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💛🖤💛🖤💛🖤💛HEARTBREAK WARFARE💛🖤💛🖤💛🖤💛
HEARTBREAK WARFARE DECIMATED ME AND I WOULDN’T HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY & EASILY MAKES MY TOP 10 READS FOR 2018 & EARNED A BIG FAT 5-STAR RATING.
Talk about a heart beating. Literally, that's what happened to me while reading this book. My heart took on one of the worst beatings ever! Heartbreak Warfare by Heather M. Orgeron & Kate Stewart completely decimated me and I wouldn’t have it any other way! I couldn't get enough and was afraid to read more. Regardless, I wanted to read more and more and so much more.
The unfathomable heartache, devastating turmoil, ever growing intense angst and explicit and gut wrenching raw emotions from this book stabbed me right in the heart, piercing me, testing my will and ability to stop tears from flowing down my face and the sheer intensity of this book completely overwhelmed me.
I kid you not, I had so many ugly cries throughout this book that I feared I was in danger of becoming dehydrated from all the tears that I shed. Really, I was a blubbering idiot. This book held me hostage.
Heartbreak Warfare is a story of 3 people. Katy (Scottie) Scott who is a medic in the armed forces. She is married to Gavin who is a captain in the armed forces as well. They are so in love and have a 4-year-old son Noah. Sadly, Katy has been deployed to Afghanistan to serve her second tour and has to leave her family.
She is accompanied by her best friend and fellow officer Corporal Mullins. It is there that she meets the charming and witty Chris Briggs, who serves in the infantry. While they are all en route to a humanitarian mission they are ambushed by militants and taken prisoner.
This part of the story was the most difficult to read. The authors pull no punches and don’t hold back.
While in captivity, they are subjected to and forced to bear witness to the most heinous brutal acts of violence imaginable. For me it wasn’t so much the graphic nature of what took place, however terrifying that was. It was the in the moment emotions and what happens after choices are forced to be made. What’s strange is that I can’t unsee it and I never saw it. So strange. That was very frightening for me.
Because they are caged, chained and housed in the same bunker, Katy and Briggs form a tight bond. A bond like no other. A bond that leaves them clinging to each other, to life, trying to stay strong. They are each other’s’ lifeline. That lifeline gives them the strength to barely survive day to day. Emotions are at the forefront and they depend on one another like their lives depend on it. And they do. Not to mention the psychological warfare of being tortured. When all hope seems to be lost, it is then they are rescued and sent home to recover.
Turns out, that’s not an easy task. As difficult as it was, they are forced to go their separate ways but not before declarations are made. Leaving both desperate and alone, having to deal with the aftermath as well as to suffer alone.
Turns out, returning home is not easy. Faced with having to deal with the overwhelming emotions and fear of the unknown takes its toll on them both. Feelings of unbearable pain, loneliness and despair fill every waking hour of every day. Katy walks around in a constant state of fear, trying to be brave and not let others see through the masks she wears. She’s determined to not let this hurt her little boy Noah or her husband as well as the rest of her family. But that proves to be difficult. It’s a never-ending battle for her survival. Another war of sorts. Even for Brigg’s who suffers alone. Without the woman he loves. They left the war behind just to come home to a different kind of war. This war she wages is within herself. An internal battle she’s left to fight on her own. She tries to push through the pain but that proves to be too daunting of a task. She fights and suffers in silence and never leans on the one person closest to her. Her husband. This leads her down a risky path of bad behavior and unhealthy choices.
Those choices lead her to the one person she longs for. The one person who can quell her fears and the only one who can understand the suffering and PTSD from being a prisoner of war is also the one she must stay away from.
Pain comes in many forms and many facets in this story. It’s like shrapnel, it splinters into a million shards. Each shard slices right through you, tearing at the very core. Leaving devastation in its wake. Gaping holes are left open and left to bleed out the pain in droplets of blood like tears.
You can’t just rip the bandage off and all the wounds heal. No, the pain and the effects of that pain render those who are left to suffer in the deepest darkest crevices with no light in sight. You take refuge in those crevices. Burrowing so deep, trying so hard to escape the pain.
This all-consuming and never ending pain trickles down and out and seems to latch on and fester inside the lives of those it touches. Not just to the hero and heroine but to family members as well. Those who remain steadfast and closest to these prisoners of war have their work cut out for them. Sometimes, you just can’t go home again. Sometimes life throws a giant-sized monkey wrench at you. When all is said and done, you are left with broken souls, broken hearts and broken dreams.
This story completely encapsulated me. The guts of the story, the emotional upheaval runs rampant throughout its entirety.
If you’re anything like me, when I read romance, I root for the hero and heroine AND the happily ever after they so desperately deserve. It’s so satisfying, so rewarding after nearing the end of an extremely painful and harrowing journey that their hea is granted. But sometimes, in stories like this, some get theirs and some don’t. No one comes out of this story unscathed. Not the characters and certainly in this case, not the reader.
Lives are forever altered, forever scarred. What happens when you love someone and then fall in love with another? If you think you know, you’re wrong. Gavin is so devoted to Katy but this tragedy mutilated everyone in its path. Choices made are prevalent in the story for different reasons. The ties that bind the characters together have left their mark and caused those ties to break, thus destroying the very foundation of each relationship. Everyone pays a price.
