Shattered Dreams by Brenda Kennedy

This is a stunningly beautiful tale of having and losing a love you thought would last forever and the struggle to pick up the pieces of your life, moving on and allowing your heart to love again.

The subject matter is close to home for many, in that it Emma and Max are a military family.

Emma was married to probably one of the sweetest characters you will ever read about- Max. He not only loved her unconditionally but he was a career military man and despite the fact that they had a new baby, he gathered his things and deployed the minute the orders came in.

Being on deployment is hard on them both but you have to feel for the isolation that Max was feeling being away from his reason for breathing. He loved his family with all his heart and being apart was devastating but it is Emma that feels the full force of devastation when the love of her life doesn’t return home… by this point in the book, I was half way through the packet of tissues and was consumed by the poignancy of the fact that this heartache was all too real for far too many.

As a single mom, Emma relocated back to Florida and settled into her role as sole provider for her son. College completed, she found work and again like many before her she was a single working mother.

Four years later she is just about ready to start to live for herself again.

On a dinner date with friends she meets Alec and slowly but surely they build a friendship and even the flicker of a romance.

Alec and Emma have potential but there is something undisclosed about Alec that wasn’t necessarily disconcerting more like completely intriguing.

His back story is incomplete, perhaps you could even say he was hiding it but why? What is the story with his daughters mother, why the subterfuge?

You will love the families and friends throughout this story, I found them all utterly enchanting but most of all you will love Emma, her resilience and fortitude and her devotion to her “mini Max”.

Superbly written, with complete concentration of the emotional of the situation, you will smile, laugh and cry your way through this book one in the trilogy.

Book 2 cannot come soon enough!