Save Your Breath Summary, Characters and Themes

Save Your Breath by Kandi Steiner is a slow-burning, second-chance romance that tells the story of two people bound by history, unspoken longing, and unresolved pain.  It centers on Mia Conaway, better known as pop sensation Mia Love, and Aleksander Suter, a professional hockey player with a volatile reputation.

From childhood friendship to the chaos of adulthood, the novel traces the evolution of their relationship through fame, family, trauma, and a fake engagement that begins as damage control but threatens to reveal deeper truths.  Told in dual POVs, this story captures what it means to fall for the person who already knows your soul—and still hesitates to hold it.

Summary

Mia Love, a globally recognized pop star, returns to New York City in the midst of a professional and emotional storm.  She’s scheduled to appear on a late-night talk show to promote her latest album, but her real anxiety stems from the reappearance of Aleks Suter, the boy who once lived with her family and quietly captured her heart.

Their publicists have devised a scheme—a fake engagement—to boost both their images: hers as a powerful woman in love, and his as a reformed bad boy.  Though the engagement is just a PR ploy, it sets the stage for their unresolved history to boil over.

Mia and Aleks have always shared a complicated bond.  As teenagers, Aleks came from a broken past in Switzerland and was welcomed into Mia’s home as a foster hockey player.

Their closeness quickly deepened, with unspoken feelings simmering beneath their sibling-like connection.  However, when Mia finally asked him to kiss her, Aleks rejected her—not out of disinterest, but from fear of hurting her or violating her father’s trust.

That one moment created a rift neither of them ever fully repaired.

Now, as adults, they’re thrust back into each other’s lives in close quarters.  A hurricane strands Mia in Aleks’s apartment, forcing them to confront the lingering tension between them.

The storm becomes a metaphor for the emotional reckoning they’ve avoided for years.  Their banter is laced with old affection, buried resentment, and the kind of intimacy that only grows between people who’ve known each other too long and not well enough at the same time.

As the fake engagement begins to garner media attention, their roles blur.  Public moments—a red carpet appearance, photo ops, and even a staged kiss—start to feel real.

Aleks, usually emotionally closed off, surprises Mia with small gestures of attentiveness.  He listens to her music, remembers old conversations, and speaks of her work with sincerity.

These moments chip away at Mia’s defenses.  She’s spent years being misunderstood, branded as a teenage glitter-pop star, and Aleks is one of the few who sees the real her beneath the image.

Still, emotional landmines linger.  Mia recalls their past vividly—his silence after her kiss, her father’s stern warnings, and the weight of their unspoken love.

Meanwhile, Aleks is trapped between guilt over his past behavior and the fear that Mia will never truly forgive him.  They keep telling themselves it’s all for show, but their bodies and hearts don’t cooperate.

A passionate kiss on a Florida beach, meant to be for the cameras, unearths feelings neither of them can pretend away anymore.

Yet the confusion only grows.  After a night of drinking, Mia ends up in Aleks’s care again.

Though she makes an advance, he gently turns her down—an act of respect she misinterprets as another rejection.  When they fake a proposal on a yacht, the weight of it all becomes too much.

Aleks’s speech—while part of the performance—reveals genuine adoration, and Mia can’t stomach the pretense.  She throws up after the event, overwhelmed by the collision of reality and performance, and cancels their engagement party soon after.

Their once-intimate friendship starts to fray.  Mia keeps her distance.

Aleks is left confused and heartbroken.  A literal storm brings them back together—another hurricane, this time a symbol of emotional upheaval—but even in this forced proximity, they remain stuck in a cycle of avoidance and yearning.

Mia tries to move on with her boyfriend Austin, but it’s clear her heart isn’t in it.  Even during family moments, she drifts, haunted by memories of Aleks.

When she finds Aleks in her father’s house, sitting alone and staring at a beer bottle next to a bottle of pills, the emotional toll is clear.  Aleks’s depression is palpable, and Mia’s helplessness underscores how deeply entwined they still are.

They are each other’s anchors and wounds.  Even after all this time, neither has been able to let go.

But something shifts.  They share a night together—intimate, raw, and finally honest.

Years of pent-up emotion spill out.  Aleks confesses he has always loved her but thought he wasn’t enough.

Mia admits her fear of being rejected again.  This catharsis is short-lived.

Austin, Mia’s manipulative ex, leaks a story to the press exposing their engagement as a lie.  The fallout is swift and public.

In the middle of the chaos, Aleks offers her something real.  He proposes—truly this time—not for PR, but out of love.

His words are impassioned and genuine.  Mia says yes, not just to the proposal, but to everything they’ve avoided for years.

Ten days later, they marry in her childhood home.  Aleks cries when he sees her in her wedding dress.

Her father blesses the marriage, acknowledging that he’s always seen Aleks as more than just a foster kid—he saw a son.

Their wedding is quiet, sincere, and far removed from the fabricated glamor that first brought them together.  Aleks and Mia, finally aligned in heart and mind, step into their new life as husband and wife.

In private moments—walks in the snow, quiet laughter, playful teasing—the truth of their bond becomes unshakable.  The PR stunt that once served as damage control has become something real, a relationship built not on performance but on love.

Months later, on their honeymoon, Aleks reflects on how far they’ve come.  He’s going to therapy, working on himself, and Mia is writing new music—songs filled with love and honesty.

Their lives are still complicated, still full of expectations and scrutiny, but they now face them together.  The story ends not with grand gestures, but with shared joy—Aleks throwing Mia into the pool, their laughter echoing in the air.

What began as pretend has become a lasting truth.  Their love story, once stifled by silence and fear, finally breathes free.

Characters

Mia Conaway (Mia Love)

Mia Conaway, known to the world as the pop sensation Mia Love, is a deeply layered character who evolves dramatically throughout Save Your Breath.  At first glance, Mia is a successful, polished celebrity: she fills stadiums, dazzles cameras, and navigates the relentless scrutiny of fame with seeming ease.

However, behind that glittering image lies a woman riddled with emotional exhaustion, insecurities, and a longing for authenticity.  Her music becomes the mirror to her soul—her latest album, filled with raw emotions and vulnerability, signals a desperate attempt to reclaim her narrative and shed the “teen idol” label imposed on her.

Mia’s public bravado is frequently at odds with her private turmoil.  Her anxiety surfaces in small, telling gestures—shredding napkins, knotting her clothes, overcompensating with sarcasm—all of which underscore her fragile emotional state, especially when faced with Aleks, the one person who sees through the performance.

Her relationship with Aleks is the novel’s emotional backbone.  From their complicated teenage history—marked by her bold attempt to kiss him and his painful but well-meaning rejection—to the present-day whirlwind of a fake engagement, Mia’s journey is a push-and-pull between hope and heartbreak.

She is caught between loving Aleks and protecting herself from being hurt by him again.  Her longing is never passive; it simmers beneath every interaction, driving much of the tension.

Despite her fame, Mia is portrayed as someone who craves real connection, loyalty, and understanding.  Her deepest wounds are not from tabloids or industry backstabbing, but from being loved incompletely or too cautiously.

Ultimately, Mia’s character is a blend of strength and softness—an ambitious artist determined to control her destiny, yet still the girl who aches for the boy who once lived down the hall.

Aleksander Suter

Aleksander Suter, the brooding, emotionally reserved hockey player, is the perfect foil to Mia’s expressive, high-energy persona.  Raised in the foster system in Switzerland before being billeted with Mia’s family in high school, Aleks carries years of emotional baggage, self-doubt, and a hardened outer shell.

His rough upbringing—marked by neglect, instability, and the implicit message that he was never truly wanted—shapes how he approaches love and relationships.  Aleks views himself as damaged goods, which leads him to make self-sabotaging choices, particularly with Mia.

His refusal to kiss her as a teenager, though rooted in love and a desire to protect her from himself and her father’s disapproval, creates a rift that haunts both of them into adulthood.

As an adult, Aleks is caught in a downward spiral.  His career is on the brink of collapse due to bar fights and reckless behavior, yet the reintroduction of Mia into his life becomes both his salvation and his most terrifying vulnerability.

Aleks’s love for Mia is absolute—quiet, intense, and unwavering—but he struggles to express it.  His protective instincts emerge repeatedly, whether shielding her from aggressive fans or stepping into a fake relationship to salvage both their careers.

When he finally lets his walls down, his emotional confession is raw and transformative.  His proposal, born not out of PR necessity but genuine devotion, marks a pivotal moment of growth.

Aleks evolves from a man haunted by his past into someone willing to fight for his future.  His journey is one of reckoning and redemption, and in the end, his love story with Mia becomes the means through which he finally learns he is not too broken to be loved.

Isabella

Isabella, Mia’s publicist and close confidante, is more than just a background PR figure.  She operates as both a protective friend and a professional strategist, constantly trying to manage the chaos that surrounds Mia’s public life.

She is intuitive, sharp, and fiercely loyal, often the first to sense the undercurrents of Mia’s emotional world.  Her insight into Mia’s true feelings for Aleks adds layers to the narrative, as she subtly nudges Mia toward confronting her heart rather than hiding behind public image.

Isabella’s strength lies in her unwavering support—she shields Mia from the media storm, works tirelessly to counter negative press, and celebrates her wins without envy or agenda.  Her presence is stabilizing, a voice of reason amid emotional tumult.

