New York Times bestselling author, J. Sterling, has broken our hearts with her beautiful romantic novels, showing us the true meaning of love, lust, and never giving up when the road gets hard. She teaches us that our lives amount to more than just what we do to earn money; that’s is who we have in our lives that matter – the family we create, the friends we have, the person we love. Through her books, her characters and their stories, Sterling makes us believe in the impossible, and once again she makes us fall in her novel, Breaking Stars.
An actress since she was fourteen years old, Paige Lockwood finds herself craving a little normalcy after a scandal rocks her otherwise predictable world. With everyone in her life attempting to control her, she takes matters into her own hands and leaves town without so much as a plan or a destination.
But the destination finds her as car trouble forces Paige to settle down in a small Southern town as she waits for repairs. There she meets the handsome, albeit standoffish, Tatum Montgomery, and both of their lives are forever altered.
But the real question is: Can you hold on to it when you’re from two completely different worlds?
Breaking Stars is the second novel in Sterling’s The Celebrity Series, and although it can be read as a stand alone, it is suggested that it’s prequel, Seeing Stars, should be read first for the most enjoyment of the series.
I am a massive fan of Sterling’s stories. For the most part, I love the way she shows us what love really looks like, and she teaches her younger audience about they way they deserve to be treated. Her character’s aren’t perfect, far from it — they all make mistakes — but what she shows us is that there are some people worthy of making mistakes over. And the best people will forgive you for them, and help you right them. As well as the idea that if a relationship is going to survive, then you need to be able to make mistakes and then learn to move on from them.
Breaking Stars is no different. It was these things that originally captured me to the story, but what captivated me was the deeper meaning that I felt was hidden through it’s pages. A deeper lesson that I believe that Sterling was trying to teach: that sometimes when you aren’t looking for love, that’s exactly when it finds you.
When you’re looking for love, it eludes you. But when you’re not looking for it, that’s when it finds you anyway. I never really took notice of this before, but when I look back now I realise how true that statement actually is. Whenever I’ve been hoping to meet someone that’s when it never happened, but when I started focusing on myself and my work, that’s when everything else seems to fall into place.
Paige was just looking for an escape — a break from her overpowering lifestyle. It’s when she’s looking to sort her own life out and do something that she actually wants to do that she comes across Tatum. Likewise, Tatum was focusing on looking after himself and his mother, determined not to open his heart to anyone after having it deeply broken before, when he found Paige.
Sometimes the best things happen to us right when we’re not expecting them to, or when we’re not looking for them to.
There’s a point in the novel where Tatum says to Paige:
“You’ve made me believe in love again. I’d all but given up any hope for it existing before you came along. Thank you for reawakening my heart.” – J. Sterling, Breaking Stars
He didn’t expect Paige to swoop in and open up his heart again, he wasn’t looking for anyone to do that. But then, that’s exactly when she did.
Sometimes the most beautiful things come into our lives out of nowhere. We can’t always understand them, but we have to trust in them. I know that at times people want to question everything, but sometimes it pays to just have a little faith.
Stories like Breaking Stars reminds us that there are hearts worthy of being broken for, people worthy of our trust, and souls worthy of chances.
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