Broken by Traci L. Slatton

This is a fantastic book of love and light. The tagline “power is pornographic” is very misleading for this novel. So if you are picking up this book expecting a dominatrix angel or some S&M (if you are into that thing), think again.

Title:  Broken
Author:  Traci L. Slatton
Publish Date:  September 5, 2014
Genre:  Fantasy/Speculative Fiction
Source: Word Slinger Publicity

Publisher’s Description: Power is pornographic.

Can love sustain light when the forces of evil close in?

Paris, 1939-1942. A fallen angel is trapped in the web of German occupation. The deadly noose of Nazi control grows ever tighter, ensnaring her and two of her lovers, a bullfighter and a musician working in the fledgling Resistance. Can she save them and the Jewish widow and her child that she has come to love, or will betrayal take them all?

Possible spoilers beyond this point.

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Luna Lovebooks says…

Traci Slatton does a fantastic job of recreating Paris 1939 – 1942 with the fear and torture of occupied France. But the real stars of Broken are the characters: Alia – a fallen angel grieving after the loss of her child, Pedro – a Spanish Jew who becomes part of the resistance and Alia’s lover,  Josef – A Jewish musician who is also part of the resistance and Alia’s lover as well, and Suzanne and Cecile – a  Jewish widowed mother and daughter who live next door to Alia.

All of these characters come to life on the page but particularly Alia. She is the one who suffers the most in this novel all for the sake of saving the young widow and her daughter whom she has come to love in her years on Earth. Alia, after the loss of her daughter Ariel falls to Earth specifically during the time when the world is about to suffer because she wants to suffer herself and drowns her sorrows in the bedroom.

The love she feels for the young child and mother that are her neighbors causes her more suffering but this is a suffering she gladly goes through to keep them safe. She performs sexual favors for a high ranking German soldier in order to keep the little family under the radar as long as possible.  She turns in Pedro, knowing he will most likely die, in order to keep the small family from grieving the loss of Josef. In the end she even sacrifices herself in order to not only save them but also to redeem herself. I cannot even begin to describe the beautiful way this book is written and the deeper meanings held within its pages.

To be honest there was nothing about this book that I didn’t like. It flows beautifully and it is one of those books that stays with you even after you are done reading it. For this reason I give this book five stars! I will reread this book more than once and recommend it to all my friends and, readers; I highly recommend it to you too.

Other reviews…

• Chicklit Plus
• Historical Novel Society
• Seacoast Reads

If you like this book…

There are countless books about angels out there as well as many on the Holocaust and the dealings of this dark time in history. Readers, first I am going to recommend to you a book that is near and dear to my heart. I picked up The Cage by Ruth Minsky Sender after a trip though the Holocaust museum in D.C. and it is also a book that will stay with you much like Broken though it is more of a YA novel than Slatton’s book. There are several references to Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Broken so I also suggest that. If non-fiction is your thing and you would like to learn more about the females that helped with the resistance in Paris I would suggest A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France by Caroline Moorehead.