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Book 84 - Too Beautiful to Break by Tessa Bailey

I wouldn’t recommend his book unless you love over-wrought drama. Everything except the very end felt exaggerated to me, and I found myself slogging through just to get it over with. Belmont Clarkson lives for Sage Alexander. So when she ditches him to return to her abusive home, he has to follow her. Sage must help her parents, who are indebted to the town villain.

To save her father, she has to work in a dangerous mine. Belmont can’t stand Sage being in danger, so he makes his own deal to take her place. So she was taking her father’s place, and now Belmont is taking her place, and the town supervillain is pulling the strings. Sage’s parents are codependent and blind to anything but each other, and Sage and Belmont don’t want to follow in their footsteps. They spend a lot of time trying to learn to talk about their feelings instead of using touch to soothe each other.

Belmont had a traumatic childhood experience being trapped underground, so working in the mine is his version of hell, but he’d do anything for Sage. Sage can’t stand seeing Belmont being haunted by his time in the mine, so she agrees to marry the supervillain to erase all debts. Their relationship gave me the ick, honestly. No one is being rational or really talking things out. I like a lot of Tesssa Bailey’s books, but this whole series has been hit or miss. (6)

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