The Break

4.5 / 5 (rounded up) This was my first dalliance with romance, “chick lit,” “women’s fiction,” or whatever you’d like to call it. I’d bought it on a lark at my favorite indie store, knowing that after reading so many thrillers, horror stories, and crime non-fiction (not true crime, but MANUALS), I knew I’d need something light at some point. Finally, I ran into a discussion on Twitter about how romances require a “happily ever after” or at least a “happy for now.” At first I argued for more complexity than that, but soon I saw that if the endings of an entire genre of fiction had to end one way, these authors are masters of suspense. If readers go in knowing —REQUIRING— there be a happy ending, where is the thrill in reading? I’m writing a crime thriller/slasher from the point of view of the killer. I need to learn more about creating suspense. So I decided to pick up THE BREAK. As you’ve probably read in other reviews, Amy’s husband Hugh decides one day that he’s leaving her and their family of three girls to travel the world and figure himself out. Amy has no say in this: he won’t be in contact and he’ll be acting like a single man. Amy can do the same, but with three young women to care for, a small PR business that’s always JUST afloat and requires her to fly from home in Ireland to work in London every week for two days, high-profile (and high-maintenance) clients, friends and family yearning to spit venom at Hugh while Amy mourns the sudden loss of him in her life, a mother with a new set of mysterious G&T friends…and a man from Amy’s past, bringing lip-licking tension just at the time she has no husband to use as an excuse anymore… Well, things get complicated. And that’s not even the half of it. I loved the characters and the length Keyes gave herself to develop them into real people, even if they were only standing on the sidelines. By the end, you see how each of the many plot lines interweave into a cohesive message, which is a tricky thing to pull off. And suspense? I was turning pages and losing sleep over these people! Of course, I wasn’t terribly fond of the ending. With romance you get “happily ever after,” not ambiguity and complexity of life without love. But as far as it could have been wrapped up traditionally? Keyes did everything but tell the genre conventions where they could go. Perhaps endings like that seem out of reach and then I can’t believe they’re real? Perhaps I wanted it all to be tied up in a different bow and that’s never what I was going to get. Perhaps romance isn’t for me…but that’s strange, because I’ve definitely got a craving for more!