Book Review: Picking Up the Pieces by E.L. Green

Title: Picking Up the Pieces
Series: Broken, Book 1
Author: E.L. Green
Genre: Contemporary Romance, MC Romance
Sensuality Rating: Steamy
Source: bought
Published: January 2, 2015

Ellie finally found her knight in shining armour. She thought she had her happily ever after. But of course, not all stories have a happy ending, and tragedy strikes in the worst form. Widowed at twenty-four, she turns to her old friend tequila.

Her best friend and fellow nurse leaves England to start a new life in Vancouver, Canada, but not before inviting Ellie to join her. Both agree this could be the fresh start she needs. A way to escape her haunting memories. Unfortunately, life has other ideas and throws Ellie a new set of trials. The biggest one being Kyle—“Prez” of the Angels of Death MC.

Kyle’s life is the MC… and his kid brother. He doesn’t do relationships. He doesn’t do love. But fate throws a feisty Brit in his path, with more baggage than a Boeing 747. Not only does Ellie manage to crawl under his skin, but she manages to unintentionally crawl her way into his normally stone-cold heart.

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Reviewed by: Sara

In a Nutshell: When you're as messed up as Ellie, falling in love with the president of an MC is the least of your troubles.

Why I Read This Book: I like MC novels and Picking Up The Pieces is part of a series, but not an MC series so I was intrigued.

What I Liked: I understand the purpose of insta-love as it pertains to romance novels. It's hard to write a book in which a hero and heroine build up to love without a book turning into a tome the size of something that could be used as a booster seat for a toddler. In Picking Up the Pieces, E.L. Green has Ellie and Kyle working through problems, discovering each other, accepting each others' imperfections and falling in love over time and in spite of harrowing odds. She does this all without losing the story's momentum, increasing her word count to ridiculous proportions or boring the reader.

What I Also Liked: In many MC novels it's a foregone conclusion that the female character will be assaulted, kidnapped, molested or otherwise harassed because of her involvement with a MC or a member of a MC. Although, there is danger from Kyle's chosen brotherhood, one of the things I appreciated about Picking Up the Pieces was that Ellie could and did do more damage to herself than the MC or her association with Kyle was able to. I appreciated that E.L. Green was able to move past one of the tropes of MC novels and give us a very genuine and flawed heroine.

What I Didn't Like: One of the very few things I disliked about Picking Up the Pieces was how many times we had to watch Ellie get lost in the bottom of a bottle. This could have been the author's way of showing Ellie's troubling and cyclical behaviour and if so it was masterfully done because by the time it was time for Ellie to get straight I was thoroughly fed up with her and her coping technique.

Overview: A gritty and heart wrenching love story. E.L. Green manages to work against tropes and create characters with genuine issues and feelings for each other.

Sara’s Rating: