[4.5] this was probably the most excited i've ever been to get approved for an arc after reading the first book in this series, and this one did not disappoint! this series is proving to me that it's so much more than 'just a romance,' because learning about these character's backstories, and their families (and literally everything else about them), is done so well and makes you feel like you actually know them. i love l.j. shen's writing so much and will definitely be looking out for when the next book gets released!!

thank you to netgalley and sourcebooks bloom books for an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

A heart punch of a story that provides all the feels. Angst, jealousy, protectiveness, loss, grief, yearning, with a touch of toxic behavior. Knight and Luna have known each other their entire lives and are both dealing with intense family dynamics. While this is a heart wrenching romance this novel also deals with adoption, addiction, loss of a loved one and grief.

This book was written so well and I felt so many emotions with it. But the miscommunication in the book irked me and made me struggle. Was still a good read and I do recommend it

Knight was my favorite! Luna was his first and last heart break! What an excruciating pain for it to come from your first love. Then your second heart break so soon after the first. This book had me in tears. Broken knight is so aptly named that I broke along with it. Five stars for an amazing series.

What did I like? The book was so relatable it resonated with me. I adored how close the family was and how hard things were for these two adopted kids. Other than making me ugly cry it was fabulous!

Would I recommend? If you need a hood cry this may work. The story itself just sucks you in. The issues they deal with were surmountable and it has a HEA!

Thanks so much for a complimentary copy to read and give an opinion.

So much teen drama.

This is LJ Shen's specialty. Broken pretty boys and their utter counterpart.
Knight and Luna are best friends. Until they are not. Luna is selectively mute, meaning she chooses not to speak. Knight uses pain to feel. He hooks up with other girls (not cool and so gross when he cares for Luna). They are to and fro, there's a lot of destructiveness to Knight (alcohol, drugs, other girls). He hurts himself and Luna. Luna has a lot of growth to do to. She's a tomboy and is often weak. Two pretty broken teens with angst to spare. Lot's of steamy times.
Recommend.

Ok, so I have heard good things about this author from social media. I tried so hard to get into this book, but just couldn’t.

I am a recent L J Shen fan and have recently read the Sinners of Saint series. I saw this on netgalley and was like BAM. I WANT. (Without reading too much into it)... SO WHEN I REALISED THIS WAS LUNA'S STORY!!
Shen's books are just a masterpiece. They are descriptive, they deal with dual POV and flashbacks in a way where the story is fluid and coherent. She intertwines the worlds of her other books together beautifully. I'm just a huge bloody fan really.

Broken Knight ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Luna is a selective mute. After being abandoned by her birth mom as a toddler she doesn’t speak and rarely uses sign language. She is broken and worries about everyone else but herself.
Knight is the handsome boy next door, who would do anything for Luna. Being friends since they were little, he always chooses to be around her. He’s her protector… til he’s not.
When I say this book is a friends to enemies to friends to lovers, I mean that. Man there was so much going back and forth between these two. At time I just wanted to yell at both of them! Miscommunication at its finest.

I’m happy with the ending, not only for the HEA but for so much character growth. This book deals with addition, death of a parent, and depression and finding oneself. It’s a dual point of view, which I always like those. It does have spice so if that’s not your thing, don’t read this. Overall, I’d say I enjoyed this story and liked it better than the 1st book of this series. Mainly because I liked the characters better.

“It’s all started with an abandoned toddler in a soiled diaper, but the plot twist was a boy with busted knuckles and a heart of gold…”

Thank you NetGalley and bloom books for my arc copy. This is my voluntary and honest opinion.

I have read all of L.J Shen's backlist and seeing them be traditionally published is great. Some of her books are misses but most of the All Saints High books were hits for me. Broken Knight was a great read with a very heartwarming romance between Luna and Knight.
All the books in this series revolve around one group of friends and Knight is one of the popular guys in school. Luna, our heroine, communicates through sign language and has been childhood friends with Knight and his friend Vaughn for as long as she can remember. Luna has been mute since she was abandoned by her biological mother as a toddler.
It's clear they are soulmates but in true friends-to-lover fashion, it takes a while to realise there is more to their friendship. He has been her protector forever but Luna doesn't think she's good enough for Knight as she is constantly comparing herself to his other girlfriends and hookups. The two definitely have their own insecurities and they find comfort in each other to get through them.
This is the second generation of characters and the parents are from Shen's original Sinners of Saint series so seeing those original characters in a new way was great.
L.J Shen's books are written really well and flow perfectly. I found Broken Knight was more emotional than her other novels but this added to the chemistry and tension throughout.
I highly recommend this and I would suggest you not only read the other books but also the Sinners of Saint books to get to know the OG characters.
So excited that they've been widely published!
Thank you for the eARC.

LJ Shen never fails in writing angsty, highly emotional bangers that leave you with your heart on the floor. Knight and Luna are a power couple that’ll be hard to compete with in terms of favorites. They were incredibly easy to dive in to and end up hooked without a chance of breaking free and easily became my favorite couple in this series so far.

Given that the couple is young, we get to see all the dumb things teens do. It’s also how we learn and grow and Shen absolutely did not shy away from creating a very true-to-life narrative that encompassed that and then some. This novel was so expertly written and absolutely flawless. Our main characters were so beautifully broken and broke that cookie cutter mold that we all know and to some extent, love. The amount of self destruction and self punishment Knight put himself through due to his feelings for Luna? Gut wrenching.

I honestly think that any review won’t do this book justice and you just need to read it and experience the hurt, love and all the ache and pains involved. Not many authors are capable of making me throw my kindle across the room while crying like a baby.

I can't begin to explain how much I loved this book and highly recommend it. I had never read any titles by the author but I will defintiely be looking for more.

The charasmatic, back and forth, loving and hating relationship between Knight and Luna sucks the reader in from the very beginning. Knight is the bad boy we all know and love while Luna is the good girl who doesn't need someone to save her but constantly has Knight by her side regardless of the opinions of others.

Their relationship takes twists and turns throughout the book and truly feels like you're reading about two of your own best friends (even though their names might not be Knight and Luna). The heartbreak, emotion and connection they share is something that comes right off the page to the reader.

The love between Dean and Rosie (Knight's parents) had me in tears. Although they are not the "main" characters, their relationship and their ability to love each other - to be each others "ride or die" - is an amazing connection in the book.

I finished this book so quickly and have a serious book hangover from it. I wish I could read it again for the first time and fall in love with the characters all over again.

♡ 𝐹𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠
♡︎ 𝐺𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝐺𝑖𝑟𝑙／𝐵𝑎𝑑 𝐵𝑜𝑦
♡︎ 𝑆𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝐵𝑢𝑟𝑛
♡ 𝐴𝑛𝑔𝑠𝑡𝑦 ＆ 𝑇𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛
♡︎ 𝐻𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑃𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑟
♡︎ 𝐼 𝐻𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑒, 𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑌𝑜𝑢

𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐋𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐋 🌶️🌶️.5

Oh my goodness. My heart was shattered and broken throughout this entire story but was beautifully put back together in a way that allowed sunlight to pierce through the cracks.

This story impacts me on a personal level understanding the impacts of addiction and losing a loved one and L.J. Shen delivers yet again with perfection on demonstrating the hard realities through real and authentic characters written.

I wanted to hug Luna and Knight countless times and really was in awe of their bravery and courage to step into to hard things to create transformative change and healing.

I look forward to continuing this series and getting to know Vaughn’s complex character better.

𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: ᴀᴅᴅɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ, ʟᴏss ᴏꜰ ᴀ ʟᴏᴠᴇᴅ ᴏɴᴇ

This book started off so strong and then took a complete nosedive. Luna and Knight are neighbors and best friends. Completely inseparable. Ride or Die. It's the two of them against the world. And they are also secretly in love with each other. That's the part of the book that I loved. I ate up the beginning.

But then, it all fell apart. Knight, who up until that point was sweet and kind and a great friend, turned into a toxic asshole. And worse, the reasoning behind the personality shift was that he was a mean drunk. So, readers get glimpses of the man he can be while being forced to read page after page of Knight being cruel to the woman he loves.

Luna deserves better. I was rooting for her to leave him. I'm sorry, but this not a romance; not even a dark one.

I knew when I requested this book that I would love it, and love it I did. As with any book by L.J Shen, this one exceeded my expectations. It's unfiltered, raw, honest and it hits you in all the right places.

Knight and Luna made me go through.. So. Much. In this book. The drama was endless all the way up to the last page. If you want a book that will rip your heart out, shred it up and stamp on it... This is the one.

