Book Review – Heartbreak Warfare by Heather M. Orgeron & Kate Stewart

Heartbreak Warfare
WOWOWWWWW!!!! That is the exact feeling I had when I read the very last line. I absolutely LOVED this book to no end.

It encompasses everything that is real and difficult and tumultuous and magnificent when it comes to love, life, heartache and family.

What I want and what I need are rarely in line anymore.

And BOY DID WE FEEL IT!!! Right from the very start:

Linda: Just started Heartbreak Warfare and I’m so nervous!! Lol! Crazy I tell ya!! Going in blind but I’ve been skating over reactions and seeing lots of love so I gotta go into the trenches and see for myself.

Nay: I finished Heartbreak Warfare and loved it! Lovers of angst NEED to read it! Leslie does NOT need to read it. 

Jean: Heartbreak Warfare. OMG you guys…… this book! I’m only at 18% but I know this is going to hurt! It’s so great though!!!! Can’t wait to get back to it!

Maryse: I’m about 30% into it and I already feel like I know where it’s going but I LOVE that… there’s good reason, if it does. But it’s going to HURT. Love triangle for sure… and the writing is good.

Melinda: OMG, I just have to vent big time! I just finished heart break warfare what an absolutely emotional roller coaster. I thought at one stage I was having a heart attack. The feelings were so life like.

I stayed up to 2.30am reading went to bed and couldn’t sleep as I couldn’t stop thinking about the trauma that occurred. Then up at 6am. Still thinking about it all day at work. 5 BIG BIG Stars for me. If they were all that good. Omg I would walk around like a zombie.

Ohhhhh yesssss!!! This is definitely one where you’ll need to vent BIG TIME.

But what I loved most is that it portrays a love that is all-encompassing. So much more than being in love. This is about the everything kind of love. Forever.

Michele G: I have to second Maryse’s nudge towards Heartbreak Warfare…it’s in my Top 10 for the year (and one of my all-time faves)…I stayed up until some ridiculous time of the night (well, actually morning…pretty sure it was 4am..but the time had changed so it was really only 3am…let’s just say it was LATE) to finish it because I could NOT sleep until I knew what happened.

My only complaint was with a portion of the epilogue…I would been happier if more time was dedicated to a certain character’s resolution…like perhaps a novella instead of just some time in the epilogue…but that’s just me.

Stacey: OMG……Heartbreak Warfare…..just wow! Couldnt put it down….I always lean one way or another with how I hope it will end with these types of books and this one I honestly couldnt decide. Still cant……and that has NEVER happened before. Definitely a top book of 2018!

Jan: I know I’m not touching Heartbreak warfare. I’m too scared of that one LOL.

Jenn: I can take having my heart ripped out; I can handle gut wrenching sobs, I can handle my heart pounding in anticipation, and all the angst you want to throw at me….however HEARTBREAK WARFARE is in a class of it’s own. The level this book did all of that to me is like no other I have ever experienced. It has not been easy, very tough to read at times and I am not even done with it. (80%) I have had to take multiple breaks from it when the hurt got to be too much. Even when I was taking these breaks I could not stop thinking about them. I am starting to think there may not be enough stars in the sky for this one.

Robyn: Speaking of war romance I just finished Heartbreak Warfare and OMG that book! I was rooting for everyone. I couldn’t pick sides. But the ending was just how I like my books to end..wrapped up in a sweet package with a bow on top. My heart had the warm fuzzies.

Susan: Just finished Heartbreak Warfare today and OMGosh that book gutted me but in such a good way, I hate to cry. Hate it but these tears were so good. Loved this book and literally could not put it down until I finished it. Can not stress enough how good it was.

Yep. It WILL ABSOLUTELY put you through the ringer.

STOP HERE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW ANYMORE. I don’t necessarily spoil it below (I hate spoilers!!), but I give enough detail that might be TOO much for some wanting to go in blind…ish.

Now as much as I hesitate to mention this, but feel I must since this is one of my most requested book recommendations, I must say… “What to read after Arsen“? This is THE book we’ve been looking for. This belongs on that list, at the #1 spot.

