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Breathing in Broken Spaces

Poems on Heartbreak, Trauma, and Self- Reflection

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Pub Date 24 Mar 2025 | Archive Date 1 Jul 2025

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Description

Heartbreak. Trauma. Toxic love. Loss. Healing. Rebirth.

Some wounds don’t just fade—they shape us.

Breathing in Broken Spaces is an unfiltered and deeply personal poetry collection that delves into the rawest corners of heartbreak, trauma, and survival. Through piercingly honest verses, Belinda Daou lays bare the loneliness of grief, the weight of past wounds, and the quiet, aching process of piecing oneself back together after being shattered.

This book is for those who have loved and lost, for the ones carrying silent battles within them, and for anyone searching for words that echo their unspoken pain. It is a safe space where emotions aren’t just expressed—but truly seen, understood, and honored.

This collection gives voice to the devastation of toxic love, the suffocation of manipulation, and the slow erosion of self-worth at the hands of the wrong person. It speaks to the ones who have stayed too long, who have fought for love that only broke them, and who are now learning to unlearn the lies they were told about themselves.

More than just poetry, Breathing in Broken Spaces is a reckoning with the past and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. It is breathtakingly raw, unapologetically vulnerable, and deeply real. It is the brutal honesty of suffering, the messy in-between of healing, and the quiet strength it takes to keep breathing, even when the air feels heavy.

This collection is not just about pain—it is about survival. About learning to breathe again through the cracks of brokenness. About reclaiming the parts of yourself you thought were lost forever.

Heartbreak. Trauma. Toxic love. Loss. Healing. Rebirth.

Some wounds don’t just fade—they shape us.

Breathing in Broken Spaces is an unfiltered and deeply personal poetry collection that delves into...


A Note From the Publisher

Thank you for considering Breathing in Broken Spaces.

This collection is deeply personal - a heart laid bare - exploring heartbreak, trauma, and the long journey back to self. These poems were born from real moments of unraveling, pain, and quiet resilience.

I hope they resonate with your own moments of healing and reflection- that they speak to something soft or strong within you.

If they do, I’d be deeply grateful for your review - on NetGalley, Amazon, Goodreads, and social media.

Feel free to quote and tag me @bell.d.poet - I love hearing which pieces find a home in someone else’s story.

With gratitude,
Belinda Daou

Thank you for considering Breathing in Broken Spaces.

This collection is deeply personal - a heart laid bare - exploring heartbreak, trauma, and the long journey back to self. These poems were...


Advance Praise

"One of the best poetry books I've ever read."

- Amazon Reviewer 

"This is poetry for anyone who has ever lost themselves, and for anyone brave enough to try and find their way back. Raw, relentless, and achingly beautiful this book will leave you changed." 

- Amazon Reviewer

"I long to find words that resonate with me whether it’s been pages in a book, a song, or lines in poetry and wow did this resonate. I wish I had this book of poetry while going through all of my past heartbreaks it would have helped so much."

 - Amazon Reviewer

"Belinda Daou strips love, grief, trauma, and healing down to their bones and hands them back to you, trembling and alive. Every word bleeds, every line breathes."

- Amazon Reviewer 

"The prose is flowing and packed with emotion. The one line at the end of each poem throws a punch and lands with a force."

 - Amazon Reviewer

"This book is very healing to show that so many of us experience the same emotions while dealing with loss, heartbreak , self discovery, and life’s ups and downs."

 - Amazon Reviewer

"One of the best poetry books I've ever read."

- Amazon Reviewer 

"This is poetry for anyone who has ever lost themselves, and for anyone brave enough to try and find their way back. Raw, relentless...


