Clara’s Verdict
Mya More’s debut novel carries all the recognisable markers of contemporary romance – the reverse age gap, the grumpy/sunshine pairing, the one-night stand that refuses to stay contained within its original terms – and assembles them with considerably more emotional intelligence than the familiar ingredients might suggest. Bridget and Ethan are distinct, fully realised characters rather than genre placeholders, and their dynamic earns the warmth it eventually delivers through genuinely convincing resistance on both sides. Samantha Brentmoor’s duet narration is well-pitched throughout. Book one of The Broken Series is a confident and accomplished start.
The reverse age gap element – she is 38, he is 22 – is handled with unusual honesty about what that difference actually means in practice, rather than being used as a simple source of tension to be overcome. More seems genuinely interested in what makes these two people specifically right for each other, which lifts the novel above the genre mechanics it is working within.
About the Audiobook
Bridget has built a careful, effective life around two pillars: her career as an accountant (numbers, she reflects, never betray you the way people do) and the principle that relationships end in pain and are therefore not worth initiating. She is thirty-eight, competent, self-contained, and when she occasionally needs company she arranges it briefly and without entanglement. Ethan is twenty-two, a chef who leads with his heart rather than a strategy, a self-described hopeless romantic who wears his emotional life on the outside rather than constructing careful protective distance around it. He is, in contemporary romance terminology, golden retriever energy in human form.
The novel’s central mechanic – the unexpected surgery that forces Bridget to accept Ethan’s help and therefore his presence in her carefully ordered life – is handled with sensitivity: vulnerability as a structural inevitability rather than a convenient plot device that exists purely to move the romance forward. More takes Bridget’s history seriously. As Ethan gradually learns the shape of what has made her this way, the question shifts from whether she’ll let him in to whether she can trust what she finds when she does, and whether that trust is something she can sustain when the protective instincts reassert themselves.
All Her Broken Pieces is book one of The Broken Series. It provides sufficient resolution to stand alone, but the series continues. The duet narration format – both perspectives rendered by Brentmoor – allows the emotional interiority of both Bridget and Ethan to be given equal weight, which is the correct creative decision for a romance where understanding both sides of the push-pull dynamic is essential to the reader’s emotional investment in the outcome.
More’s debut is also notable for what it does not do. It does not ask Bridget to abandon her independence, her career focus, or her fundamentally analytical approach to the world in order to earn her happy ending. The resolution emerges from both characters adjusting, which is a more honest version of how relationships actually function than much of the genre allows itself to acknowledge. That honesty, more than any single plot development, is what makes the book linger.
The Narration
Samantha Brentmoor handles the dual narration with genuine agility. The contrast between Bridget’s carefully controlled register and Ethan’s more open, unguarded emotional expressiveness requires different vocal qualities, and Brentmoor differentiates them convincingly across nine and a half hours. The pacing of the slow burn – perhaps the most technically demanding aspect of romantic narration, requiring the listener to feel both the tension and the inevitability – is well-managed throughout. The more intimate sequences are handled with the right balance between heat and restraint.
What Readers Say
The audiobook holds 4.1 stars from 58 ratings. S. Harris gave the most detailed review, citing the reverse age gap and the childfree-by-choice element as rare and welcome tropes, describing Bridget as “guarded, pragmatic, and painfully relatable” and Ethan as embodying “sweet, golden-retriever energy.” Wendy Livingstone called it “a well written easy to read, slow burn story” and an “emotional roller coaster.” Kristyn Machado described it as “grumpy (her) sunshine (him), opposites attract” and said she “ate every bit of this romance up.” Kismet Kellie praised Ethan specifically for his care and emotional attentiveness. QueenB.reads81 offered perhaps the highest available compliment for a debut novel: “Too good to be a debut!”
Who Should Listen?
Romance listeners who enjoy the reverse age gap dynamic, the grumpy/sunshine contrast, slow burns that are properly slow, and female protagonists whose emotional damage is specific and rooted rather than serving as generic backstory. The childfree-by-choice element is a genuine rarity in contemporary romance and will be particularly welcome to listeners who feel underrepresented in the genre. Book one of The Broken Series – subsequent volumes should follow. Available on Audible UK, Kobo, Scribd, and Storytel.
