BREAKING SOUTH (Save Me Series #3) by ALYSON SANTOS/ALY STILES

“I’ll stay and fight forever, the entire damn world, if she wants me to.”

Breaking South is the third book in The Turner Artists Rocker Series by Alyson Santos and all the books can be read as standalone’s. We’ve loved every single book in this series and this latest instalment won our hearts over with its melancholy and sombre undertones. The beauty of the prose, the vivid emotional heartbreak and the inner struggle to find a true self, locked down behind a façade. It felt bleak and dark with sporadic rays of hopeful light-gathering impetus to breakthrough. Oh, how we willed the light of hope to breakthrough. For the storm to be calmed and peace to find its place.

“I don’t know her. I don’t know the girl in the mirror.”
“Then we find her.”

We all wear ‘masks’ at any given time in our lives, whether it’s to fit in, to please others or to hide our inner emotional turmoil. These masks become almost ingrained in our very being and automatically fasten themselves when called upon. Whilst we wear them for self-protection or as a false sense of security they can be detrimental to psychological health and wellbeing. For Genevieve Fox this was her life and having grown up moulded and shaped to be who everyone wanted her to, this mask became the detriment to her emotional wellbeing.  When we meet her, Genevieve is standing at the precipice of emotional combustion. We sympathised with her, our hearts broke for her and we held on to the glimmers of hope that she found her inner strength to fight.

‘Oliver Levesque is an enigma, a complex blend of power and grace, brutality and softness, and right now in the chaos of my storm, my desire for him is the only certain thing in my life.’

In many respects, Oliver was the first ray of light which sparked the impending blaze. He saw beyond the façade and questioned Genevieve, willing her to find the pieces of herself locked tight within her persona. All Oliver wants is for Genevieve to find her true self and bring it to the surface. He wants her to be her, not the manufactured façade which is breaking her, crumbling piece by piece. Oliver is not without his own demons, but they say it takes two halves of one soul to heal, and when they find each other the process can begin. That initial spark lights a fire in your soul and sets you on a road of self-discovery, to fight your own fight. When the momentum builds you stare it down and roll up your sleeves. We went through the spectrum of emotions reading Breaking South, from morose, to despondent to hopeful and joyous. Another great story from Alyson Santos!

“You make me want to try things. You make me brave.”