anyway 🙂  This book with the storylines from three women, Birdie, her daughter Kate, and young Emily who seems to make all the bad choices started slow and its pace never really picked up until the end. Birdie was a tough one to like, but fit perfectly on Heart Island, a remote place that had been passed down from generations ago.  Kate, seemed to be a in perfect place in her life, so having to deal with Birdie issues made her more interesting.  Emily was the outlier.  The reader knows she’s connected but sure exactly how. As much as Birdie was cold, Emily was at least that much confused and because of that confusing.  I wanted to like her but really couldn’t.

I liked it. Heart Island was a character all of its own and the atmosphere was perfect for the messed up family dynamics.  There was a mystery of sorts on top of trying to figure out how Emily fit into the story.  For a thriller it was slower than I prefer, but since it was a car listen it worked just fine.