Isabella also plays a role in exposing the fallout from Garrett and Austin’s betrayal, demonstrating her strategic prowess.  She is essential in navigating the rocky bridge between celebrity and personhood, helping Mia reclaim her truth both publicly and privately.

Charlie Conaway

Charlie Conaway, Mia’s father, is a figure of quiet strength and traditional values, whose influence reverberates throughout Mia and Aleks’s relationship.  A protective patriarch, Charlie’s presence is particularly felt in the past, where his stern boundaries shaped the trajectory of Mia and Aleks’s teenage romance.

His decision to forbid any romantic connection between them stems from love and concern, but it inadvertently plants seeds of heartache and repression.  Despite this, Charlie grows to genuinely love Aleks like a son, even if he never fully vocalizes it until the very end.

His transformation from a barrier to a blessing is significant.  During the wedding, his heartfelt approval and open emotion serve as both closure and new beginning for the couple.

Charlie represents the familial grounding that contrasts with the volatility of Mia and Aleks’s lives.  His eventual acceptance and emotional blessing provide the final stamp of legitimacy on a relationship that was once forbidden and fraught.

Austin

Austin, Mia’s ex-boyfriend, serves as the narrative’s antagonist, manipulating the media to tarnish her image and reinsert himself into her life with toxic intent.  He is calculated, opportunistic, and emotionally exploitative, using Mia’s fame as a weapon and her vulnerabilities as leverage.

Austin’s tell-all exposé with Garrett Orange doesn’t just attack Mia’s career; it invades her personal truth and seeks to dismantle her credibility.  His actions ignite the media storm that tests Mia and Aleks’s relationship, making him the catalyst for one of the book’s major turning points.

What makes Austin especially insidious is his familiarity with Mia—he knows how to trigger her insecurities and attempts to use that knowledge to his advantage.  However, his schemes ultimately backfire, and his exposure is met with public backlash.

Austin’s role highlights the dangers of toxic masculinity and the power dynamics often at play in high-profile relationships.  He is a reminder of what Mia is fighting to move beyond—and what true love, like that with Aleks, does not look like.

Garrett Orange

Garrett Orange, a venomous music critic, functions as an enabler of scandal and public disgrace.  He feeds on controversy, prioritizing clickbait over integrity, and becomes Austin’s mouthpiece in the destructive exposé.

Garrett’s role is emblematic of the predatory media culture that thrives on tearing down public figures, especially women.  His accusations that Mia’s music is derivative and his insinuations about her personal life show a complete disregard for nuance or emotional truth.

He serves as a foil to characters like Isabella, who work behind the scenes to build and protect.  Garrett’s downfall, when fans turn against him and media sentiment shifts, underscores a redemptive arc in the public eye—one where truth and loyalty can triumph over exploitation.

Though not central to the emotional core of the novel, Garrett’s presence intensifies the stakes and forces Mia and Aleks to take control of their narrative.

Themes

Emotional Guarding and Fear of Vulnerability

In Save Your Breath, emotional self-protection is a constant force that drives the characters’ decisions and shapes the trajectory of their relationship.  Both Mia and Aleks carry wounds that push them to build thick emotional walls.

For Mia, her entire public persona is a carefully curated façade—she’s polished, bold, and camera-ready, yet internally she’s desperate to be seen for who she truly is.  Her history as a teenage pop icon has made her wary of trusting the public and those closest to her, especially men, with her true self.

Aleks, in contrast, is hardened by years of instability and rejection, a foster child who never learned how to receive love without bracing for its eventual loss.  This internal fear surfaces whenever they are close to emotional or physical intimacy.

Aleks consistently pulls back from moments that could bring them closer, not because he lacks desire but because of the deeply rooted belief that his love could damage her or be rejected.  Mia, too, misinterprets restraint as disinterest, which only further fuels her inner doubts.

The fake engagement forces them into proximity, but their fear of being honest, of laying bare their emotions, means they spend much of the story pretending—both to the world and to themselves.  The pain of that pretense is not loud but lingering, manifesting in miscommunications, silences, and emotional push-and-pulls.

Their eventual openness is not a moment of revelation, but a slow surrender to the truth they’ve long suppressed.  The theme emphasizes that vulnerability is not weakness, but a form of trust and love that must be chosen every day.

The Blurred Lines Between Performance and Reality

Mia and Aleks’s relationship operates under a carefully constructed lie, a fake engagement designed to serve two damaged careers.  But the longer they stay in the lie, the harder it becomes to distinguish performance from authenticity.

Every public display—red carpet appearances, paparazzi kisses, press interviews—is meant to sell a fantasy.  Yet in the private aftermath of these staged moments, the characters are left emotionally destabilized.

