A Sweeping Standalone from New York Times Bestseller Pepper Winters. “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.”…
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 heartbreak 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.
5 Stars
The Son & His Hope will ruin you in the best possible way. — The Romance Rebels
5 Stars
You need to experience this amazing, powerful, once in a lifetime series. –Heather, Goodreads
5 Stars
Epically beautiful and unforgettable. This story is beyond anything you’ll ever read. –Melissa, Goodreads
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Love Pepper Winters! Such a great read <3
What can I say? It’s Pepper Winters. I loved it!
Jacob is a farm boy, raised on a beautiful place, near animals, nature and learning from very young to take care of the land. With loving parents who lived a beautiful love story, he watched his father’s health deteriorate almost from the day he was born and a place that had everything to be happy surrounded by good memories ends up becoming a mausoleum suffocated by their weight.
Hope is the daughter of a Hollywood star and so grew up surrounded by luxury and wealth. With her mother’s death, her father took her daughter to every job he had to attend, and with that Hope did not have a home in the proper sense of the word, she always lived in a trailer accompanied by the nanny traveling from country to country. Born to be perfect in a world that lives by appearances, Hope does not fit and her fascination with death only proves how peculiar she is.
Jacob lost his father. Hope lost his mother. How each chooses to deal with pain is what sets them apart even more. Jacob closed himself to the world. Loving became synonymous with pain and to protect himself he closes off to that feeling. Hope may have several questions in her mind, but if there is one thing that makes her happy is to live. And living without love is not life. Hope loves too much and is not afraid to demonstrate because she knows how short an opportunity can be. Jacob also loves too much, but because he can not overcome his fear of losing, he stops loving. But as Hope put it so well, living without love is not life.
A film that arouses several feelings is responsible for the meeting of these two. And if Jacob insists on getting away from everything and everyone, Hope also insists on not leaving him alone. Over the years, we have been following these two characters as well as their families, and we see how the impact of grief affects each one.
Much more than a novel, the book is an ode to death, addressing how each person deals with loss and pain. All the characters are suffering. Jacob can not forget and forgive. He is caught between the promise, the longing, the anger and the fear of moving on and disrespecting his father’s memory. By isolating himself, he places his future in the background. Hope was most affected by his actions.
Hope, on the other hand, struggles to find herself, to find out who she is and what she wants out of life. When she saw Jacob, he intrigued her, over the years she’d tried to be his friend, but little by little she’d fallen in love with him. But loving a person who refutes love was not easy.
The book has awakened me several reflections, the reading is long, well detailed and in some moments tissues are necessary. I was surprised by the weight and depth of the work. Jacob and Hope made me reflect. Much more than a love story, these two gave a lesson of wisdom on human feelings. Read. Just read.
*ARC provided in exchange for an honest Review *
I both longed for and feared this book. There’s no other way to describe it. I longed for the tale of Jacob to use as a ball to my battered heart after experiencing Ren and Della’s story. (Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED The Boy & His Ribbon and The Girl & her Ren. I was an addict devouring every soul destroying word.) I just knew that I needed more.
What I got was…MORE. It was not rainbows and unicorns. It was not instalove. It was intense and heartbreaking. The Son & His Hope is painful and hopeful. It’s tragic, heart squeezing, and brutal. It’s love in a messy, traumatized world. It’s a true Wild experience. No pain, no gain, right!?!
If you’ve read the Ribbon Duet, you are already so invested you probably are fighting tears with the blurb. I know I lost it in the prologue. If by some strange twist of fate you opted to take this journey with Jacob before experiencing his parents epic romance. I wish you luck. You aren’t aware yet of the kind of pain and heartache Pepper Winters can bestow on her readers. You also have no idea the amount of joy and bittersweet smiles you have in store for you.
The Son & His Hope have me the completion I never thought possible. Pepper Winters rounds out any injustices you might have claimed from The Ribbon Duet. Happily Ever After doesn’t always look the way we planned, in real life and fiction.
One of my favorite things about this series is Pepper Winters isn’t afraid to give us the happily ever after our beloved characters deserve. I’m still smiling through my tears. I think it will be quite awhile before both my smile and tears stop but it was worth every heartache. It was worth the fear. It was worth it all to experience the joy and uncompromising love.
Reviewed for Sweet Spot Sisterhood
I’m not sure my words will ever do this amazing story justice. Sometimes we read a book that just touches us so deeply your hearts rushing, your emotions are on overload and you feel everything right to your core. It’s rare that an author leaves me knowing a book and characters will always be in my heart the way this one has.
BE PREPARED, tissues ready and time, because you will not be able to put this book down.
My heart was smashed with Della and Ren’s story, and I knew going into their Son Jacobs story I would be ruined. I was wrong! I was not prepared for the rawness nor the depth of emotion this book would claw out of me.
A fourteen year old boy, burdened with promises to be kept, responsibilities, and grief, he’s seen that no matter how perfect love is, it ends with pain and loss. His coping mechanism is to close himself off, even to those he loves.. oh how my heart broke for this tormented young man.
Hope has suffered loss too, yet she grasps life, with strength, even at her young age. Despite Jacobs apparent Coldness and making her feel like a pest, she feels a connection to him that she isn’t ever going to lose. A young girl who gives her heart so freely to a boy who doesn’t want her love and never giving up, no matter the pain and devastation he throws at her.
This book is so raw and real, it hurts !!! the pain is real, and i did have to stop reading at times, not because i wanted to, but because i couldn’t read between the free flowing tears. I was literally a snotty sobbing mess.
This book isn’t just a romance, its a book about life, real life, the life that kicks you down, the life that lifts you up. It’s also a book of hope, recovery and Love, giving us one of the most incredible journeys you will ever read.
This author writes with such beauty, mingled with pain that she delivers so masterfully you don’t even realise your heart is being shredded and gently stitched back together. Without a doubt this book and characters leave their mark…. BE WILD PEOPLE !!!
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.
Live Wild. Love Freely. Be Blessed.
The saga of hopeless, forbidden love which started in Ren & Della duet, seems to climax in this book. Pepper has gone further in portrayal of Agony of Unrequited Affections by detailing a story between Jacob Ren Wild and Hope Jacinta Murphy in all the colours of anger, angst, grief, rejection and desolation.
Despite being penned with a backdrop of lush, fertile Cherry Hills farm, there’s penury in the hearts of all the characters. The void left by Ren is a gaping hole in the farm, it’s swallowing all involved and getting wider and deeper by the day. Sorrow so profound and thick like a blanket, it’s almost suffocating, but for the presence of Hope, literally and figuratively.
“You’re ruining everything.”
“Maybe.” She sucked in a breath with a blood-heating hitch.
“Or maybe I’m fixing everything.”
Pepper is a master of evoking emotions so indelible and inerasable, the remorse just rubbed off on my heart like ink from the paper transfers on the hands of the reader. Despondency and latent frustration is the mood of the story. Pepper skillfully delves into grief of left behind relatives who are struggling with Death of a loved one. This subject matter would have gone completely dark black in the hands of any less accomplished author, but I guess Pepper balances the darkness of loneliness and lightness of being, expertly. She being an introvert feels more and that transfers in her stories a lot in the form of ponderings and monologues. She lives close to nature, so her sentiments are magnified and vivid. She colours sadness inky black, the smile and vivaciousness of Hope is evident in striped pink pajamas and sunshine yellow. Della’s acceptance is calm and placid like the endless blue skies and rolling green hills.
“She was shy beneath strength. Quiet beneath conversation. And when she’d hugged me? God, she’d shown me pain had multiple levels. A hug from family could sear and sting. But a hug from her? It drew blood.”
The story is so vast, the growth of characters gets ample space and time. Hope and Jacob meet when they are kids, on the sets of Ren and his Ribbon movie and then the premiere. Ren’s instant dislike doesn’t deter the effervescent and persistent Hope. Much like her name, she’s a glimmer and living, breathing flame that scatters the mourning shadows from Jacobs life.
Jacob seems like a lost cause almost throughout the story. Carrying a chip on his shoulders the size of Everest, he’s snarky, stubborn, depressed and volatile.
“Wild as his surname baptised him. Savage as the loneliness in his heart.”
Grief had swollen up like a balloon and filled his heart in all the nooks and crannies so much so that there was not a shred of space for love and he is very comfortable in the grief and self-pity.
It’s an uphill task requiring endless patience, steadfast loyalty and unshakeable belief in the power of love. All this is in the makeup of Hope. Hats off to this chit of a girl who falls for Jacob at first sight and never gives up or walks away. Literally going to the ends of the earth to salvage his broken shipwrecked soul. Such a strong girl-woman, she amazed me with her tenacity and rocklike steadfastne
“Wake up and apologise. Wake up and be brave. Wake up and accept life in all its gifts and glories, all its sadness and suffering.”
Pepper has stretched the beauty and soulfulness of Ren & Della series to this book too. Very well written, poetical and philosophical. Very intense, at times therapeutic, at times full of sick intentions, it’s bound to effect you strongly, that’s for sure. Pepper highlights the strength of human spirit to survive and heal. Very beautifully etched characters, melodramatic dialogues, witty banter, all this makes it an unforgettable read.
