Theo is an open hearted person, he is without guile, loyal to his friends and loves his family with affectionate irritation. She is astounded by the fact he has hooked up with this man in the first place, but to sleep with him as well… it is all totally out of character. So swept away in fact, that not only does he give him a blowjob in the toilets, he goes home to the man’s apartment and they sleep together.Īs always, Theo tells everything to best friend Tess. Later, when Theo is a little drunk and happy, the same stranger propositions him in another nightclub and he is swept away by something about this gorgeous man – apart from the obvious. I bumped into the hottest guy I’ve ever seen in the toilet and just stared at him like some kind of moron. “I have not just had sex,”… I did just make an arse out of myself, though. During the evening, he meets a gorgeous stranger in the toilets and goes back to his friends very flustered about his brief encounter – To cement these growing work friendships he arranges to go out after work to show them Manchester’s famous Canal Street and he also invites along his best friend, Tess. Mike, the boss of his section reveals himself to be an idiot, but in his first week Theo learns a lot of gossip about the apparently promiscuous owner of the publishing house, James Holden, and makes tentative good friends. In his words: I am a swan as I make my way to the middle of the floor kicking and struggling beneath the surface, poised and confident above.

So he is very nervous when he turns up to start as a junior at a large publisher’s Holden House. Theo Davenport is a twenty-eight-year-old from Manchester and even though things haven’t always gone his way, he has humour, empathy and a burning ambition to work in publishing. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

The mind is life’s most powerful tool…and the most fragileīroken is, without doubt, one of best romantic novels I have read covering the difficult area of depressive mental illness. Broken is not an easy read, but it is very well written and the three-dimensional characters ensure an enjoyable and intensely emotional time for the reader. This is the first title by Nicola Haken that I have read, indeed I had not heard of this author until recently and I’m so glad to have discovered her.

Who We Are by Nicola Haken