Going For Broke is a bold and unflinchingly intimate portrait of a young woman caught between reality and self -will. Set against the backdrop of urban Manchester, this emotionally charged story explores the quiet resilience of a woman learning to navigate the wreckage of a controlling relationship while attempting to find herself in the process.
Sarah thought love meant sacrifice. She gave up her degree, her friends, jobs and her voice, until the debts piled up, the flat soured, and Jack's charm began to crack. From hostel shifts to psychiatric wards, from broken taps to broken promises, Going For Broke traces Sarah's journey through co-dependency, trauma, and the slow, fierce fight to choose herself.
This isn't a story of clean breaks or easy redemption. It's about the messy middle, the moments when love feels like loss, and healing begins in the smallest acts of defiance."
With its raw emotional honesty and vivid sense of place, Going For Broke offers readers a powerful exploration of domestic abuse and the courage to create your own narrative. It's a novel for anyone who's ever stayed too long, loved too hard, or sought happiness in self-immolation.
Ruby Cielo is the pen name of Ruth Johnston, a British-born writer now based in Andalusia, Spain. She was born in Gateshead, in the industrial heart of North East England, and now writes from a sun-drenched roof terrace in the hills of Benahavis, Spain. Her fiction is shaped by a life lived across borders. In her youth she experienced working in factories, farms, and language schools throughout Europe, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. These experiences infuse her writing with grit, empathy, and a deep understanding of human resilience.
Before settling in Spain, Ruby lived and worked in cities across the UK, absorbing the rhythms of urban life and the quiet struggles that often go unseen. Her stories reflect the emotional complexity of women navigating love, survival, and self-discovery, often with tenderness and with fire.
She is the proud mother of three adult children and a granddaughter who are her world. When she's not writing, Ruby can be found watching the Andalusian light shift across the hills, listening to old records, or dreaming up her next story of fierce hope.
