Broken Rooms is a sweeping, cinematic novel that spans continents and decades. It follows Sebastian Cole, a mathematics teacher in Sheffield whose life takes an unexpected turn when he leaves the classroom for the exquisite, erratic world of interior design. What begins as a career shift soon becomes a global journey, as Sebastian creates homes for the powerful, eccentric, and elite. Yet behind every elegant room lies fracture. From Paris salons to New York penthouses, from Marrakesh courtyards to English country estates, Sebastian’s designs reflect not only beauty but also the emptiness and longing that shape his own life. At its center lies a restrained love story between two men—Sebastian and Duncan—that simmers in silence, distance, and restraint before finally blossoming into the promise of permanence. Blending the sensual detail of a design memoir with the emotional pull of a love story, Broken Rooms is for readers of André Aciman’s Call Me by Your Name , Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers , Nicholas Sparks’s The Notebook , and Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue . It is a novel of reinvention, restraint, and the universal search for belonging, intimacy, and wholeness. Broken Rooms is both a memoir and a novel, though it never settles quietly into one category. It tells the story of Sebastian Cole, a gifted mathematician from Sheffield who stumbles into the world of design, beauty, and wealth through a fateful meeting with Lady Judy Beardsley. What begins as weekend tutoring spirals into an immersion in luxury, power, and temptation. The book follows him through grand houses in London, decadent travels, passionate but destructive relationships, and the search for authenticity in a life caught between duty, desire, and dreams. This is a story about reinvention. It is about the tension between longing for beauty and grappling with the shadows of shame, heartbreak, and secrecy.<br>Reading it, I felt pulled into Sebastian's inner world in a way that was both thrilling and heartbreaking. The writing is lush, almost cinematic, full of detail about fabrics, food, interiors, and scents. Sometimes, I caught myself pausing just to savor the descriptions of a chandelier or the taste of a Tarte Tatin. At other times, the excess weighed on me, the same way Sebastian is weighed down by the very luxuries he covets. I found myself admiring the author's ability to weave emotion into objects, to make a velvet curtain or a marble foyer feel like characters themselves. Yet I also wrestled with frustration at Sebastian's self-sabotage, at his naivety, at his constant return to toxic people who drained him. That tension kept me hooked, even when I wanted to shout at him to run in the opposite direction.<br>On a personal level, I connected with the book's exploration of longing and identity. The novel is about design, yes, but beneath the wallpaper and chandeliers, it is about a man trying to carve out a place for himself in a world that doesn't quite accept him. That struggle felt raw and real. There were moments that made me laugh, and others that left me sitting in silence, heavy with empathy. At times, I found the prose almost indulgent, yet that indulgence mirrors Sebastian's journey. It is the language of someone intoxicated by beauty, love, and possibility, even when those things unravel. The book made me think not only about art and design, but also about how we all build rooms, real and emotional, to house our deepest desires.<br>Broken Rooms is not for everyone. Its pace lingers, its details are rich to the point of decadence, and its protagonist can be both magnetic and exasperating. But for readers who appreciate personal storytelling dressed in velvet and candlelight, who want to be transported into salons and safaris while also being invited into the quiet ache of the heart, this book will be a gift. I'd recommend it to lovers of memoir, design, travel writing, and anyone who has ever chased beauty while carrying their own brokenness." 4 stars Thomas Anderson Editor In Chief Literary Titan 5.0 out of 5 stars Above All...It is a love story. To art, culture and love. Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2025 This was a treasure and I'm so grateful I was able to read it. It came across as a travelogue at times. As an academic lecture at others. An immersion into other cultures, exposures and views of the world. A testament to being well read. To have the ability to look deep inside yourself as well as far away from you and your own history. The author is a gift to the world. I loved this book and felt deep despair at the ending. Not that I would want a loving relationship to end at the end of a long illness, but the abruptness of this death was especially hard to accept. Partially, because I felt like I personally was a witness to their love as it grew, and because of all the years they could have experienced 'more' together, and they were 'ch