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Hearts
What if your fate is to lose the one you love and be doomed to live in a city of lost hearts? Is it possible two dead hearts can see life again?
About the Author
A born and raised New Zealander, Anyta Sunday has been exploring the literary world since she start reading Roald Dahl as a kid. Inspired, stories have been piling up in her head ever since. Fast forward to her mid-twenties and jump a few countries (Germany, America, and back again), and she started putting pen to paper. When she’s not writing or chasing her kid around, she’s reading, hiking, watching Joss Whedon series, attempting pilates, or curling up with her two cats. Updates on her projects can be found at her website.
About the Author
A born and raised New Zealander, Anyta Sunday has been exploring the literary world since she start reading Roald Dahl as a kid. Inspired, stories have been piling up in her head ever since. Fast forward to her mid-twenties and jump a few countries (Germany, America, and back again), and she started putting pen to paper. When she’s not writing or chasing her kid around, she’s reading, hiking, watching Joss Whedon series, attempting pilates, or curling up with her two cats. Updates on her projects can be found at her website.
29 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 5, 2014
1 person is currently reading
90 people want to read
About the author
Anyta Sunday
111 books2,741 followersSpecialising in slow-burn romances where emotions reign, intimacy lingers, and chemistry sizzles—stories that leave you holding your breath and cheering for love, with just a splash of spice to sweeten the journey.
Check out my website:
Contact: http://www.anytasunday.com/?page_id=386
Für deutsche Leser:
http://www.anytasunday.de/
In italiano:
http://www.anytasunday.it/
Check out my website:
Contact: http://www.anytasunday.com/?page_id=386
Für deutsche Leser:
http://www.anytasunday.de/
In italiano:
http://www.anytasunday.it/
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
December 13, 2014
4.25 stars
Happiness doesn't find us; we find it.
This was quite lovely and quite sad.
Daniel and Toby live in the city of broken hearts. Abandoned by their lovers, they scour the streets looking for hope. But they've already found it.
We see what we want to see, believe what we need to believe. Turn the other way, and there's joy.
This is quite a profound little story, an allegory of sorts.
Read it twice and pay attention to the blank spaces. The ending is subtle, but if you look closer...
Happiness doesn't find us; we find it.
"How do you revive a broken heart?"
This was quite lovely and quite sad.
Daniel and Toby live in the city of broken hearts. Abandoned by their lovers, they scour the streets looking for hope. But they've already found it.
We see what we want to see, believe what we need to believe. Turn the other way, and there's joy.
This is quite a profound little story, an allegory of sorts.
Read it twice and pay attention to the blank spaces. The ending is subtle, but if you look closer...
April 3, 2015
Hearts by Anyta Sunday is a lovely story.
After ten years together, Daniel’s boyfriend, Sam, leaves him. He’s brokenhearted, devastated and he doesn’t understand why. He goes to the fortune teller he saw twelve years prior, who warned him he would his heart would die in spring.
Kyle and Toby, a happy couple, move in next door to him. When they first meet he tries to warn them. He tries to tell them what the city does to people, about all the dead hearts. But they don’t listen to him. They believe he’s a crazy man.
A few months later Kyle leaves. And Toby is heartbroken.
Toby and Daniel start to hang out a lot more. Both men are heartbroken and confused. They loved their boyfriends and yet they still lost them.
They start spending time together. It was nice to see them talk and confide in each other about their failed relationships. It brought them closer together. And I think it’s when I really started getting into this story. Once Daniel and Toby start spending more time together, they decide to investigate the city, to see if it’s really to blame for their broken hearts.
Hearts Inside CoverThe more they search the less they find. They start to see that the city isn’t to blame and that’s when they start to see the beauty around them again. The painful memories are still there, especially for Daniel, but it doesn’t seem cursed anymore. It was nice to see the mood change and the happiness was definitely needed.
There were times this story was hard to read. It was beautifully written and the emotion was real and I felt a connection to the characters. But I think a little more happiness would have made me like this even more than I did.
If you read the end, you will see these men do get their well-deserved HEA.
4 stars!
After ten years together, Daniel’s boyfriend, Sam, leaves him. He’s brokenhearted, devastated and he doesn’t understand why. He goes to the fortune teller he saw twelve years prior, who warned him he would his heart would die in spring.
“Your heart will die searching for your lover in the green glow of spring.”
Kyle and Toby, a happy couple, move in next door to him. When they first meet he tries to warn them. He tries to tell them what the city does to people, about all the dead hearts. But they don’t listen to him. They believe he’s a crazy man.
