This review refers to a previous edition. Breaking Faith is now available in ebook and paperback from Dreamspinner Press: see here for more details.
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Breaking Faith by M. King
ISBN: 978-1-61372-120-9 (ebook) | 978-1-61372-119-3 (paperback)
Cover art: Mara McKennen
Length: Novel / 250 pages
Published by: Dreamspinner Press (2nd edn) (2011)
Brett thinks he has life all planned out…until he meets Tommy. Romance blossoms over the course of one northern Montana summer, but when Tommy’s violent, abusive father winds up dead, events take a much darker turn, and Brett must ask himself whether faith, love, and trust are ever enough. Read more…
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Review by Kassa
” … Brett Derwent is a soon-to-be college student who’s saving up for tuition costs by taking various jobs near his hometown and living at home before heading to college in the fall. He is the only child of older parents, both comfortably established and he’s lived a fairly easy, sheltered life while preparing to go to college and after that, medical school, but all of that changes when he meets Tommy Hawks.
Tommy Hawks is twenty-one, a year older than Brett, and working various jobs trying to earn money to help support his family. As the oldest of five children, he balances a very difficult home life with the growing desire to have something for himself. Tommy’s father is an out of work drunk that physically, emotionally and sexually abuses his family. The wide spread consequences of that abuse stretch out to change the lives of not only Tommy and his immediate family but so many others.
Brett has never been with another man before he meets Tommy. Brett just assumed that experimentation and that part of his life would come with college. Since living in a small town, he understands that it’s a risk to be known as a gay man, but he has never met someone worth the risk yet. Until he meets Tommy and the connection that is built on stolen moments, awkward looks, heady kisses and the slow slide of emotion into love.
Loving and being together is not easy for either Tommy or Brett. Tommy has slightly more experience than Brett but really this is a coming of age story for both of them and how the abuse Tommy and his family suffers changes and affects everything these two must do and go through.
Tommy takes a great deal of the family responsibility onto himself, trying to help with the children, keeping everyone happy, adding his wages to the budget, running interference between his parents, and keeping the abuse on him rather than the younger children. All of this often leaves Brett and Tommy’s times together as stolen moments, lost hours, a camping trip here, a night alone there, quick gropes and touches that fuel the desire between them. Tommy views Brett as something for himself, as something good and not to be sullied by the shame and pain of his home.
Unfortunately nothing is ever as ideal as we want it to be and thus the fragile relationship, as well as Brett and Tommy, is tested repeatedly. The one recurring thread throughout the entire relationship is the utter and unwavering faith these two have in each other, even when they make the most heart breaking of mistakes. Their communication is not perfect, it’s not even very clear or good, but the connection between these two is undeniable and their belief in each other surpasses even couples who have certainly been together decades longer than these two.
Breaking Faith is a wonderfully written, intense story about two young lovers who meet by chance but end up having both their lives changed in ways most can’t even imagine. There is an incredible honesty and brutal edge of pain that the author has imbued in her characters but even that is overshadowed by the story’s ultimate theme ~ faith. I found myself almost humbled by both Brett and Tommy, while at the same time wanting the happy ending they so very richly deserve. This book is intense from the first page and never slows the pace or emotion, so it’s not for the faint of heart. It deals with a variety of issues without trying to gloss over them or give unrealistic outcomes.
It also doesn’t have the traditional happy ever after, but in keeping with the book, it offers the hope of one and if you have the same faith Brett and Tommy do with each other, you will believe it too. I whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone wanting an intense, emotional, honest book. This one will stay with you for a long time to come. I hope the author gives us an update on these two sometime in the future.”
