Broken

February 18, 2019
Haken’s sympathetic romance builds a relationship between Theodore Davenport, a new employee of Manchester’s Holden House publishing company, and his mysterious boss, James Holden, who inherited the company from his father three months before. Upon first meeting at a gay club, the two men enjoy anonymous, drunken sex in the bathroom. However, once Theo realizes who James is, he takes umbrage at his boss’s arrogant and patronizing attitude. James woos Theo, who refuses to have sex with him again until they know each other better. They eventually give in to their desires, becoming quite intimate and falling in love. Then James reveals that he has bipolar disorder and a history of cutting and suicide attempts, and Theo has to figure out how to be in a relationship with someone so mercurial and self-destructive. In chapters alternating Theo and James’s perspectives, Haken balances the love and tenderness with episodes of James’s pain. The depiction of mental illness, including a situation that lands James in the hospital, is nicely handled, and readers will have no trouble believing that love will win out in the end. This is a sensitive and thoughtful story of love taking root and flourishing against the odds.