Compelling, shattering, and so deeply profound... BROKEN COUNTRY is one the those books that reminds me why I fell in love with reading. I was in just in absolute awe with how layered and complex the plot is.... both messy, intense and beautiful. I felt for and deeply, genuinely cared for every character.... and for every character's side to the story. Beth, Frank, Gabriel, Jimmy, and Leo. This book is built around tragedy, heartbreak, guilt and shame and underneath all that is ingrained with innocence, forgiveness, and love in the purest forms. I admired how the story and the writing brought forth such emotion with its realness and rawness. It was a true privilege and honor to have experienced such beautiful, poetic storytelling on humanity and look forward to the day everyone can read it themselves.

Much, much gratitude to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

Secrets are so hard! this can be why it is best to be truthful in relationships. Secrets hurt more than we can understand as a kid, sometimes they catch you when your grown! Good story line that keeps you thinking and wondering

Many thanks to @simonandschuster @netgalley for my #gifted (free) copy. Pub date 3/4/25.

Sometimes, a book comes along and literally steals your breath away. This was definitely that book for me. The emotions I felt while reading this were crazy, I was an emotional wreck! I did not want to put this book down. It was so good, and it's going in my top books of the year list. If you have #netgalley request this book now, if not, add it to your TBR list because this is just one of those books that will stay with you forever 🩷. I literally can not wait for this book to be out to the world!

Is it possible to be in love with two people? A forbidden love triangle between a country girl, a wealthy boy, and a farmer. This is a beautifully written tragic love story that spans a decade and ends with somebody being killed. The courtroom scene chapters will give you brief snippets of who was killed, what happened, and who the suspect is. The chapters alternate between past and present, and literally after each chapter, your mind will be blown. Everything was written perfectly, and I can not say enough good things about this book. If I could give this book more than 5 stars, I would!

I cannot say enough good things about this debut novel. When I say I like messy family dramas, this is exactly what I mean. Beth is in love with two men. She is living in England on her husband’s family farm when her first true love moves back next door with his son. Their dog wanders on to the farm and attacks Beth’s sheep and is shot by Beth’s brother in law. This sets off a chain of events that simply can’t be undone, changing the course of everyone’s lives. So many secrets, trauma, love ,a trial and difficult choices. I loved all the characters, I felt for all of them. I didn’t want this book to end because I loved getting to know the characters and spending time with them. What a story! So many layers to this story! Couldn’t love it more. This is going to be a big book in the spring 2025 fiction releases. Read if you like Claire Lombardo. It’s an easy 5 stars for me!!!!

From page one, the reader knows the farmer is dead. Broken Country is a well-constructed suspenseful novel is linked by then and now chapters detailing the lives of Beth, Frank, and Gabriel who grew up in an English farming village in the Sixties. Gabriel and Beth's high school summer love affair ends abruptly and Beth marries Frank instead of going to Oxford. Their farm life is disrupted by the accidental death of Beth son's, Bobbie, and further complicated when Gabriel, now a successful novelist, moves back to town. The story is sad and haunting because even though readers may get caught up in the love triangle plot, author Clare Leslie Hall always brings back the reminder that someone is on trial for murder. Highly recommended for book discussion groups.

This book takes you on a thrill ride with suspense and true feelings. I was swept in by Clare a journalist and a love triangle with danger and love. It’s a dual timeline that you just get sucked in with each character. There is secrets that come to life that unearths dangerous outcomes. There are some many emotions with this book. It starts out with Clare, her husband and brother in law working the farm when a dog comes and attacks their sheep, and they unalive the dog, and the suspense starts their and just keeps building. The dogs owner, a young boy, comes looking for him and find him unalived. Unfortunately the young boy belongs to her long lost love from years ago. As the story progresses many secrets and dangers are brought forth. It’s def a page turner and kept me wanting more!!

Broken Country is the debut novel for Clare Leslie Hall, but with a compelling plot, well defined characters, and twists you won't see coming, it reads like it could be her twentieth. Both love story and mystery, Broken Country fires on both cylinders from beginning to end. When an impulsive decision by her brother in law leads to the loss of a young boy's dog, Beth is stunned to discover the child's father is Beth's first (and never forgotten) love Gabriel. Beth and Gabriel broke up years before, and Beth is now married to Frank. Although she tries to resist her feelings, Beth is again drawn to Gabriel, with tragic consequences. You'll know from the first sentence a death has occurred, but the identity of the deceased, and how it happened, remain a mystery until the end. Beth and Gabriel's passion for each other spills off the page, but Broken Country is not sexually graphic. One of the plot twists is fairly easy to figure out, but the other you'll never guess. Broken Country tugs at your heart and plays with your head. It's an intoxicating combination that works beautifully.

This is the story of Beth. She's married to Frank and is a farmer's wife. Beth and Frank lost their son, Bobby, in a tragic accident. One day, a dog starts killing lambs and has to be shot. This is how Beth finds out that her first love, Gabriel, has moved back to his estate. She has kept a secret from him for a very long time. Will it be revealed?
This is a gorgeous book. It's beautifully written and goes back and forth in time as the story is told. I feel like I know these characters personally. Once I started reading, I could not put this book down. It explores themes of love, loss, regrets, and forgiveness. It will be released for publication in 2025. Highly, highly recommended.

A bit too intense for me. Beautiful setting and writing but the heavy topics were not my jam. I’m definitely a mood reader and maybe at another time I would have enjoyed it more.

Story told in past and present timeline about love, loss, & heartbreak. There’s a mystery element. It’s about a girl named Beth who accidentally reunites with her first love Gabriel after his son Leo’s dog gets shot on her farm by her brother in law after it attacks her lambs. She ends up spending more and more time with Gabriel when she takes a job watching after Leo and is forced to make a hard decision. What happens when you love two people? Does Beth choose the boy she fell madly in love with as a teenager and was forced apart from or does she choose the boy who picked up all the pieces of the mess the first left? I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend! Thank you NetGalley for the digital copy.. 5⭐️read.

Was ok. It took me awhile to get really into the book but once I did I couldn't put it down. It has love triangle, with a dual timeline and secrets revealed at the end of course. Was a fun read!

Put this on your TBR list right away. This is such a wonderfully written novel that so perfectly describes four different and distinct times in Beth’s life. I was thoroughly invested in Beth’s life and this book from start to finish.

The novel is broken up into Parts and within the parts is sections. Each of the Parts is about a character and the sections are “1968”, “Before” and “the Trial”.

Before. The part where young Beth falls madly, deeply and almost instantaneously in love with Gabriel, the son of very wealthy parents, destined to become somebody important. Beth, Gabriel’s mother tells her, will never be the person Gabriel would marry. First loves run deep and they’re hard to forget. And sometimes too easy to reignite.

1968. When Gabriel comes back home years after his relationship with Beth has ended and Beth has been now been happily married for several years to a good, honest, hard-working and loving farmer. She loves her life and her husband immensely.

The trial. You know there’s a trial but you have to read further to know who did what to whom.

Each of these stories were intrinsically interwoven and I loved each of them. Each character was written with flaws and imperfections. This is a heartrenching and emotional novel that left me drained after reading it. I read it in 24 hours because I couldn’t put it down. The perfect mix of suspense and emotional familial drama. Grief, as much as love, plays a huge role in this book.

Thank you to NetGalley, Claire Leslie Hall and Simon & Schuster for this wonderful read.

This is a story about love, loss, and tragedy. The topics are extremely sensitive (child and animal death, alcoholism, gun violence) but for some reason I had a hard time connecting to the story and found myself more annoyed than swept up in the tragedy. Doesn’t feel like there are any great lessons learned. It wasn’t until I was about 40% through that I stopped contemplating DNFing. I think it felt a little too long and meandering and I didn’t really like any of the characters. You can also feel that there will be twists coming a mile away and it makes me feel like I’m being set up or that I am supposed to be amazed by the cleverness of how it all turns out. But mostly it didn’t make a ton of sense to me. I think I would have liked different POVs. Overall it wasn’t my favorite but I’m sure it will connect to others.

I can hardly see through the tears to write anydamnthing.

THIS BOOOOOOK!! O. M. G. 😩

I am wayyyy too in my feelings right now to make any sense of all these emotions or to simply explain how Broken Country was everything! How it made me swoon. How it wrecked my whole mf’n soul. And then put all my pieces back together, oh so very slowly. Then shattered me all over again!😩💔

But in all the darkness and pain, the passion & heartbreak, the guilt & grief, and holy hell, the nobility & SACRIFICE, there finally comes a light….🙌🏼

And got dammit, that ending…😩🙌🏼

Maybe I’ll be back to edit this mess. I honestly don’t know.

All that needs to be said is: everyone should read this. And I mean everyone.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this beautiful and heartbreaking arc in exchange for review.

Pub date: 3.4.2025.

Ima just go drank about it okurrt…🥴

To Clare Leslie Hall. Thank you for this. Please write more🥴 I’ll be waiting. 🙌🏼

A gripping story about love, loss, and heartache. It took me a little bit to get into in, but once I did.... I was hooked!

I was very immersed in the setting, and had strong opinions about the characters (Beth, especially).

Definitely worth a read, and maybe even a re-read!

Thank you NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Publication date March 2025.

Despite a solid early hook, this book took me a while to get into - however by the end I was in tears. The story as a whole was impressive and I really really loved the final portion/ending, which ended up raising my final rating from a 3 to a 4. There was an unexpected twist in there that had me sobbing. It truly tugs on the heartstrings and while it wasn't the strongest start for me, I wanted to hug the book once I was done.
Trigger warnings: death of a child (not a spoiler, I believe this is discussed from the outset and included in the book's synopsis)

The story starts off with a bang, as we learn about a fatal shooting that occurs on a farm with the narrator making it clear that those involved "need to keep their story straight". Juicy! Then we get into Beth's backstory, the events leading up to the mysterious shooting, and a few foreboding glimpses into the subsequent trial. Story themes: first love, passion vs. duty, grief after the loss of a child, betrayal, loyalty, sacrifice, and forgiveness. Many of the characters are very flawed, but imo that's the hallmark of a solid story.

While I found the writing style to be simplistic, I think this type of narrative style will be very appealing to those who like to be completely engrossed in the setting. Hall does a wonderful job of painting a vivid picture of the daily life of running a farm the Dorset countryside. The pace was too slow for my preference at times, especially in the beginning where we get lengthy descriptions of farm life, but at other times I was totally sucked into the drama of the story. I often found the dialogue and storytelling to be slightly dry, but I also think it matched the tone of the book. As the book progressed, I began to become more engrossed in the emotional states of the characters - but it didn't happen right away for me. Some parts were beautifully written, while other parts felt dry and lackluster.

The narrative structure of the story was slightly jarring for me, as the story is told through alternating chapters from Beth's first-person POV in different timelines. We bounce back and forth between "Before" chapters, "1968" chapters, and "The Trial" chapters. Because most of the chapters are pretty short, I initially struggled with some back-and-forth whiplash - especially since everything is first-person POV, which requires the reader to frequently jump between Beth's internal mindset at different points in her life. Sometimes this quick timeline jolt made it hard for me to stay engaged as the story flow felt slightly jolty.

For the first half of the book, I found myself wishing the author would have used more consistent chapter-title conventions - i.e. using the "year" to label each chapter switch, rather than "Before" or "The Trial" just make it a bit easier for me to grasp exactly when we were. It took me a little while to get used to the inconsistent chapter title format, but I eventually got used to it. I usually don't mind novels covering different timelines, but due to the short chapters, the flip-flopping between the storylines were slightly disruptive for the story flow in my opinion.

I really love when I finish a book and can look back and realize how each of the tension points were very intentional by the author. For example, I often felt frustrated that Beth wasn't giving us background into certain aspects of her life (i.e. how she emotionally transitioned from deeply loving one person to marrying another so quickly), but it turns out all of her info drops/omissions/placements were very strategic. This left me feeling extremely satisfied at the end of the book, giving me several "ohhhhh" moments - the kind that I cherish.

Overall, this was a very moving novel and I was white-knuckling it through the final chapters. It's incredibly sad, but also leaves the reader feeling tender and complete. Beth’s poem...OH MY GOD. Sobbing.

This is a story about a love triangle, heart ache, and family. It is also the story of what one is willing to do to keep their loved ones safe. I honestly don't know how I feel about the main character, Beth, or the decisions she makes throughout the book but I raced through this story. It was moving and surprising and just an all around enjoyable read. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC of this book. I came upon this book as it was sent to me by Netgalley and the cover, the setting, and the author's intro appealed to me.

My summary is simply this was a "surprise and a delight". Really it was a lovely, quick read and I enjoyed it. I stayed mad at Beth, the main character through a large part of it and wasn't a fan of so much sex and the adultery, but nothing was graphic just a heavy emphasis on that aspect and that I didn't care for. But, the emotion that the story evokes is tender and made it worth the read for me.

This book had me in tears. Literally crying, it was so good! I can't wait for it to be published and of course, to be made into a movie. Because why wouldn't it be. It's that good!
While it took me a day or two to really immerse myself in the story, once I did, I couldn't put the book down. I don't usually enjoy books that skip through timelines, however, the way the author did it was not hard to follow. I think what helped was that it was kept simple. Few characters to follow, and and few timelines.
I will recommend it to everyone!

Thanks to Netgally and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for honest review!
I really enjoyed this book. I loved going back and forth in time getting glimpses of Beth's first love and her current life, when Gabriel (the first love) shows back up with his son. Beth has an amazing husband but seeing Gabriel brings up all kinds of past feelings for her.
This story is gut wrenching as much as it is heartwarming. It's hard to know what type of ending you're hoping for while reading, and somehow the author makes everything end in the best way possible. I highly recommend this book.