5 stars for Little Lace and the wild One
“I wanted to curse and kiss her all at once. This damn girl. This aggravating, irritating, troublesome girl.”
While this story can be read as a standalone, I highly recommend that you do yourself the favor of reading the whole series. It’s amazing and life-changing. I’ve read many books since the first book, The Boy and His Ribbon but I still can’t stop thinking about it. I think this series would make an epic movie, I can already see it in my mind. The author managed to pull every emotion from me. She made me feel so deeply, and it didn’t stop at the last page. There are so many beautiful moments that I will treasure forever. This collection definitely deserves a place of honor on my bookshelf.
Jacob is beyond broken. He was born into a home filled with love. He felt it, he remembers it, he mourns it. He loved so hard that the loss he suffered caused him to close himself off, protecting himself from future loss. He saw the happiness love brings and the pain that follows. So, he’s decided that’s not a road he wants to travel. He’d rather sacrifice one to avoid the other. Sounds like a plan, right?
My heart broke for the boy he was then and the man he became later. I wanted to spank him and hug him at different times, but I loved him from beginning to end. I felt his pain and understood his disillusionment, but I yearned so hard for him to let himself feel again. I anxiously waited for the time that Hope would come into his life and shake it up.
Hope is my hero. She gave and gave and gave, offering support and friendship and love. Jacob was a jerk. And though she offered, I can honestly tell you that he didn’t take and take and take from her. He tried to avoid her, but she wouldn’t let him. He tried to hate her, and would never admit that he didn’t. She pushed and he evaded. He pushed her away and she kept coming back. Until she didn’t…
What would it take for him to risk his heart? That’s something you will have to learn for yourself. It’s a journey that will have you questioning your sanity and your sobriety. It’s hard and soft, bitter and sweet, devastating and beautiful. It’s… everything.
All it took was the first few pages and I was desperately trying to hold back my tears. Just to see his name ‘Ren Wild’ made me feel like mush. My emotions all over the place, tears running down my face. Boyhow was I going to get through the whole story is this is how I was just at the beginning. More tissues required. No there mandatory for this book.
I fell in love with Ren and Della’s story so going into The Son and His Hope I knew what I was getting myself into. The raw emotions that bled through the pages tore me apart. The depth of the story line and the complexity of the characters drew me in. I felt as if I was a voyeur on the sidelines watching it all unfold.
Jacob was a tortured soul who forgot how to love the living and enjoy life.
This book is so far my top read for 2019 and I think it will be extremely hard for it to be topped. Ren , Della, Jacob and Hope will stay with me for a very long time
I don’t ever seem to feel as though I’m able to convey just how much I love Pepper’s books – when it comes to putting my feelings into words, I’m always at a loss. Even now, weeks after finishing, I’ve read and reviewed a few others since, yet only now am I able to sit and write this without breaking down in tears. The Boy and His Hope was all that I expected and then some. The heartbreak from reading Ren & Della’s story was immediately fresh in my mind and suddenly just as painful again. This family… how much pain can one endure? Does the pain not matter when the lover overshadows it? I was, as you can tell, overwhelmed by this story, letting it rip me apart and then heal me yet again with its beauty and love. I always know I’m in for an emotional rollercoaster when picking up one of Pepper’s books and The Son and His Hope did NOT disappoint. Highly recommended book & series!!
Interesting
This book. This series. You don’t even know how epic this series is.
It’s heartache and hope.
It’s losing and winning.
It’s coming together and tearing apart.
It’s finding the place you belong only to lose it all.
It’s finding your soul mate and knowing the real meaning of “love of a lifetime.”
There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to get you to read these books. I would do it all to have you fall in love with these characters and experience this amazing, powerful, once in a lifetime series.
Simply awesome!
I took me a little while to get into this book after reading Della and Ren story, I really don’t know why I waited this long but I’m glad I finally dig into this amazing world.
Getting into the song and his hope world was a very magical experience, same as the previous books. you know you’re about to immerse yourself in a long journey with very profound and complex characters that will bring more to you than any other book.
The son and his hope is the story of Jacob the son of Ren and Della he has so many things that are not letting him live his life to the fullest, he is a beautiful boy with so much to give but his fears and past is not letting him move forward.. he just has eyes for his ranch and his horses, nothing else matters to him than taking care of what he loves the most and what his family owns..
“I kept people at a distance because I loved too much, not too little.”
