Andra Lawler is a horse trainer on her dad’s Montana ranch. She has her own beautiful, champion palomino mare, and competes in rodeos sometimes. UNBREAK ME refers to the fact that, while at college, she was abducted and harmed by a male student and ever since, she’s liable to have flashbacks and panic attacks. Life is isolated and challenging for her, she feels emotionally broken, and her dad hires mainly women wranglers.

LJ Delisle is taken on because he has years of experience training young horses. He’s also trying to overcome a past life situation, in his case the flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina when he was a young teen. LJ knows he doesn’t fit in with the folks in Montana, where small towns don’t see strangers, let alone handsome tall black saxophone-playing cowboys. But from the moment he sets eyes on Andra teaching a colt to pirouette, he falls in love.

This multicultural romance does exactly that – demonstrates and blends the cultures; cowboys who are simultaneously easygoing and suspicious of outsiders, Creoles who cook wonderfully and hold together in the face of adversity. LJ is named for a President. His mom still works, coping alone in a half-recovered area of New Orleans, and knows everyone in the community and fighting off ill health. We develop enormous respect for everyone concerned with this romance. This includes Andra’s father and brother, who know she went through hell and just want to protect her from men who might take advantage. Cookery is a large and enjoyable part of UNBREAK ME and the good, wholesome, spiced foods sound just right after a hard day’s work with horses.

This contemporary romance raises many issues about identity and independence, and we come to understand the value of accepting support when it is needed. Michelle Hazen brings characters and communities beautifully to life, sensuous and many-stranded. While some of her novels feature vampires or rock and roll, UNBREAK ME finds plenty of challenges in a more straightforward story. Lovers of modern romance and women’s fiction will be delighted.