Review: Broken by A.E. Rought

Author: A.E. Rought
Title: Broken
Publication: January 8, 2013
Publisher:  Strange Chemistry
Source: Puvlisher via Netgalley

Imagine a modern spin on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein where a young couple’s undying love and the grief of a father pushed beyond sanity could spell the destruction of them all.

A string of suspicious deaths near a small Michigan town ends with a fall that claims the life of Emma Gentry’s boyfriend, Daniel. Emma is broken, a hollow shell mechanically moving through her days. She and Daniel had been made for each other, complete only when they were together. Now she restlessly wanders the town in the late Fall gloom, haunting the cemetary and its white-marbled tombs, feeling Daniel everywhere, his spectre in the moonlight and the fog.

When she encounters newcomer Alex Franks, only son of a renowned widowed surgeon, she’s intrigued despite herself. He’s an enigma, melting into shadows, preferring to keep to himself. But he is as drawn to her as she is to him. He is strangely…familiar. From the way he knows how to open her locker when it sticks, to the nickname she shared only with Daniel, even his hazel eyes with brown flecks are just like Daniel’s. The closer they become, though, the more something inside her screams there’s something very wrong with Alex Franks.

And when Emma stumbles across a grotesque and terrifying menagerie of mangled but living animals within the walls of the Franks’ estate, creatures she surely knows must have died from their injuries, she knows.

Thoughts: Emma grieves for her boyfriend Daniel still after his tragic death. She's visits the graveyard every night to feel closer to him but she only prolonging her grief. Right when she's poised to finally let him go, he begins to haunt her in the form of Alex Franks, the new hot guy at school who seems to be intrigued by her as well. Alex reminds her so much of Daniel by the small things he does be it opening her tricky locker or those hazel eyes that look so much like the boy she loved. No matter how much she tries to fight the growing pull towards Alex, she never sees the danger that comes with knowing him. Who is Alex Franks and why does her heart yearn for him? 
Determined to understand Alex, she decides to hunt down answers on her own  and is confronted by horror more grotesque and darker than she could ever imagine. 

The story is okay, Emma took too long to put the pieces together that were right in front of her face. Broken moves along at a slow pace and it took me a moment to get into it. The twist on Frankenstein is just as disturbing as the original maybe more. The romance between Alex and Emma seems immediate and intense. What I like about this book is that the parents are present and involved participants in Emma's life and Alex's father is too hands on in his life. Overall the love story in combination with the horrifying events that transpire make for an interesting ride for those that like this type of fiction.