Hope is a beautiful girl who has “everything” she wanted, she experienced a very bad situation that in some way paralyzed her to move forward and fight for what she wants. she doesn’t want to follow her father footsteps, she is not built for Hollywood or any of that nonsense but nobody understood her more than herself.. they thought it was just a face or something that will eventually pass and go away but her determination, her goal, and her true nature is to work with the land and be in touch with those beautiful horses Jacob seems to love.
Hope and Jacob both are stubborn and fighting their own demons but when time and life keeps bringing them together, no matter how hard they try.. they will need to start addressing what they’re feeling even though Jacobs demons are not letting him to finally breathe and be himself again.
“I’d used distance as a shield and loneliness as invisibility against love.”
The Love and hate relationship between Hope and Jacob was pretty strong from the very first moments they met each other. no matter how much Jacob tried to sabotage the moment and the night, they both knew this meeting was going to transcend and became one of the most important days of their lives..
I have so much to say about this amazing story, I cried, laugh and smile so much, I fell in love with these wonderful characters and also I fell in love all over again with Ren, Della, Cassie and all the previous characters that showed up in this amazing story making it even more enjoyable.
“Live Wild. Love Freely. Be Blessed.”
In love with these amazing characters and series, I really can’t wait to start reading more Pepper Winters Words.
Another emotional book in this series! I thought going in it was maybe a spinoff stand alone but you definitely need to read the two before it, which I have. Jacob is such a broken boy, pushing everyone away. Hope is so pushy and strong enough to put up with his walls. Most girls would give up way earlier, but there was a connection from the first meeting. Their back and forth was sometimes hard to read, and his life really is full of pain and loss. I’ve cried so much in this series.
Normally I Love Pepper’s writing but I couldn’t get into this one. Jacob was so hateful and mean. I never felt a connection between the H & h. Hope put up with too much, with so little in return. I cried over Della but not for Hope and Jacob.
Words cannot express the impact of this story!! Pepper Winters has a way of capturing your heart! So thought provoking and frustrating at times. Her words just penetrate your soul! Truly moving!! Phenomenal is an understatement, its more like epic!!
This is the third and final book(?) in the classic Ribbon Series ! I can’t remember crying and smiling while reading a book as I did with this series! Making myself comfortable and starting this series again!
This book shattered me over and over again. The stubbornness and strength of the characters gave me so many feelings that I just can’t put the right words together to say how powerful this story is. Combine with the authors writing it truly was an epic journey of mass proportions.
This was not the story I envisioned when I first started reading but by god Pepper draws you in to a roller coaster of a ride whilst continuing to breaking my heart. I can finally say I now feel at peace. I have never read a book that has as tumultuous as this. This series is a top read & this story will stay with me for eternity!
Story:
A coming of age, unrequited love between an untamed wild stallion and a brave young pony. This was a love/hate relationship that developed into a slow burning friendship.
The Hollywood child actor meets the sullen moody wild one. They share a bond not many understand even-though she’s a city girl and he’s a country boy.
Overall:
I enjoyed the cameo moments of Ren’s character. I didn’t realize I still had a tender heart for Ren.
I expected a different type of experience from all the posts about others who read this. I even prepared myself emotionally before reading by putting it off for a few weeks making sure I was emotionally stable. Yet, I survived each part with no emotional concerns. I questioned why I remained so unattached. I was surprised by how unattached I was. I expected to be a soggy mess of tears, but Jacob’s character had me furious. His behavior didn’t stir up emotional turmoil it caused anger and frustration. I’m not emotionally invested in this book like the two prior books. I know it’s because of Jacob. His phobias and fears caused frustration in me rather than sympathy. I felt like Jacob and Hope went in circles never breaking the cycle. I wanted off this vicious roller coaster ride of ups and downs.
I had a love/hate relationship with Jacob’s character. His attitude was understandable, yet frustrating. I couldn’t help comparing Jacob to a horse. He was as untamed and wild as a wild black beauty unwilling to be tethered. Jacob was a complex character with issues I don’t even know how to process let alone understand.
Then there’s Hope. I didn’t like her at first. Her pushy know-it-all attitude rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn’t understand Hope’s determination to earn a friendship with Jacob. I liked Hope when she wasn’t obsessing over Jacob. When she focused on herself she was a wonderful character. She gave too much of herself siphoning all of her bravery into this sullen moody man.
Although, I liked that Hope was the only one brave enough to get Jacob to face his issues, yet it still seemed like it should have come from other means.
My interest slowly dwindled and dissipated with Jacob’s attitude. He wore on my patience and my sanity. This was the first time I actually skim read a Pepper Winters book. Normally I appreciate all of Pepper’s words, but in this case with Jacob I needed her to cut thru the bull$hit.