4.5 Sniffs Review: PERFECTLY BROKEN by Maegen Abel #Giveaway #Excerpt

Title: Perfectly Broken

Series: Broken #1

Author: Maegen Abel

Genre: New Adult, Romance, Contemporary

Publisher: Maegen Abel

ASIN: B00I7WF31Y

Release Date: January 31, 2014

Source: We Stole Your Book Boyfriend ☆ Tour Schedule

Links: Goodreads ☆ Amazon

Zane Tishler moved in with his brother after his nightmare divorce to find that his brother had taken in a “stray”, a punk chick with a bad attitude. Liliosa Cortez found a place to start over in a city built for hiding. But when her roommate’s brother moved in she pegged him for a pretty boy with enough baggage to fill a semi and major hostility toward women. But now, after two years, Lili and Zane have become best friends and the perfect “wingmen.” They’ve developed a system for tagging and bagging tourists. No strings attached. They are partners in crime who have managed to have the time of their lives in the City of Sin. 

Life would be perfect if they could keep it this way, but a new player in the game makes both Lili and Zane face the feelings they had not been prepared to notice. What happens when dangerous shadows from a forgotten past find their way into the neon spotlights? What happens when the fuse is lit on all those emotions they have deeply buried? 

Can they survive the explosion or will the backlash tear them and everyone they love apart? 

When two pasts become one present in the searing Nevada heat… 

When two realities collide under the lights of Vegas… 

When two lives are threatened due to secrets and lies… 

What do you do when you find out your perfect world is Perfectly Broken? 

Zane and Lili both have their secrets. They both have pasts they'd like to keep buried. But that's near impossible when the past is resurfacing, threatening to destroy them for good. With one of their lives in the balance, will the other finally admit to the feelings they are trying so hard to hide?

In PERFECTLY BROKEN, we have two people who have been broken and they become best friends. They trust each other more than anyone, and they have each other's back in any situation. But neither Zane, nor Lili will admit to there being something more between them. It takes one of them almost losing their life for the truth to come out about how they feel for each other.

What I thought was really cool and kept me engrossed in the book was how the book started and the little quotes at the beginning of each chapter. In the prologue, one of them is in the waiting room of the hospital, waiting for news of how the other is doing. That beginning alone really grabs your attention and has you wondering what happened. It's the little quotes at the beginning of each chapter, which are small snippets of the event that put one of them in the hospital that really did it for me though. We have no idea whether it's Lili or Zane who has been hurt, and that kept me reading to see who it was. 

I also like how we really don't know all that much about Lili's and Zane's pasts. Zane's is revealed a little in this first book, but Lili is still a mystery. But with the cliffhanger at the end, where a person from Lili's past has come to visit, tells me that we are going to learn a lot more about her in the next book. I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens next for Lili and Zane when it seems like their lives are crashing down around them. 

Lili: Lives with Zane and Tish. Hides her past, so not much is known about her. Has had feelings for Zane for a while, but refuses to acknowledge them. Zane gave her the nickname Pixie, and only he's allowed to call her that. “Though she be but little, she is fierce!” tattooed on her forearms after Zane took her to see a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Zane: Lives with Lili and his brother Tish. Zane is the younger of the two brothers, just turned 25 years old. He was betrayed by his now ex-wife when she cheated on him with his now ex-best friend Adam. His son Connor is not his biologically, but Adams. But Connor is his life and he loves him more than anything. He's a paramedic, his partner is Jackson. Realizes his feelings for Lili after what transpired on his birthday at the nightclub, Lust. 

Tish: Lives with Zane and Lili. Zane's older brother. Works as a tattoo artist. His girlfriend is Kas. He sees Lili as a younger sister, and worries about her and Zane's unacknowledged feelings for each other. Adores his nephew, Connor. He hates his brother ex-wife Lizzie with a passion.

Kas: Tish's girlfriend. Works as a tattoo artist at the same shop as Tish. She sees Zane's and Lili's feeling for each other better than anyone, and is frustrated with them both for not just admitting how they feel.

Connor: Zane's 4 year old son. He's not Zane's biologically, but that doesn't matter to Zane. Connor is obsessed with Transformers ever since seeing the movie with his uncle Tish. He's a sweet little boy with an infectious laugh you can't help but love. But his mother's negativity toward Zane and Lili is having an affect on Connor. 

Lizzie: She keeps trying to worm her way back into Zane's life. She's been using drugs. She's not around when she's needed. She basically abandons Connor with her parents and Zane until she feels like coming back. She hates Lili and sees her as a threat.

Adam: Has a grudge against Zane, and uses those Zane loves to hurt him.

The villain in PERFECTLY BROKEN is Zane's ex-best friend Adam. Adam's hatred for Zane runs so deep that there is no bottom. It's like and endless black hole. He uses those Zane loves against him to hurt him. First it was his then wife Lizzie, then his son Connor, and now he uses Lili to hurt Zane. Adam will do anything, and I mean anything, to hurt Zane. 

I really can't say much about the romance in PERFECTLY BROKEN, because it doesn't really start until toward the end in the hospital, and I don't want to give away who the one hurt was. But I can say that the one hurt wasn't who I thought it would be and now that their feelings are out there, this person doesn't plan to let the other go. I'm really hoping to see more romance between Zane and Lili in the next book. Oh, but there is a really hot dance scene at the club between Zane and Lili - you'll love it!

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"How was your night off?" Nikki asked as she brushed past me, leaning to grab a bottle from the spot on the higher shelf. I barely had to duck to get under her arm to take an order.

"Good," I yelled back as we passed each other again moments later. We were used to this, the chaos of working in one of the popular themed-bars on The Strip. I'd worked at plenty of the bars but working here, for Shannon, was the best job I'd had.

"Did you give Zane a lap dance for his birthday like I told you to?" Nikki nudged me with her elbow and I spun a bottle in my right hand before pouring the drink I was working on.

"Right. Because that would've ended well," I answered with a laugh and shook my head. "No, but I did actually dance with him. His ex-wife showed up and caused a huge scene. It was kind of a mess."

Nikki shook her head and glanced over at me before pulling out two beers and passing them back to the customer she was helping. "I don't know why you two don't just fuck and get it over with already." I threw a bar rag at her and she laughed again, glancing at the clock beside the register.

"Trust me, Nik, that is never going to happen," I said over my shoulder as I passed her.

"Well, if you're not going to fuck the hotness monster, I'm totally going for it next time I see him." Nikki winked as she stopped directly beside me to take an order.

"That'll never happen either!" I laughed at Nikki's shocked expression. "First of all, you seem to be forgetting that Zane doesn't do locals."

"Details." She waved a hand dismissively as she finished filling a glass, nearly sloshing whiskey all over the bar.

"Second, I made him promise not to fuck anyone I work with."

Nikki slammed the bottle into place. Ignoring the customers momentarily, she spread her arms in a gesture that clearly said ‘what the fuck’. "Why? Why would you twat block me like that?"

I tried not to laugh, but I couldn't help it. I heard Nikki mumble under her breath as I turned to take a few more orders.

"Sorry, but you're a double no for him. You'll have to find a new hotness monster." I passed her the vodka, noticing the bottle was almost empty. "By the way, he doesn't really count as a hotness monster if we know how to find him."

"Whatever. He was my favorite hotness monster," she sighed in faux dismay.

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