
Broken Country
- Themes
- First love and its lasting impact, Grief and loss, Secrets and jealousy
- Pacing
- Fast
Who it’s for
- Readers who enjoy love stories intertwined with a village murder mystery
- Readers drawn to stories of first love revisited across past and present
Where it sits
How strongly BookFrontier reads the book as belonging to each subject.
Nearest books
Closest matches from our semantic model, which compares what books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved.
Wild Dark ShoreCharlotte McConaghy70% matchShares Romantic Suspense
First Lie Wins: Reese's Book ClubAshley Elston59% match
Everyone Here Is LyingShari Lapena60% match
The God of the WoodsLiz Moore59% matchShares Literary Fiction
None of This Is TrueKristin Atherton, Ayesha Antoine59% match
The Frozen River: A GMA Book Club PickAriel Lawhon61% match
Famous Last WordsGillian McAllister66% match
Anatomy of an AlibiAshley Elston61% match
For younger readers: Everything We Never Said, Under the Same Stars, The One That Got Away With Murder
Start with three books, and this one can be the first.
Members get a new edition every morning: a route out from their books to essays, research and talks, with the reason for each.
Join the waitlistAbout this book
Over 1 Million Copies Sold
A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK | A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall is an unforgettable story of love, loss, and the choices that shape our lives…but it’s also a masterfully crafted mystery that will keep you guessing until the very last page. Seriously, that ending?! I did not see it coming.” —Reese Witherspoon
Continue reading
“Stirring and mysterious…fires directly at the human heart and hits the mark.” —Delia Owens, New York Times bestselling author of Where the Crawdads Sing
A love triangle unearths dangerous, deadly secrets from the past in this thrilling tale perfect for fans of The Paper Palace and Where the Crawdads Sing.
“The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.”
Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.
As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.
A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.
Publisher details
Publisher categories
- Literary Fiction
- Romantic Suspense
- Women's Fiction
- Authors
- Clare Leslie Hall
- Publisher
- Simon & Schuster
- Published
- March 4, 2025
- Format
- Paperback
- Reading lane
- Literary Fiction