It does deal with death so if that is something that upsets you then I wouldn't recommend reading.

5/5 ⭐
2/5 🌶️
5/5 🎧

Maybe it's just my hormones, but this book put me through the ringer. The angst was so intense right from the start and at times it felt like it may never ever let up... The double unrequited love trope was no joke and add in their mom issues... My heart was breaking time and time again.

I really loved both of these characters to pieces and I fell so hard from them right from the start. They were both so broken and while they were meant to heal each other in the end (and even the beginning) they spent so much time crushing each other to bits...

I may have cried a few times too. As a mom there were some parts that really just hit so hard it was impossible not to feel all the things. LJ did such a wonderful job writing their story and it will be a favorite of mine for a long time.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ //5
Broken Knight
by L.J. Shen

THOUGHTS:

I want to thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for giving me the opportunity to read an e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

There is not a single book LJ could write that I would not read. They could write the a phone book and I’d devour it. I loved this read. It was so good and you move right through it leaving no crumbs! Take all my stars LITERALLY! The characters were so incredibly well written and you get all the feels for them. I adored these characters. I fell in love with Knight Cole and adored Luna to peices. My heart went through many emotional rollercoaster rides through the entire book, I cried and laughed and cried some more and giggled….. This book gave me all the feels from start to finish and when I finished I felt unwell because I didn’t want it to end. I will be making this a must read in my book club and know that this will be a reader favorite by all! Fabulous work!!!!

I’m a solid LJ Shen fan now. The bad mothers aspect hit so hard home for me. Luna & knight is the ultimate OTL. I needed this book so much and I loved it. It made me actually sob out loud. Ugh. LJ shen is so great with a setting, romance, and story with amazing growth from the start to finish of the novel! Thank you so much from the author, the publishers and Netgalley for this beautiful work!

This is my second book by L.J. Shen, and I'm still unsure how to feel.

I love romance books that don't just focus on the pretty little dates and whatnot. Don't get me wrong, I also love those. But I especially love romance books that shake you to your core- that you feel in your very chest, the familiar ache that you share with the characters. The pain that they go through that rivets you.

But I also dislike ones that keep characters apart for dumb reasons, or reasons that are to do with other characters that have no impact (or should have no impact) on the main characters. Miscommunication, too.

Another downfall was all the pop culture references. Keep them out of books or do it classily. I disliked some of the things they focused on--like Knight's porn. Really? What's the purpose?

I'm realizing that perhaps I'm not the part of the demographic that enjoys *these* types of romances. But it was still a somewhat enjoyable read and I was glad to have had an opportunity to read it as an arc!

Broken Knight is the second book in the All Saints series and follows the romantic pull and right-person-wrong-time entanglements of Luna and Knight. It should be noted that whilst this is part of a series of interconnected stand-alones, it is impossible to understand the full range of the characters and how they link up to each other without reading them, meaning readers should likely have read Pretty Reckless and the Sinners of Saint series which focuses on the parents generation.

This book has encapsulated a lot of teen angst within its characters, it has done this well, really capturing the all or nothing intense emotion and poor reactions and judgement exhibited in a lot of young people. As a dual POV the voice in which the characters was written was distinct and had their own styles that distinguished themselves from each other, which enhanced the reading experience. It is an incredibly character driven story more so than plot. If you are searching for an angst driven plot that is emotionally a bit messy (a style of book which is absolutely a guilty pleasure of mine) then you will like this book and this series.

This is certainly not a story for anyone in a vaguely emotionally vulnerable state (particularly anyone with a strained relationship with a parent and/or an ill parent), the characters are positively traumatised with all manner of trialing experiences and emotions, and, at times I felt it was a little bit too much for me at least. Certainly one to keep the tissues close by for.

Thanks to Netgalley and Bloom Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review, these views are all my own.

Luna and Knight were the epitome of the miscommunication trope, which lead to a lot of angst and heartbreak. Definitely not my favourite out of the series, but I enjoyed their development together. From childhood friends to estranged but in love; they caused each other a lot of pain.

I loved Luna as a character a lot; it was satisfying to watch her become more confident and overcome her trauma throughout the book. It was a relief to see a HEA; I don't think high angst novels are for me. I am looking forward to rereading the next book though!

Thank you to LJ Shen, Bloom and NetGallery for the ARC, these are my honest thoughts.