Pepper Winters Archives - Brooke's Reviews and Sweeps

The Ribbon Duet

By Brookelorren on February 5, 2021February 3, 2021Leave a Comment

The Boy & His Ribbon has been on my radar for a couple years. I finally drew its name in the TBR lottery, and–this duology may just be one of the best books I’ll read in 2021. It’s still early in the year, but this book had all. The. Feels.

The blurb doesn’t give away much; however, I think that to get an idea of what you’re getting yourself into with this book, you’ll want to at least know what happens by the second or third chapter. From the blurb, I imagined The Boy & His Ribbon was a story about a boy who had been sold, and he fell in love with his owner’s daughter while he was still “their property.” Nope.

This story begins with the boy running away from the people that bought him. With the monsters’ baby daughter in his backpack, stowing away. Ren is ten years old, and he not only has to worry about surviving after escaping, but he also has to worry about taking care of an infant. He can’t take her back because they’ll kill him, he’s too kind to leave her to the wolves, and he’s too distrustful of people to leave her to Social Services.

And they fall in love. Not immediately, but as they grow up. Perhaps you’re thinking this is really weird–I mean, do you fall in love with someone who you grew up with that is almost like a cross between your dad and your sibling, even though you’re not technically related? This is addressed in the books. The Boy & His Ribbon is mostly about the first 18 or so years of their life together, watching this relationship evolve. The Girl & Her Ren is about the next 20ish years of their life.

A Tragedy

This duology is not a happy story; it is a tragedy. While A Boy & His Ribbon isn’t a tragedy, The Girl & Her Ren is, and you’re not going to want to read one without reading the other. This is why I’m reviewing them together. You don’t want to start reading the first book without being prepared for having your heart ripped out in the second. I don’t want to say too much about what exactly happens here (although I do plan on writing a second, spoilery post on my thoughts later), but I was weeping for almost the entire second half of the second book. But there were some beautiful parts to this love story as well.

This book is true-to-life, and sometimes life is heartbreaking. But even when life is heartbreaking, there are plenty of good times too. That is probably what makes this book so good and so painful in the end. It doesn’t paint life with a rosy brush and try to pretend everything is always wonderful.

Kind of Funny… An Anachronism

This book was published in 2018, but it runs into the future, ending in 2032. Of course, the characters go through 2020. Of course, there are no mentions of the pandemic. It could take you out of the story if you think too much about it, but if you see this as an alternate universe where the pandemic never happened, then the references to 2020 and no masks or lockdowns is a little comical.

Not A YA Book

Don’t look at the description and think this is a YA book. It is definitely not. Yes, the story starts out with a ten-year-old boy and a baby, but they grow up. Even in the first book. I wouldn’t recommend this to my fourteen-year-old.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for an adult book that will break your heart, you may wish to give The Ribbon Duet a try. It wasn’t what I expected, but it was sooo good. I think it was highly underrated. At the same time, the blurb really didn’t give enough information to give me a good idea of what it was about.

Hundreds

By Brookelorren on April 6, 2019March 28, 2019Leave a Comment

After reading Pennies and Dollars by Pepper Winters, I had to read the next book in the series, Hundreds. Never mind that I still haven’t read the next two books (I will though). This third book in the Dollar series has more twists and allows us to get to know Pim and Elder a little bit more.

Since Hundreds is the third book in the series, there are spoilers for the first two books.

Pim is now talking, but as you would expect, she’s still dealing with the hurts of her past. She’s falling for Elder, but he doesn’t seem to think it’s such a good idea. In this book, we learn why.

We learn a lot about Elder in this book. Despite his dark past, I still like him. He’s written in such a way so that even though you know he’s made mistakes, you still like him (or at least I do). I root for his character, and I root for him and Pim to get together.

Elder tries to get Pim to become a thief like he was, and in a way, I’m rooting for Pim not to go down this dark path. I don’t know what direction this series is headed in (and since I haven’t read the last two books yet, I still don’t know), but I hope that she doesn’t go down the path of darkness.

This is another great book in the series, although it’s left at something of a cliffhanger. I imagine that Hundreds will take quite a different turn in the next book. There were revelations in this book that will probably raise their heads in Thousands.

If you enjoyed the first two books in the Dollar series, you’ll probably want to continue with Hundreds. I enjoyed this book as much as I did the first two, and plan to continue reading this series with the last two books at some point.

Dollars and More…

By Brookelorren on April 4, 2019March 28, 2019Leave a Comment

Dollars is the second book in the Dollar series by Pepper Winters. It was another book that was difficult to put down. After reading Pennies, I was happy that my library had this one ready to read (I had to request that they buy Hundreds, I’ll probably buy the last two books). It is far less disturbing than the first book, and deals with a person in recovery.

Because this is the second book in a series, there are spoilers.

Dollars starts where Pennies leaves off. Elder has rescued Pimlico from Alrik, but the damage done from over a year of abuse has already occurred. Not only is her mind damaged to the point where she can’t even wear clothes without being uncomfortable, her tongue is damaged and her body bears the scars and burdens of someone much older than she is.

Even though she has been “rescued”, she still is not free. Pimlico may be in a gilded cage rather than a torture chamber, but she still belongs to someone. With her damaged mind, will she ever be able to be truly free? There’s a scene where Pimlico and Elder are on a business trip and Elder runs into someone who plans on attending one of the auctions run by the same company that sold her in the first place. Her mind nearly shatters again at that. She fears that she might be sold again.

In Dollars, we get to know the mysterious Elder, although there is still much about his past that needs to be revealed. He says he’s dangerous, but there doesn’t seem to be much that he does to hurt Pim.

The book was difficult to put down. It’s hard to put a finger on why, but there’s something about this book that was addictive. Fortunately, Dollars isn’t as dark as Pennies, otherwise I’d have trouble finishing this series. Pim and Elder are obviously developing an attraction to each other, but Pim still refuses to talk.

Pennies is still free (probably with the hopes of sucking you into the rest of the series) and Dollars and the rest of the series is reasonably priced. I haven’t had the chance to read any of the series past Hundreds, but I do plan on reading the last two books at some point. If you liked Pennies, I recommend continuing with this book.