A few months later Kyle leaves. And Toby is heartbroken.
Toby and Daniel start to hang out a lot more. Both men are heartbroken and confused. They loved their boyfriends and yet they still lost them.
They start spending time together. It was nice to see them talk and confide in each other about their failed relationships. It brought them closer together. And I think it’s when I really started getting into this story. Once Daniel and Toby start spending more time together, they decide to investigate the city, to see if it’s really to blame for their broken hearts.
Hearts Inside CoverThe more they search the less they find. They start to see that the city isn’t to blame and that’s when they start to see the beauty around them again. The painful memories are still there, especially for Daniel, but it doesn’t seem cursed anymore. It was nice to see the mood change and the happiness was definitely needed.
There were times this story was hard to read. It was beautifully written and the emotion was real and I felt a connection to the characters. But I think a little more happiness would have made me like this even more than I did.
If you read the end, you will see these men do get their well-deserved HEA.
“How did you revive your heart?”
4 stars!
May 6, 2016
4.5 Stars
God dammit, Anyta Sunday!! You’ve killed me again with the feels!
I can’t wrap my head around how authors, like Anyta, manage to write such poetically poignant short stories, which elicit such an array of contrasting emotions from their readers, within such a limited number of pages. It’s a true gift, and it makes me swell with admiration (and jealousy).
This is the melancholy tale of Daniel, who is heartbroken and despaired in the wake of being left by his long-time lover, Sam – who we never meet, but I hate him on principal for making Daniel feel this way. Daniel is convinced that the town he lives in is cursed for all lovers, and is the reason his relationship, and the relationships of other couples around him, are ill fated.
This is all I’ll say in regards to the plot because it’s best to just experience it yourselves.
I will say that the rainbow of emotions that this short little beauty extricated from the confines of my feels cavity, were plentiful. I initially felt great sadness and sympathy for Daniel’s plight, but eventually my feelings of despondency lifted and I was left with a sense of hopefulness and contentment. If I had have been left feeling depressed at the end of this story, then this would be a whole other sort of review!!
God dammit, Anyta Sunday!! You’ve killed me again with the feels!
I can’t wrap my head around how authors, like Anyta, manage to write such poetically poignant short stories, which elicit such an array of contrasting emotions from their readers, within such a limited number of pages. It’s a true gift, and it makes me swell with admiration (and jealousy).
This is the melancholy tale of Daniel, who is heartbroken and despaired in the wake of being left by his long-time lover, Sam – who we never meet, but I hate him on principal for making Daniel feel this way. Daniel is convinced that the town he lives in is cursed for all lovers, and is the reason his relationship, and the relationships of other couples around him, are ill fated.
This is all I’ll say in regards to the plot because it’s best to just experience it yourselves.
I will say that the rainbow of emotions that this short little beauty extricated from the confines of my feels cavity, were plentiful. I initially felt great sadness and sympathy for Daniel’s plight, but eventually my feelings of despondency lifted and I was left with a sense of hopefulness and contentment. If I had have been left feeling depressed at the end of this story, then this would be a whole other sort of review!!
December 11, 2014
“Your heart will die searching for your lover in the green glow of spring.”
OMG, Anyta ... what are you doing to my heart?!?
This story is about loss, about hearts being broken. It has ... I don't know ... a kind of magical feel to it. With fortunetellers, a bad fortune foretold about having your loved one walks away (after years of being together), city of dead hearts ...
But at the same time there is a hope blooms when two men with dead hearts find their way towards one another and revive their dead hearts.
It's another little gem (only 7k) coming from Anyta Sunday -- who clearly have become one of my auto-buy authors.
This was what I’d been trying to find, I thought. And you were right in front of me the whole time.
June 5, 2015
As I started reading this, the only thing I could think was: dear god, this is darn sad, but you know what? No, it wasn’t. In the end I got a short story full of hope.
It amazes me how an author can convey so much with such a short story. I felt so many things reading this. The sadness – such a deep heart-wrenching sadness. The frustration of seeing them hold onto something that wasn’t coming back. The hope as I saw the MC’s starting to live again, smiling again.
Daniel is positive that the town he lives in is cursed, and that all the people who live there end up heartbroken and so sad that they kind of die inside. When Daniel moved into this place with his partner, Sam, they had all these plans of living and growing old together, but then Sam left. And the sadness that takes over Daniel is so strong that he practically stops believing.
One day Daniel sees that a new couple is moving into the house next door. He warns them, but they move in anyway. Before too long, Toby, one of the guys who moved in is left alone, heartbroken.