When Aleks proposes during a yacht shoot, the words are rehearsed, but his voice cracks with sincerity.  When they kiss for the cameras, it ignites a passion that has nothing to do with PR optics.

The characters constantly oscillate between what’s real and what’s scripted, and in doing so, they confront how much of their public and private selves are dictated by others’ expectations.  For Mia, this is compounded by her career in music, where her image has long overshadowed her artistry.

For Aleks, it’s about reclaiming control over a reputation shaped by misconduct rather than talent.  The act of pretending to be in love forces them to face the real emotions they’ve tried to bury.

Their love story evolves not despite the performance but through it, as each scripted act peels away layers of self-denial.  Eventually, their public lie becomes their emotional truth—not because they stopped performing, but because the performance laid bare what was already true.

The theme probes the emotional cost of living within constructed identities and the unexpected authenticity that can emerge from artifice.

Longing Rooted in Shared History

The foundation of Mia and Aleks’s connection is not their fame or the fabricated engagement but a long-standing friendship laced with unrealized romantic tension.  Their shared history—from high school sleepovers to tender poolside moments—gives weight to their present-day interactions.

The intimacy of their childhood is what fuels the intensity of their adult longing.  The story repeatedly circles back to these early, formative experiences, revealing how both characters have been emotionally shaped by their past closeness and distance.

Aleks’s decision not to kiss Mia when she was a teenager, despite wanting to, becomes a pivotal memory for both, representing not just missed opportunity but a choice rooted in respect and fear.  Their memories are not just nostalgic; they’re emotional anchors.

Each flashback or reminder of a shared moment brings unresolved desire to the surface.  Even as they navigate fame and chaos, they are continually pulled back to who they were with each other before the world complicated everything.

The tension is magnified by their mutual belief that they may have missed their moment, that perhaps they were always meant to be more but didn’t have the courage to try.  That lingering “what if” becomes a powerful driver, keeping them in each other’s orbit and complicating their every interaction.

Their story isn’t about falling in love—it’s about recognizing that they’ve always been in love and trying to figure out if the present can catch up to the past.  This theme emphasizes that time does not erode true connection; it only deepens its ache.

The Intersection of Fame and Identity

Mia and Aleks are both public figures—one a pop star, the other a professional hockey player—whose lives are scrutinized, commodified, and manipulated.  Their identities are constantly at war with their images.

Mia’s frustration with being seen as a “glittery teenage heartthrob” instead of a serious artist speaks to the erasure of her authentic self beneath a manufactured persona.  She’s not just battling public perception; she’s battling the machine of the music industry that dictates who she’s supposed to be.

Aleks, similarly, struggles with being branded a “bad boy” whose worth is measured by headlines rather than performance.  His temper, past trauma, and emotional repression all feed into the narrative the media sells.

Their fake engagement is a desperate attempt to seize back some control, to rewrite the narrative on their own terms.  But the irony is that in doing so, they risk losing themselves further.

Fame is not just a backdrop to their story; it is an active force that both isolates and connects them.  Their most genuine moments—quiet hotel conversations, late-night cider, a shared look in a storm—happen far from cameras and reporters.

Yet even those moments are shadowed by the knowledge that nothing stays private for long.  The theme underscores the dehumanizing effects of celebrity, the pressure to maintain a public script, and the hunger to be seen for who you really are.

In reclaiming their personal truth, Mia and Aleks confront the cost of visibility and the necessity of drawing boundaries between who they are and who the world wants them to be.

Miscommunication and Emotional Timing

The romantic arc between Mia and Aleks is marked not by a lack of love but by poorly timed decisions and misread signals.  The emotional push and pull between them stems from years of unspoken feelings, protective silence, and misinterpretations.

Aleks’s refusal to kiss Mia as a teenager is not an act of rejection but one of restraint and fear, yet Mia internalizes it as proof she was never enough.  Likewise, when Aleks backs away after an intimate moment while Mia is drunk, his choice is rooted in respect, but to Mia, it reinforces a painful narrative of being unwanted.

These recurring miscommunications become emotional landmines that neither fully knows how to navigate.  Their relationship is full of half-starts, aborted conversations, and interrupted truths.

When they do express their feelings, it often happens under heightened circumstances—during fake proposals, amid crises, or in the heat of scandal—which blurs the line between sincerity and spectacle.  The dissonance between what they feel and what they say traps them in cycles of distance and regret.

Even moments of genuine connection, like Aleks holding Mia during her panic or Mia comforting Aleks in his depressive spiral, fail to break the silence completely.  The story shows that love alone is not enough without clarity, timing, and courage.

The theme highlights how easily emotional opportunity can be lost when communication is stifled by fear or external pressure.  It’s only when they stop trying to protect each other from the truth that they finally begin to find peace in it.