Bruised but Not Broken

A Spark of Hope Standalone

De: Nicole Dykes

Narrado por: Stephen Dexter, Michael Dean

Ben

Spark of Hope: A bi-weekly trauma support group. This is my nightmare. When I think of a support group, I think of sad people sitting around talking about their feelings and nothing changing.

And yet, when my brother and his best friend, who happens to be a therapist, presented the idea of holding the meetings at my gym, I caved.

Because I, Benjamin Price, have always tried to rescue the people in my life. But I can’t. I’ve usually failed them.

Now, I’m hosting a trauma support group and desperately trying not to fall into my old habits—of attempting to save everyone.

And then, he walks in. Bruised. But not broken. No matter how exhausted he may feel, a strength in him calls to me.

And there’s no way I can ignore the need deep inside me to at least try.

Colby

I’m tired. I’m afraid. And I don’t want to go back. Not to the abusive relationship I told myself I was okay with for years.

But what am I supposed to do?

I have no real life skills. All my life, I’ve been told I’m pretty and that’s it. Then I walk into a gym, looking for a job, but I find so much more.

I don’t want to trust Ben. I don’t believe his help doesn’t come with a price. But what choice do I really have?

One thing’s for sure: neither of us are getting out of this intact. What we lose though, that’s anyone’s guess.

Bruised But Not Broken is set around a trauma support group and will, therefore, touch on extremely sensitive subjects. The author handles these topics with care and healing, but please heed this trigger warning should it apply to you.

©2022 Nicole Dykes (P)2022 Podium Audio

switch the narrators and this would be 5 stars!

I just feel like been should have been Micheal Dean. Deep and growly. Would be 5 stars if the narrators were swapped!

Great srory and narrators

I'd read the book but was waiting for the audiobook to revisit the story that I already knew I liked. And the narrators are really great!

Wonderful characters

The story was great with a beautiful relationship between MC’s. The only thing that threw me off a little was I felt like the narrators should have switched characters. There was a bit of an age gap and the narrator that voiced the younger character sounded older than the one that voiced the older character. Both authors were great, but at times I was confused thinking it was the wrong character speaking because I thought they sounded like they should be the other character if that makes sense.

Ben and Colby are sweet

My initial reaction to Ben/Summer was that she made no sense. The rest of the story fills that in. Spoilers: Ben and Summer break up. It’s a gay romance after all.

Colby is a survivor of domestic abuse and he’s like many who can’t seem to break the cycle. Abusers know how to keep their victims coming back. Colby is taking his first steps toward freedom.

Ben is also a survivor of abuse but it’s significant enough that it shouldn’t be spoiled here. His history makes him want to help people. Colby walks into Ben’s gym bruised and with a split lip looking for a job. Ben figures things out pretty quickly. He gives him a job and a studio apartment that for some reason the gym has. And Ben hands over the keys to a stranger who now has access to anything he wants. What’s to steal in the gym? Probably not much and it’s not clear as to whether or not he can go into and out of the main entrance.

Colby feels things right away. After all, he’d been fleeing a man who regularly beat him and there was this hunky guy who wanted to take care of him. A protector, I get that. For Ben it’s different. They keep saying he’s a protector but some comments related to an employee suggest that plenty of things aren’t on his radar.

It’s a fairly short story so the romance progressed quickly. Part of me wants to argue that it’s unlikely but my personal history says otherwise.

What we do see is that Colby grows in strength over the course of the story while Ben finds less need to save people (if that were actually his thing beyond what we’re told). They were left in a happy place which was nice.

LOVE

Damn this book hit all rhe feels! I love it and I hope rhe story continues! crazy enough I'm going thru trama therapy myself currently so this really hit home for me! LOVE LOVE LOVE A HEA