Author: Clare Leslie Hall
Published: March 4, 2025 by Simon & Schuster
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Genre: Women's Fiction
Blurb: Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.
As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.
A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.
My Opinion: I’m honestly puzzled, not by the storyline, but by the glowing reviews. A farmer dies, someone’s on trial, and there’s a slow-moving triangle that should have built suspense. But instead of a gripping mystery, the reader was given a meandering narrative that tiptoes around its revelations.
That’s not to say that the writing isn’t smooth since Hall knows how to craft a sentence and set a scene. I could see the farm, feel the heat of the summer, and sense Beth’s quiet unraveling. But the pacing? Painful. By a third of the way in, I still wasn’t sure what I was supposed to care about. The trial chapters tease just enough to keep you curious, but never offer the kind of breadcrumbs that make you lean in.
We get Beth’s before and after, Gabriel’s reappearance, and Frank caught in the middle, a brother’s anger, and the emotions at stakes, but other parts felt diluted by all the vagueness. I kept waiting for the moment that would hook me. It never came. Not really.
Things do pick up toward the end. The trial gains momentum, names are finally dropped, twists emerge, and it all ties together in a way that makes you reassess some characters. But it took too long to get there.
A love story, yes. One filled with broken promises, miscommunication, unresolved grief, and to be honest, more lies than insight. By the final chapter, I understood what the author was trying to do, but it didn’t hit me the way I’d hoped. I kept wanting more, but didn’t get it.
As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.
A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.
My Opinion: I’m honestly puzzled, not by the storyline, but by the glowing reviews. A farmer dies, someone’s on trial, and there’s a slow-moving triangle that should have built suspense. But instead of a gripping mystery, the reader was given a meandering narrative that tiptoes around its revelations.
That’s not to say that the writing isn’t smooth since Hall knows how to craft a sentence and set a scene. I could see the farm, feel the heat of the summer, and sense Beth’s quiet unraveling. But the pacing? Painful. By a third of the way in, I still wasn’t sure what I was supposed to care about. The trial chapters tease just enough to keep you curious, but never offer the kind of breadcrumbs that make you lean in.
We get Beth’s before and after, Gabriel’s reappearance, and Frank caught in the middle, a brother’s anger, and the emotions at stakes, but other parts felt diluted by all the vagueness. I kept waiting for the moment that would hook me. It never came. Not really.
Things do pick up toward the end. The trial gains momentum, names are finally dropped, twists emerge, and it all ties together in a way that makes you reassess some characters. But it took too long to get there.
A love story, yes. One filled with broken promises, miscommunication, unresolved grief, and to be honest, more lies than insight. By the final chapter, I understood what the author was trying to do, but it didn’t hit me the way I’d hoped. I kept wanting more, but didn’t get it.
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