Bending To Break

"You can only bend so far… before something breaks."

Bending To Break, the first book in A.L. Hartwell’s Before I Break series, is a haunting, emotionally charged dark romance that digs deep into what it means to love through trauma, survive through pain, and still choose someone even when everything inside you screams not to.

She’s spent her life hiding—behind polite smiles, behind silence, behind scars no one sees. He doesn’t ask for permission. He pushes. He peels back every layer she’s carefully constructed until all that’s left is the raw truth of who she is. And somehow, he still wants her.

Their connection is volatile—built on power dynamics, whispered confessions, and wounds that bleed beneath every touch. It’s the kind of love that aches, that consumes, that demands everything. But it’s also healing, honest, and real in a way nothing else ever has been.

This book doesn’t offer fairy tales. It offers the beauty of earned intimacy, of choosing each other through the hard stuff. Through the triggers. Through the rage. Through the tears and the trembling. It’s a journey through emotional shadows into light—and not everyone will make it.

A. L. Hartwell writes with brutal tenderness and unflinching honesty. Bending To Break is for readers who crave stories that go beyond surface-level romance—who want to feel the ache, the sting, the surrender.

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