5 Wine Glass #Review of On Broken Wings by Chanel Cleeton

Title: On Broken Wings
Series: Wild Aces #3
Author: Chanel Cleeton
Format: Kindle Edition, 336 pages
Published: January 3rd 2017 by Berkley
ASINB: 01E4WAGXK
Links: Goodreads | Amazon|B&N
Source: NetGalley
Reviewer: Crystal
Rating: 5 out of 5 Wine Glasses

The author of Into the Blue and Fly with Me returns with the newest, hot and high-flying Wild Aces romance...

A year after losing her husband, Joker, the squadron commander of the Wild Aces, Dani Peterson gets an offer from his best friend, Alex “Easy” Rogers, to help fix up her house. Dani accepts, and their friendship grows—along with an undeniable attraction.

Racked by guilt for loving his best friend’s widow, Easy’s caught between what he wants and can’t have. Until one night everything changes, and the woman who’s always held his heart ends up in his arms. Yet as Easy leaves for his next deployment, he and Dani are torn between their feelings and their loyalty to Joker’s memory.

But when Dani discovers something that sends them both into a spin, the conflicted lovers must overcome the past to navigate a future together… 

Crystal's Thoughts:

I have been anticipating Easy and Dani's story since first reading Fly With Me back in March of last year. I knew it wasn't going to be an easy story, despite Alex's call sign. I knew that both of these characters were going to have to be broken down before they could be built back up enough to accept a relationship together. I knew their journey would be an avalanche of deep emotions. And it was all that, but it was also SO much more! 

We're first introduced to Alex "Easy" Rogers, in Fly With Me (Wild Aces #1) as Burn's best friend and fellow Wild Aces' fighter pilot. There we learn that he is (not-so) secretly in love with their commander's wife, Dani.  This is a love that he never acts on, and doesn't plan to... even after Joker is killed in a training exercise. But after the death of her husband, and still struggling with the loss of her unborn child, and the family that she could have had, Dani is floundering. Unable to watch Dani's suffering any longer, Easy steps in. He's the shoulder Dani needs, the strength she's lost, and the connection she has been denying herself since Micheal's (Joker) death. If that is all he can ever be to her, Easy accepts that, but despite his best attempts not to, he will never stop loving Dani. Unfortunately for Easy, all Dani see's in him is his friendship and support. That is, until she notices the hard, sultry body attached to that shoulder she's been crying on. When the lines between friendship and attraction start to blur though, guilt threatens to drown them both.

On Broken Wings is a heartrending beautiful story filled with love, loss, heartbreak, and hope. By the end of it, I had tears of joy and happiness in my eyes. Exquisitely written in the first person point-of-view, readers have a front row seat to the turbulent emotions that each of these compelling characters traverse as they struggle with death, danger, and desire. There is no denying the sizzling tension between Dani and Easy, especially when Dani realizes that there is more to Easy then his happy-go-lucky attitude and simple friendship. When Dani begins to see Easy as an actual man, instead of just one of her best friends, their pulse-pounding attraction lights up the pages.

Cleeton builds a vivid world around Dani and Easy. Enunciating the very real dangers of being a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot and the stress that it can put on personal relationships. The writing flowed without a hitch, pulling me along with each new page. There was enough humor and sexy snippets wove into the story-line to keep it from being weighed down by the emotional upheaval. However, it's the characters that define each new story for me. The pull between Dani and Easy, their undeniable chemistry combating with their perceived loyalties, held me utterly captivated. I couldn't help but empathize with them and their struggle to do what they felt was right, even at the risk of hurting themselves.

"I loved her, and loving someone was more about them than you, so it didn’t matter what I wanted."

I simply loved these two characters, and was swept away with their journey to a happily-ever-after. No one deserved it more then Dani and Easy.

Chanel Cleeton delivered a powerful story, and a phenomenal end to this must-read series with On Broken Wings. I really couldn't have asked for anything more in this book, except for maybe another 300 pages! Haha. The Wild Aces, is hand's down, my favorite contemporary romance series of 2016. You don't want to miss a single page of the heart-stopping action, memorizing romance, and irresistible characters! 

Suggested Reading order:

Fly With Me (Wild Aces, #1) 

Into the Blue (Wild Aces, #2) 

On Broken Wings (Wild Aces, #3)