Marketing Plan

  • Launching on Instagram with teaser reels, poetry snippets, and aesthetic content via @bell.d.poet
  • Collaborating with influencers, book lovers, and poetry accounts for features and reviews
  • Book promotion via Amazon Ads, Goodreads campaigns, and Instagram promotions
  • Available on Amazon (with expanded distribution) in paperback and eBook (Audiobook format coming soon)
  • Exploring book club discussions and poetry spaces online


  • Launching on Instagram with teaser reels, poetry snippets, and aesthetic content via @bell.d.poet
  • Collaborating with influencers, book lovers, and poetry accounts for features and reviews
  • Book...

Available Editions

EDITION Paperback
ISBN 9798218619213
PRICE US$17.99 (USD)
PAGES 188

Available on NetGalley

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Average rating from 11 members


Featured Reviews

This was a beautiful collection of poetry on love and feelings from the time in the relationship and how reflecting on love lost makes you feel.

How so deep into the relationship you can lose who you were as you become a team, a duo, so when that ends how your life can feel so much different to before, after giving that person and relationship your everything to keep the love alive and going.

The poems touch on themes of love to hate, hope to commiserations, endings and beginnings of relationships and the feelings that leaves you dealing with and how broken that relationship can leave you to grieve and heal alone from.

If you are going through a heartbreak and need a book to show you how you feel is valid and others get how you feel in their own circumstances, this collection of poetry is easily one to pick up and find instant relatability in feelings.

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Thank you Netgalley, Lines in Emotions Publishing, and Belinda Daou for sending me this advanced review copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This was a deeply emotional experience. There was so much raw pain and emotion, that it was hard to read at times. They flowed one into the next, hitting deeper into your soul with each one. It was amazing, and something that I would read again and again.

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This book is written very well!
I loved how relatable the poems are for many people.
It's very raw & personal with I liked.
It might be one of the best poetry books I've read about heartbreaks in a long time.
I will be buying a copy for on my shelf to read through once in a while!

Thank you so much for everyone involved for the arc copy!

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A beautiful collection of poetry with some very relatable pieces within that had me thinking about my own life.

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This poetry book truly has you feeling all of the emotions. You can tell it is written from the heart and from the authors experiences, it is deep, meaningful and everything you need from a poetry book. Even if you haven't experienced a break up/heartbreak as most of these poems delve into, I still feel like it is a really relatable poetry book for a lot of people and the poems can be related to other experiences and emotions one is going through. The range of longer and shorter poems was lovely too I always like a mixture of poetry sizes.

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This book...I struggle to find words how to describe it! What first drew me to it, is the beautiful cover. This is a book you'd want on your shelf! And somehow, the author manages to make the inside of the book equally beautiful.

This poetry collection is raw, emotional, lyrical and heartbreaking. Read with caution if you've recently gone through a heartbreak, but also...read it!

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Breathing in Broken Spaces delves into the rawest corners of heartbreak, trauma, and survival. It's deeply personal and honest, these poems capture pain and resilience in ways that are both powerful and relatable. A moving read for anyone.

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Raw, Honest, and Beautifully Healing

Breathing in Broken Spaces is the kind of book that sits with you long after you close it—a quiet companion for anyone who’s ever felt fractured by life and is trying to find their way back to themselves. Belinda Daou writes with a tenderness that feels like a gentle hand on your shoulder, reminding you that you’re not alone in the hard, messy parts of being human. This book doesn’t shy away from darkness—it steps right into it. But what makes it so special is how Daou finds moments of light within that darkness: a spark of hope, a breath of resilience, a reminder that healing isn’t linear and that it’s okay to exist in broken spaces for a while.

Her writing is raw yet lyrical—like a whispered confession or a journal you find tucked away in a drawer. I often found myself rereading lines, underlining passages that felt like they were written just for me. It’s a book you can open to any page and find something true. Breathing in Broken Spaces is for anyone who’s been cracked open by grief, loss, love, or simply life itself. It’s not about pretending everything’s okay—it’s about honoring the cracks, the scars, and the beauty that can grow in unexpected places. If you need a reminder that your broken pieces don’t make you less worthy—that in fact they make you more deeply, beautifully human—this book will feel like a balm for your soul. I’m so grateful it exists.

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