And I’m not saying this story is the same. It is wholly it’s own thing (and the circumstances entirely different, and even… understandable to some extent – not that I’m saying it’s okay… but I am saying that considering the situation, it’s not surprising) but I will say that the love story (stories) and the depth of emotion explored is intense, raw and painful. It gets ugly and dark.

I’m the problem, and that’s the hardest part. Our marriage was completely different before I was deployed.
Army spouses deserve f**king medals.

I can’t promise an HEA only because the HEA kind of depends on what the reader is hoping for. But did I love the ending? YES!!!!

So what’s it about?

Katy is a nurse in the Army and she’s being deployed. Her husband (who’s also in the Army), is staying home with their very young son, and she’s so sad to be leaving them. Her life is perfect. She’s deeply in love with her husband (they are deliriously happy together), and she feels so lucky to have found the love of her life and adores their son. She loves being a mother and she’s determined that this is her last time ever leaving them.

And I believed every single second of it.

Soon after she arrives, she’s taken hostage with a few of her crew members, and lives in absolute horror for months. Starved, beaten (regularly) within an inch of her life (and worse), having seen her best friends killed, she forges a deep bond with the one soldier left with her. At one time she found him cocky and annoying, but now, he’s her lifeline. The only thing that keeps her sane, knowing she’ll never see her family again… just waiting for the end.

And I believed every single second of it.

They care for each other, comfort each other, and keep each other company at the worse moment of their lives. And their lives are forever changed from then on. NOTHING will ever be the same for either one of them, and even the loving home she was so desperate to get back to, to never leave again, is foreign… Her world is desolate.

And I believed every single second of it.

She’s lost.

Nothing helps. It’s been four months now since the day we’ve been rescued, and the longer I’m home, the more distant I feel from everyone. Everything. It’s like I’m fading away.

That is… until she’s found again. But what does it take for her to find herself, and what more will be destroyed in the process?

That is where this tumultuous love story will take you.

While I was reading this, I LOVED everyone involved. I was so confused, just like the heroine. I was on “both teams” because WHEN we were in “that situation” THAT team was all I could see. All I could feel. All I could love. And then it would switch and I’d be right back there again… but on the OTHER team. It takes incredible emotional writing and detail for me to feel the same way, in both worlds.

BUT even more important.

It explores the downward spiral of PTSD.

“I can’t get out,” she whimpers. “I can’t get out.”
“What did they do to you baby? My voice cracks as she opens her eyes, looking past me.
“It’s too late,” she whispers, her hand fisting the front of her shirt. “I’m never getting out.”

How foreign, even the familiar can be, after trauma. I can’t imagine surviving what these warriors were forced to endure, let alone trying to integrate themselves into “normal life” again.

“You see weakness in your inability to adapt fast enough, in your inability to choose what path to take, but the fact that you get up every day determined to resume your life is enough. I’m telling you, it is enough. Right here, right now, the steps you’re taking, it’s enough...”

OMG WOW to that quote. This is EVERYTHING.

And THIS story made me understand that. Made me feel it. This isn’t just a love story gone wrong. This is a whole life lost. Her whole world. And then found again. Just… different.

I felt a deep heartache a few times and I wasn’t sure I was happy with where it was going. With where it went. And the entire time, I was on BOTH teams (buuutttt… a little more on one team), and still, I had NO idea where it would end up. And I LOVED that.

I am two different women, living in two separate worlds, in love with two different soldiers. In the haze that’s now my life, clarity is all I prayed for.

By the end, my heart was full, and I felt elated.

5 STARS!!! An EASY 5 stars. I was hooked, my heart bottomed out so many times… and I was so sad. And yet after all that, I wouldn’t change a thing.

P.S. Thank you to the authors for sending me a review copy. You know what I love!! 😉

➔➔➔  Looking for more of my must-read recommendations? Browse my 5 star and 4.5 star and 4 star reviews. 😀

➔➔➔  Love this trope? Browse more books and reviews that feature marital strife and/or infidelity issues on my blog. 😀

➔➔➔  Love this author? Browse more Kate Stewart features and reviews on my blog. 😀