Pain make us lose focus, and sometimes we are so invested in what we are feeling that we forget there’s a whole new world out there waiting to be discovered.
Daniel and Toby start spending more time together. They start enjoying each other’s company, and they start enjoying themselves. They still miss those who left them behind, but they move on. They don’t know this yet. It takes them a while to figure it out, but as a reader, as you go through the pages, you start seeing it. It’s lovely, and heartwarming, maybe even a bit magical.
I had to read the ending a couple of times… I was SO confused, and I’m still not sure I got it right, but whatever it is that happened, there is love there. There is hope… There are two men who thought they’d lost it all, but then realized that what they’d be looking for so long had been right in front of them for a long time.
It amazes me how an author can convey so much with such a short story. I felt so many things reading this. The sadness – such a deep heart-wrenching sadness. The frustration of seeing them hold onto something that wasn’t coming back. The hope as I saw the MC’s starting to live again, smiling again.
Daniel is positive that the town he lives in is cursed, and that all the people who live there end up heartbroken and so sad that they kind of die inside. When Daniel moved into this place with his partner, Sam, they had all these plans of living and growing old together, but then Sam left. And the sadness that takes over Daniel is so strong that he practically stops believing.
One day Daniel sees that a new couple is moving into the house next door. He warns them, but they move in anyway. Before too long, Toby, one of the guys who moved in is left alone, heartbroken.
Pain make us lose focus, and sometimes we are so invested in what we are feeling that we forget there’s a whole new world out there waiting to be discovered.
Daniel and Toby start spending more time together. They start enjoying each other’s company, and they start enjoying themselves. They still miss those who left them behind, but they move on. They don’t know this yet. It takes them a while to figure it out, but as a reader, as you go through the pages, you start seeing it. It’s lovely, and heartwarming, maybe even a bit magical.
I had to read the ending a couple of times… I was SO confused, and I’m still not sure I got it right, but whatever it is that happened, there is love there. There is hope… There are two men who thought they’d lost it all, but then realized that what they’d be looking for so long had been right in front of them for a long time.
January 4, 2015
3.5 stars. Kind of sad and depressing, but a hopeful ending that warmed my heart.
March 21, 2020
Dos personas con el corazón roto que lo superan juntos. Unas historias tristes que se acaban convirtiendo en una muy bonita.
May 26, 2017
3.5**
February 6, 2019
Though this was extremely short novella we get a whole story and A LOT to think about. I'm still thinking about WHAT exactly the moral of this story is. I think it's mostly about the power of the mind, the power of belief and what it can bring us - good or bad - depends on us. But I guess it's up to you to read and think for yourself what you take out of it.
When Daniel meg the fortune teller 10 years ago, she foretold he would get his heart broken. Now, after Sam has left him - and shattering his heart while doing so - he meets her again. She looks at him with a sad smile and says everyone in this cursed city gets their heart broken. Looking around this is exactly what Daniel sees all around him which is why he tries to make the young couple who just moved next door to leave before the city gets to their happiness as well.
It doesn't take long for Toby and Kyle to start having issues and in the end breaking up. At first Toby is a bit resentful of Daniel who in his own way played the fortune teller and foretold them this heart breaking future, and yet unlike the one Daniel met, he is determined to try and help Toby and that's how they start spending more time together, two friends roaming the city trying to find the manifestation of this damn curse but mostly just dealing with their heart ache. In the end they manage to heal their broken hearts and hope for a loving future together.
GREAT short read. HIGHLY recommended.
[ I've read this one through the Briefs Collection ]
More Reviews HERE
When Daniel meg the fortune teller 10 years ago, she foretold he would get his heart broken. Now, after Sam has left him - and shattering his heart while doing so - he meets her again. She looks at him with a sad smile and says everyone in this cursed city gets their heart broken. Looking around this is exactly what Daniel sees all around him which is why he tries to make the young couple who just moved next door to leave before the city gets to their happiness as well.
It doesn't take long for Toby and Kyle to start having issues and in the end breaking up. At first Toby is a bit resentful of Daniel who in his own way played the fortune teller and foretold them this heart breaking future, and yet unlike the one Daniel met, he is determined to try and help Toby and that's how they start spending more time together, two friends roaming the city trying to find the manifestation of this damn curse but mostly just dealing with their heart ache. In the end they manage to heal their broken hearts and hope for a loving future together.
GREAT short read. HIGHLY recommended.
