Review - Broken Things by Barbara Elsborg

Fifteen-year-old Tar rescues eight-year-old Merrick from a burning house, which his father was robbing before setting fire to it. Things go from bad to worse when Tar's father leaves the two boys to fend for themselves. He doesn't know that Tar has surreptitiously transferred a book from the stolen loot to his own bag. What starts as a bit of adventure for the two soon turns nasty when a group of evil faeries come looking for the book. The boys are separated, and neither one knows for sure whether the other survived the attack. Years later, Tar is the head of Paranormal Resolutions (PR), a sort of police force keeping the peace among supernaturals and between supernaturals and humans. Merrick is now a doctor. The forces which separated the two of them now seem to be working to bring them back together. The question is, will they survive this time?

We know Tar from the previous books in the series, where he plays the tough but tender-hearted boss. You'll want to have read at least one or two of the other books in the series before reading this one. This installment finally gives us Tar's back story, which goes a long way toward telling us how he got to be the thick-skinned cold-hearted man he plays in the first books. We also finally find out ‘what’ Tar is. It's an entirely believable story within the fantasy world setting of the series.

Merrick is a new character. While Tar turned inward, the young boy he rescued managed to remain a person determined to be happy despite the circumstances. He is incredibly, almost unbelievably, resilient but definitely a very likable character. His outgoing, slightly snarky personality is the perfect foil for Tar, and also just the kind of character we expect from this author.

Other characters introduced in the previous books appear in this story, so it's best enjoyed if you've read all of them. This story feels like it's the last book of the series, but with this author, you can never be sure.

“Broken Things” is available from Amazon.