Stefano Andros is a man with a chip on his shoulder. He'd stopped giving a dam about the world when his heart had been ripped out by tragedy as a young man. