(Clipped Wings #2)
by Helena Hunting
ARC Review
Released: May 13th, 2014
My rating: 5 of 5 ⭐️
After Tenley's sudden departure, tattoo artist Hayden Stryker finds himself rapidly sliding back into a similar level of agony he knew right after his parents were murdered. Barely able to function during the days, his nights weren't much better, not getting proper sleep because of the increasing number of recurrent nightmares mixing buried memories with present fears. Fear and anger over Tenley's lack of communication are in constant battle and it isn't until Tenley suddenly returns that the fears are somewhat appeased, but the anger still lingers.
Tenley Page told herself she had unfished business she had to tend to, but ultimately had to admit she was running away. Afraid to make herself as vulnerable as she felt around Hayden, she simply took the excuse and ran. It didn't take her long to settle her affairs or to realize that running away served no purpose. The damage was done. Her heart was already his and now guilt over what she had put him through by leaving made her turn around as fast as she could.
The damage done would not be an easy fix. Not for two people as emotionally broken as Hayden and Tenley. Both scarred by traumatic events in their past and both barely coping with every day life. But with Tenley's recent drive for resolution, she has gained strength, enough to support Hayden through some difficult steps in facing some hard truths surrounding his parents' deaths.
With clarity comes closure, and despite their initial fragile emotional states, both Hayden and Tenley manage to help each other gather the pieces needed to make themselves whole.
*****
So friggin' beautiful....... it absolutely gives me shivers!!
Helena Hunting has the ability to create these main characters that for all intents and purposes should be crippled by their traumatic pasts. And although they don't have the shiniest of beginnings, there is a core of steel in both main characters that has brought them to a point where they first meet. A point where they already are more than coping, they are fighting to keep their feet under them, to work at putting distance between them and their dark memories. Clawing their way out.
Hayden seems to have plateaued at a point where he has been able to shed some initial destructive behaviour and has replaced most of that with a strong case of OCD, which he manages to limit to his own home environment mostly. He loosens up after initially meeting Tenley, then relapses when she disappears, but eventually finds fairly stable ground and although organisation continues to be a coping mechanism, it is no longer of as obsessive a nature as it was before. He learns to enjoy and love and feel deserving.
For Tenley the trauma was more recent and has the physical reminders, but her guilt may be of a more abstract nature, whereas Hayden's was perhaps more direct. Tenley also has some tangible things she is able to do, giving her the feeling that she is honoring the ones she has lost. It may be that which gives her that extra push toward forgiving herself. She has no doubts about wanting Hayden in her life, she just needs to prove it to him.
As for some of the outcome around the murder of Hayden's parents....... can I just say; I knew it!! I had a gut feeling! And I'll leave the rest up to you to read...... hehehe.
I am now anxiously awaiting CRACKS IN THE ARMOR, because I am not done with the crew of Inked Armor OR Helena Hunting!
✨An intensely vibrant, stormy and emotional healing.✨
**Copy provided in return for an honest review.**
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