The outcomes of choices made throughout this book wreak havoc with Katy, Briggs and Gavin as well. This story has embedded itself into my soul. I found that I too had succumbed to the foggy darkness right alongside of Katy, Briggs and Gavin and when that fog finally lifted and things became clearer, I found myself rejoicing with them in the splendor of love. Accepting the ultimate sacrifices that were made for love, embracing the forgiveness that was given freely and without malice and finally, hope for a future filled with a love so bright that it will fill those dark crevices and empty voids hidden below the surface, allowing the pain to be set free. This book has one of the best endings I’ve read in a long while.
I’ve learned that sometimes, even if it seems like you can’t go home again, that you will never find peace, never know life outside of the debilitating dark that it IS possible. You can, in fact, heal in time by surrounding yourself with goodness, let those that love and care for you help you. Have hope, let go of the fear that traps you. Give yourself permission to let go of all the guilt and begin to rebuild your life. A life outside the depths of Hell and find solace, hope and love in the arms of the one you love and were destined to have a future with. Even if it’s not with the one you expected.
Heartbreak Warfare is a beautifully written, in your face and intense account of the brutality of being a POW and the aftermath once you return home. No one is left unaffected. I for one am thankful to the authors for keeping it feeling realistic. It’s a disturbing, honest, twisted and bittersweet tale that begged to be and just had to be written. A story that left me with one of the best book hangovers I’ve ever had.
It's official. I've gone and fallen in love with Katy, Gavin & Briggs and Noah. I’ve only ever said this a few times before but, I will never be the same person I was before reading this story. It’s impossible. It will take me a very long time if ever, to recover. I guess I have something in common with Katy after all. But I have hope.
I highly recommend Heartbreak Warfare to EVERYONE. But know before going in that it is at times, hard to read and may have triggers. This book easily makes my top 10 reads for 2018 and earned a big fat 5-star rating.
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Popular Highlights in this book
“Run far and fast, dance that sexy dance, have that second baby. Smile, Scottie. Lighten up, tell jokes, live a long and happy life, for me.”Highlighted by 215 Kindle readers- “I’m not watching you do it again. I can survive being a soldier, I can survive another war, but it seems I can’t survive loving you. If I have to let you go, you have to let me go too.” He leans in on a whisper. “I love you, Katy, let me go.”Highlighted by 150 Kindle readers
- “On our wedding day, we promised to give each other the life we deserved.” His thumb whispers over my knuckles gently. “I’m giving you the life you deserve, Katy. Take it.”Highlighted by 130 Kindle readers
I absolutely, positively, fell in love with Christopher Briggs. Everyone has their own opinion and own tastes but I still don't understand the very few bad reviews that exist. I don't like to write reviews with details of the story so not to give things away but there are some here, FYI.Katy "Scottie" Scott and Chris Briggs's connection didn't just happen in a couple of days, it was a few months at least and tragedy brings the people that experience it closer, creates and makes a bond stronger. I think you can find someone attractive or be attracted to someone else if you are in a loving relationship, it is how you act on it. In Katy's ordeal, she experienced something traumatic with Briggs and it turned an attraction into an emotional attraction, then an emotional affair ensued. It was all emotions during and after the capture, for quite a while. The physical affair came later on down the road.I wasn't so crazy about Gavin because when he is first introduced into the story with his POV, gets the call that his wife is captured, he looks at his and Katy's 6-year-old son, Noah, and thinks and I quote, "I don't want a living reminder of her; I want her." That did it for me. He should have looked at the child he created with her and been proud to have a piece of her. My feelings for Gavin were set from that moment. He wasn't so bad later in the book, he cared for his son and I believe he did for Katy as well but I was already set in my opinion of him. Gavin wanted the woman that left for Baghdad, not the woman that came back. What Katy endured changed her and she was no longer that woman.Christopher Briggs dealt with his issues in a way that included alcohol and blonde headed, blue eyed females. He was a ladies man that had never been in love until Katy. He dealt with it the only way he knew how. Not to say his choices were right but it is what it is. He was also nursing a broken heart and trying to do what was best by letting Katy go.I think that Katy, Briggs, and Gavin were all a bit selfish but selfless at some point. Trying to make someone else happy, trying to do the right thing, instead of thinking about themselves.I think Katy Scott tried to do the right thing by staying with her husband and father of her son because she wanted to go back to what she thought was her "normal" life, but like I said before she was not the same version that left and that is what her husband wanted. I understand she had a hard time letting either of them go, she kept hold of Gavin because he was who she was and didn't want to let go of Briggs because he was who she had become. I hated the hurt Briggs went through but I am team Briggs after all.***I would recommend the book. It is easily one of my favorites and Heather M. Orgeron is hands down one of my favorite authors. I read it in 2 days and that is because I had to go to work. Well written. It sucks you in, tragedy and all, then doesn't want to let you go. I enjoyed the ride (Houdini that is) and the run with Briggs and Scottie. I was actually pulling for Briggs and Scottie to end up together in the end. Would have loved to see them have a baby. An absolute amazing, emotional, heart crushing, teary eyed, must read. But that is just my two cents.
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Top reviews from other countries
Mrs O'Toole
<3 love love love
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 13, 2019
Terri T.
A wonderful emotional book, 10 stars !!!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 7, 2018
Hannah McShane
Oh god, the tears
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 27, 2022
