Broken Little Dove by Kayla Marie Review
Library of Angels Rating: 5 stars
On Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Publication Date: April 10th, 2024
HEA: Unconventional HEA
Version: Audiobook and Physical Copy
“What we had wasn’t a quintessential love. Our love was born in darkness, forged in chaos and pain, shattered and reassembled with tears and promises.”
-Lana, Broken Little Dove
NOTE ON THE TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Per the trigger warning page, this book contains triggering material such as graphic rape, forced sexual acts and violence, kidnapping, gore, murder, physical abuse, explicit sexual situations, torture, and mentions of child abuse.
If any of these are triggering for you, I would advise that you do not read this review and you prioritize your mental health.
I went into this book blind because I am a little monster and I love giving myself little heart attacks apparently. I truly have no regrets, but I do not recommend that approach for everyone.
I really wish I had the words to describe the absolute NUMBER that this book did on my soul. This was a gut wrenching read, even knowing that we get a happy ending at the end.
My absolute favorite part of this book was seeing Lana get her justice. One of the main characters, Cole is a foul, sorry excuse of a human being, and as a reader, there is instant hate for him. For an author to make me HATE a character, is huge. I don’t often use the word hate, but COLE! Oh, boy. I hate him BIG TIME.
My Overall Rating - 4 Stars
My definition of a 4 star read:
Very enjoyable and memorable, but reactions it evoked were semi-underwhelming. Might have been lacking in either spice or plot.
This is by far, the darkest dark romance book that I have ever read and probably will read for a while.
This is one of the stories that have a different goodreads rating for me versus my overall rating.
The ratings differ because the rating system for both is slightly different. This story gets 4 stars overall for all of the emotions that it made me feel. I was sick to my stomach, angry, devastated, but then I felt calm, happy, and engaged in a separate way. I was rooting for Lana’s happy ending no matter how that looked.
It was certainly memorable, that’s for sure!
Tropes:
Morally Grey
Trauma Rep
Captive/Captor
Revenge
Kidnapping
Damaged Characters
Multiple POVs
The Audiobook is available on Audible now and being able to listen to the different POVs definitely made this book that much more jarring! If you want a book to get you good on shock value and stomach turns, then Kayla Marie killed it!