Sweetly Broken


Fiction - Womens
185 Pages
Reviewed on 12/16/2013
Buy on Amazon

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Author Biography

My life is simple really...

I play the role of wife to a wonderful husband and mother to two awesome, but very different, children. This involves at least one sporting event, practice, or school activity every day of the week (including some Sundays). Did I also mention I have a full time job in the corporate world? Simple right?

Somewhere, in the midst of the chaos and responsibility, I find time to write. It sometimes involves hiding in my room until discovered or sticking my earbuds in my ears while sitting in my not so private “writing chair.” If I didn’t love it, it would never get done.

Fiction is where I find my passion. I’ve loved telling a story for as long as I can remember and creating a character who can be both frustrating and so likable you can’t help but root for them is as good as it gets.

This blog is devoted to the stories rattling around in my head and my dream to be an author - a dream that somehow got lost in the shuffle of the really cool life I’m blessed to lead. Getting back to my passion is the icing on my already delicious cake, and I look forward to sharing that with whoever is willing to come along for the ride.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Natasha Jackson for Readers' Favorite

At first glance, Sweetly Broken is a simple tale of a girl falling in love with her best friend’s older brother. But Christie Pettus has gone to great lengths to ensure that nothing, especially the emotions evoked, is simple about this story. This is a story about Kelly and Julian but this is Kelly’s story to tell. On the biggest day of her best friend’s life, she received a declaration of love and devastating news about the mother to whom she has never really felt connected. It is in the face of this life-altering news that Kelly begins to see and feel the words Julian uttered to her on the dance floor. Kelly and her mother, Helen, have never been close and with just six months left together, Kelly is torn between anger at her mother and sadness that she will soon be completely on her own. Kelly learns so much about the life Helen lived on the sidelines and tries to find a way to live her life better.

Sweetly Broken isn’t a typical love story about a boy and a girl. It is about a boy and a girl and his family and her family and all the love held within. Christie Pettus paints a wonderfully heartbreaking story of love and loss. Kelly has been hiding from her life and the love that has been staring her right in the face, making you want to reach into the pages and shake some sense into her! You hope at some point she realizes how amazing Julian is and how her mom’s fate is not her own. Pettus makes it a journey to savor rather than devour.