Review: The Son & His Hope by Pepper Winters

Release: February 12, 2019
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Dual POV - 1st person
Heat: mild & infrequent
Type: standalone - a better read if you read The Ribbon Duet first
Length: 572 pages
Format: eARC provided by Social Butterfly PR

Available from Amazon

“Things you should know about me from the very beginning:
I was born to true love, witnessed the destruction it causes, and vowed never to let such agony happen to me. I am not a story-teller like my father. I am not a writer like my mother. I am just a son—their son.
I am happy being alone.
And that is all I ever want to be.”

JACOB
The day he was born, Jacob learned his hardest and longest lesson.
It wasn’t a lesson a boy should learn so young, but from his earliest memories he knew where happiness lives, so does tragedy. Where love exists, so does heartbreak. And where hope resides, so does sorrow.
That lesson carved him from the kid to the teen to the man.
And nothing and no one could change his mind.

HOPE
I first met him when he was fourteen at a movie premiere of all places. A movie based on his parent’s life.
He was stoic, strong, suspicious, and secretive.
I was only ten, but I felt something for him. A strange kind of sorrow that made me want to hug and heal him.
I was the daughter of the actor hired to play his father.
We shared similarities.
I recognised parts of him because they were parts of me.
But no matter how many times we met. No matter how many times I tried.
He stayed true to his vow to never fall.

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My Review

★★★★★

I almost cried! With The Son & His Hope, Pepper Winters tore my heart out, shredded it, tossed it around like a play thing, stomped it on the ground like a celebratory football, and then soothingly and gently placed it back in my chest whole again. The Wilds sure know how to tug on the heart strings, taking readers on an emotional journey not to be missed. Any story that can evoke so many feelings from me is always a winner in my book.

I remember the joy I felt when Jacob was born. I was so happy for Ren and Della. Seeing their love come full circle, after everything they survived, made my heart sing. But Jacob grew up to break my heart. He was so damaged and burdened not only by the greatest loss a child can suffer, but also by the promises he made. He saw first hand that there was no such thing as a happy ending. Love only brought unbearable pain. So he shut himself off. He kept everyone at a distance. Feelings hurt and touch burned. And everyone let him get away with it. He knew he shouldn't, but no one forced him to face anything. No one... until Hope.

She made me wonder what life as free as her, as happy as her could be like and, in turn, threatened everything fundamental about me.

Hope was everything Jacob wasn't. She knew what loss was, having suffered herself. But she embraced life. She loved harder. Her heart was huge and she couldn't understand someone who didn't appreciate everything life had to offer. She made herself into a nuisance. She challenged Jacob. She pushed him. She called him out on his bull. She made him feel and question and fight and in return, she lost herself to him. He owned her. And every scrap of something he dredged up to give her, she soaked it up like sunshine.

My wish of helping him was coming true. He was learning to trust me. He was learning to like me. And I wouldn't do anything to jeopardise that.

Jacob and Hope had the most dysfunctional 'friendship' I've ever seen. Even their tender moments were underscored with tension. Jacob's pain was a tangible thing, taking up space and breathing life into the wrong things. It ravaged souls. It pummeled hearts. It devoured, consumed and devastated. It also blinded poor Jacob and Hope was really his only hope. I loved how she was always there, even when he did everything possible to drive her away. Love isn't always kind and these two experienced that for themselves.

The Son & His Hope was epic! It made me want to shake the characters into some sense, it drove me to question my own thoughts on death and the 'after', and it taunted me into accepting the unknown. The saying goes that it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all and I'm so glad that Jacob and Hope got to live that truth.