Review: Clipped Wings by Helena Hunting

CLIPPED WINGS

Author: Helena Hunting

Series: Clipped Wings

Pages: 400

Publisher: Gallery Books

Amazon

Release date: 4^th March 2014

Synopsis. (Goodreads)

An emotional love story that follows the touch-and-go relationship of Hayden and Tenley; two young people who desperately want to love and be loved but are afraid to completely let go of their pasts.

As Hayden and Tenley navigate their newfound but slightly unstable relationship, they want to trust each other, but Hayden is hiding a dark and shameful past that he doesn't ever want Tenley to find out about. And Tenley has secrets of her own that could make Hayden run away forever. When Tenley asks Hayden to put a beautifully elaborate tattoo across her back, the two form what they thought was an unshakeable bond. But when Tenley's past shows up on her doorstep, will Hayden stand by her side...or run?

Review: 4  out of 5 stars

Clipped Wings is a wonderful story filled with heartfelt emotion, wonderful yet broken characters, a sweet romance and a story-line that kept me eager to know more.

Our main protagonist is Tenley Page who is trying to heal and move forward after great loss, she is broken and alone and working in a book/coffee shop still feeling guilty and struggling daily to get past her pain and grief.

Hayden Stryker is a tattoo artist, who comes across as domineering and abrasive, but underneath the badass, tattooed exterior lays a heart of gold, he too has quite the interesting past but has moved on from his wild ways and now runs a tattoo parlour, Inked Armor.

When Tenley asks Hayden to tattoo an intricate design across her back, they form a fragile bond but a lot isn’t talked about and secrets are kept which causes drama when Tenley’s past is still lingering and forcing her to make decisions she isn’t quite ready to make. I loved the depth and the passion in Clipped Wings, the relationship between the characters was one I found to be quite fragile, it was slow to develop and the characters pasts really made them both quite wary.

Each chapter is told from both Tenley and Hayden’s POV which I think was needed for this story to grasp the full plethora of emotions and reactions. The back-story is developed well and dribbled out slowly over the course of the book, we are given small snippets of information that leaves us guessing about what had happened but until it was all openly revealed we don’t truly understand just how broken and vulnerable both of the characters are. The friendship they formed was great and I loved the chemistry between them.

My biggest gripe was the ending - a cliff-hanger, I wanted closure and a HEA which I hope we’ll get in the sequel, Inked Armor. I also felt a few things became repetitive and dragged out and character actions were at times questionable but overall I did enjoy this story.

Overall, Clipped Wings is a poignant story with depth that kept me captivated right from the onset. With wonderfully detailed writing and convincing yet flawed characters, I am definitely eager to read the next installment asap.

Thank-you to Gallery Books via Edelweiss for the opportunity to read and review Clipped Wings.

 

About the author: Helena Hunting lives on the outskirts of Toronto with her incredibly tolerant family and two moderately intolerant cats. She’s putting her degree in English Lit to good use by writing contemporary erotic romance. She is the author of Clipped Wings, her debut novel, and Inked Armor.  

Also known as hunterhunting or Hunter Hunting.