Pieces of Us by Hannah Downing

Title: Pieces of Us
Author: Hannah Downing
Publication Date: April 5, 2011
Source: Bought
Summary (from Goodreads):

Charlotte Barnes believed her life was perfect until a betrayal forced her from everything she knew and loved. Devastated and trying to put the past behind her, Charlotte sought a new life in a new town.

Now, five years later, her fiancé has convinced her it’s time to return home and face her past. But will the truth she learns and the people she reconnects with destroy her carefully crafted happiness?

Hannah Downing has created an emotional rollercoaster about lost love and the way one indiscretion can change the course of your life. Charlotte questions every decision she’s ever made, but she may discover that when you lose everything, you can truly find yourself.

                                  Review
 

When I started reading Pieces of Us I was immediately overcome with a sense of déjà vu. I started looking through my pile of books. Had I read this one already and not written a review for it? Nope. Turned out I had read it before, but back when it was fan fiction and I hadn’t finished – can’t remember why now. Maybe I just became too busy or maybe I just grew bored. *sigh* Either way, I trudged ahead and I’m glad I did.

The story starts off with a little back story of our two characters Charlotte and Cameron as teenagers-early twenties. And then we’re thrown into the future by two years where Charlotte and Cameron are a happily married couple – or not. Charlotte starts the chapter off by finding a text from her best friend to Cameron and an affair is revealed. Charlotte, having the strength not all of us would have, leaves her unfaithful bastard husband and eventually flees her tiny town and in doing so meets Owen.

Can I just saw how much I loved Owen? He was my favourite. My heart bled for this character so many times in the book. He just pulled me in so deeply.

Owen and Charlotte move back to her hometown and that’s when trouble begins with her ex-husband and Charlotte is torn between her love for both men. Yes, she’s still in love with the lying, cheating ex.

But is all as it seems?

Downing pulls you in with her writing, even when you want to roll your eyes at some of the childish antics of the characters. I wasn’t a fan of the confrontation in David’s office at all and thought that was a real low point of the book.

Although the book didn’t end the way I had hoped, I did think the story had a cute ending and wrapped the book up but still let you imagine for yourself what happens after.