[ I've read this one through the Briefs Collection ]
More Reviews HERE
December 14, 2014
Short and sweet.
May 30, 2017
This one feels a little different. It’s a city where when one person’s relationship dies, everyone else’s does as well, or seems to. But there was that fortune teller…
I can’t tell if it’s a metaphor, or real… but when the neighbours, who through proximity alone, lose their relationship as well, this leaves one solitary guy Toby, with our broken hearted protagonist Daniel. They spend some time together. Do little odd jobs for each other… Toby is a gardener and he helps Daniel to prune.
Metaphorical… right?
And then the inevitable happens… and voila. The world is rejuvenated.
It packed quite a punch for such a short story.
4 stars
I can’t tell if it’s a metaphor, or real… but when the neighbours, who through proximity alone, lose their relationship as well, this leaves one solitary guy Toby, with our broken hearted protagonist Daniel. They spend some time together. Do little odd jobs for each other… Toby is a gardener and he helps Daniel to prune.
“That’s how you prune the bushes so they grow better,” Toby said, handing me the garden scissors. I did as he’d done, clipping the dead and diseased wood. Over the months, I’d let him show me how to take care of my garden. With every new week, I noticed more and more life pushing through. (Kindle Locations 5755-5757).
Metaphorical… right?
And then the inevitable happens… and voila. The world is rejuvenated.
It packed quite a punch for such a short story.
4 stars
September 29, 2017
This was a great tiny little short story. It did a very good job establishing a relatively rich world and romance in only a few pages and I really enjoyed it. Not too much of a twist, but it was sweet and definitely made me smile.
July 17, 2018
Short, lovely, and emotional. Heart-achey and full of hope.
December 29, 2018
The supernatural/superstitious element was disturbing for me.
January 29, 2022
Very melancholic story with the sweetest ending. It reminded me of poetry more than usual fiction.
November 12, 2016
3.5 stars
July 25, 2020
While this isn’t my favorite Anyta Sunday novella, a novella (or any work, really) from Anyta, is still better than most everything else out there, imo.
This is sweet novella about Daniel, who gets his heartbroken. A fortune teller tells him that it’s the city they live in. It’s cursed. Love won’t survive there.
Daniel has been spending his time alone, but soon new neighbors move next door. They become friends. Before long, one of them, Toby finds himself in the same position as Daniel. Daniel and Toby begin to grow closer, due to their mutual broken hearted status.
The two of them decide to investigate to see why love can’t stay in this place they both call home.
We get a sweet, slow burn romance.
My only complaint is that I read a lot of Anyta Sunday’s work, and for me this one, even though it’s only a novella drug on a bit. It’s also a bit more forgettable than most of her other works. While it’s a decent read, it didn’t blow me away. I had to look up the characters names to do the review. Maybe it’s that I set up my expectations a little too high. It’s in no way something I wouldn’t read again, it’s just not an incredibly memorable story to me, and once I finished it, it was easy for me to forget it and move on.
This is sweet novella about Daniel, who gets his heartbroken. A fortune teller tells him that it’s the city they live in. It’s cursed. Love won’t survive there.
Daniel has been spending his time alone, but soon new neighbors move next door. They become friends. Before long, one of them, Toby finds himself in the same position as Daniel. Daniel and Toby begin to grow closer, due to their mutual broken hearted status.
The two of them decide to investigate to see why love can’t stay in this place they both call home.
We get a sweet, slow burn romance.
My only complaint is that I read a lot of Anyta Sunday’s work, and for me this one, even though it’s only a novella drug on a bit. It’s also a bit more forgettable than most of her other works. While it’s a decent read, it didn’t blow me away. I had to look up the characters names to do the review. Maybe it’s that I set up my expectations a little too high. It’s in no way something I wouldn’t read again, it’s just not an incredibly memorable story to me, and once I finished it, it was easy for me to forget it and move on.
February 1, 2018
2nd Read
3 stars
Read as part of Briefs: Collection
1st Read
3.5 stars
Read as part of Love, Loss, Laughter & Lust.
Very well written. The despair of the first part is oppressive, and that is a compliment.
3 stars
Read as part of Briefs: Collection
1st Read
3.5 stars
Read as part of Love, Loss, Laughter & Lust.
Very well written. The despair of the first part is oppressive, and that is a compliment.
February 14, 2016
Hearts is a sweet but sad M/M short that will really tug at the reader's heart strings.
May 12, 2015
Full review can be found at The Novel Approach
November 28, 2018
3,5* Part of the Briefs: Collection
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews