Broken Knight

All Saints High, Book #2

By L.J. Shen

ISBN# 9781686783104

Author’s Website:  https://www.authorljshen.com/

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi

*Beware of spoilers*

Luna and Knight have been best friends all their lives.  Their dads were best friends and so are they.  After Luna’s mom walked out on her when she was a toddler she quit talking.  Existing as a selective mute, kids weren’t always kind, and Knight took on the responsibility of being her protector.  He would never allow anyone to hurt her.

As they grew older, Knight wanted to advance their relationship into something more.  He’d always saw her as his everything.  His best friend.  His girlfriend.  His wife.  However, Luna firmly kept him in the friend zone.

Knight was a popular jock, quarterback of the high school football team.  He could have any girl he wanted.  Except for the one he actually *did* want.  He knew he had to bide his time until Luna was ready.  He was saving himself for her.  However, he was not going to let people think he was a total loser.  He’d pretend to have sex with other girls, and the girls were more than happy to keep his secret, without knowing it really was a secret.  None of the girls wanted to admit that she was the only one the little horn dog didn’t sleep with.  Of course, Luna was unaware of his deceit.  Unaware he was waiting for her.

After a big push from Knight’s best friend, Vaughn.  Luna goes to an out-of-state college, while Knight finishes his final year of high school.  

Luna feels Knight slipping away, and when she sees a picture of him kissing another girl, Poppy, she knows she has lost her chance with him.  She gives in to another guy, Josh’s, advances.  Josh is sweet and he can’t speak due to an injury when he was young.  They both use sign language to communicate. And, she ends up sleeping with him for all the wrong reasons.

When, Luna comes home for Thanksgiving, Knight is ready to stake his claim on Luna.  To finally push them to the next level.  However, he sees Josh’s texts come through on Luna’s phone.  Texts thinking her for the great night, for the special gift she gave him.  Knight is devastated.  And, when Knight hurts, he lashes out.

Knight makes Luna’s life hell for the next year.  Rubbing his now girlfriend, Poppy, in Luna’s face at every opportunity.  Although he can’t handle, when others flirt with Luna and always reacts, usually devastating Poppy in the process.

Luna eventually decides to fight for Knight, to proclaim her feelings and to fight for them.  But he does the unthinkable. Taking his girlfriend to he and Luna’s special place. She is crushed seeing Knight naked with Polly in their treehouse, appearing to be giving up his v-card.  She sneaks away unheard and cuts her heart, Knight, out of her life.

Meanwhile, Knight’s mother is dying from cystic fibrosis.  His heart is breaking as he is the biggest mama’s boy around.  

“Footsteps thudded in the hall, and I stretched in the large bed, nudging the woman sleeping on my chest to wake up.

“Your husband’s back. Pretty sure he won’t be so happy to see a stud like me in his bed.”

Mom looked up, blinking the sleep from her eyes. She swatted my chest, then coughed. “Hide. I wouldn’t mess with him.”

“I wouldn’t mess with me.”

I flexed my biceps behind her, and her coughs became loud barks that made me want to kill someone. Dad threw the door open, already untying his tie. He reached the bed, planted a kiss on Mom’s nose, and flicked the back of my head.

“You’re too old to cuddle with your mama.”

“Don’t say that!” Rosie shrieked.

“Seems like she’s not really in agreement with you.”

Can Knight and Luna ever get past the hurts they have caused each other and find happiness?  Or are they doomed to be apart and miserable.  And, how do you say goodbye to a woman they both love so much?

I’ve been dying to read this story, after reading Luna’s dad’s book from the Sinners of Saint series recently.  And, it was so worth the wait.  It was a complete roller coaster and made me feel all the feels, like usual with Shen books.

I did feel bad for Knight.  He was going through so much in this book.  The girl he loved with his whole heart gave herself to some guy she barely knew.  It gutted him and shattered his heart.  He didn’t know how to deal with it and he didn’t know how to forgive her.  

“I can’t outgrow Luna. It’s like outgrowing your heart. Impossible. It grows with you.”

Don’t get me wrong, he was a total jerk, and deserved so much more than what Luna dished out.  

He was also dealing with watching his mom dying before his eyes.  He was essentially losing both loves of his life at the same time.  

His dad’s demons manifested in him and only made things worse.  

“I opened my mouth, and swear I got drunk again just smelling my own fucking breath.”

The two were so much alike for him to not actually be Dean’s biologically.  It’s probably why the two butted heads so much too.

I was surprised that Luna was still doing the selective mute thing all these years later.  Maybe a huge part of that is because Knight always did protect her.  She wasn’t forced to use her words because Knight was always there to fight her battles for her. 

“He deserved more than a girl who couldn’t tell him how she felt.

He was perfect, and I was flawed. “Promise me.” His lips touched my temple, his warm breath sending shivers down my body.

Shivers that felt different—like they filled my lower belly with lava. Promise him what? I wondered. I nodded yes anyway, eager to please him, though he hadn’t completed his sentence. My lips moved.

“I promise. I promise. I promise.”

Maybe that’s why he didn’t trust me.

Why he’d sneak into my bedroom that night—and every night, for the next six years—and wrap his arms around me, making sure I was really okay.

Sometimes he smelled of alcohol.

Sometimes of another girl. Fruity and sweet and different.

Oftentimes, he smelled of my heartbreak.

But he was always making sure I was safe.

And he always left before my dad knocked on my door to wake me up.

For the next six years, before jumping through my window, Knight would drop a kiss on my forehead in the exact same spot where shortly thereafter Dad would kiss me good morning, the heat of Knight’s lips still on my skin, making my face radiate.”

I thought that Luna was too quick to forgive Knight, at times.  He was spiraling hard and hurting everyone in his wake.  I was glad to see Luna grow a backbone. She did what she needed to in order to get Knight’s head out of his ass and out of the bottle.  Although it was hard, to watch her leave him spinning.

“Don’t baby me. I’m not your home. People don’t ruin their homes; they build them. They cherish them.”

Poor Rosie.  If it wasn’t bad enough that she DIED in Dean’s book of Sinner’s of Saints, she had to die in her kid’s book too.  I do love novels that made me feel, and both times I bawled like a baby. So, well played, Shen, well played.  I know that Rosie had her happiness in the space between the two books, I’m just sad for her that we didn’t get to see more of that.  Her story just seemed so tragic.

“I love your brother and your father more than I love myself. I would die for them. Fight for them until the bitter end. Go against the whole world for them. But you…” She dragged her face up to look at me. Her eyes were full of tears. “I’ve always loved you just a tiny bit more. My regal, rebel boy. My legendary hellraiser, my sad prince, my unlikely savior, my beautiful, broken Knight.”

I gulped, looking down at her.

Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

But I couldn’t not say it. The moment seemed too real and raw.

She brushed my cheek and gave me a smile so genuine and powerful, I thought it could outshine the sun.

“What if tomorrow never comes?” I whispered.

“Then, my darling boy, we’ll make the best of today.”

The end of the story was sweet and I just wanted to see more of it.  I wanted to see the love between Knight and Luna.  I wanted to see Knight’s reaction when they finally welcome their own children into the world (and no doubt name their first daughter after his mom) and see him as a dad and doting husband.  I wanted to see Rosie live through those kids as well. 

“Moonshine,” he whispered. “You fill up the empty, dark space—like the moon owns the sky. It is quiet. It is bright. It doesn’t need to be a ball of flame to be noticed. It simply exists. It forever glows.”

Also, I still can’t figure out why it was mentioned about Knight getting the seahorse tattoo for Luna when he was younger.  And, then it was never mentioned again.  I was waiting for her to see the tattoo and have that big reveal moment and it didn’t happen.  And, honestly her love for seahorses wasn’t really shown in this book at all.

I could live my life in Todos Santos with these characters.  This book leaves me wondering about so much as far as the series goes.  Will Dean get a second chance romance book?  I’m not sold on the Dixie thing; it just seems too forced.  Will we get to see romances for the younger kids of the original four hotholes (5 if you count Vicious’s ‘made in China version’, Bane.  He is my favorite.)?  I hope so.  I never want the books to end!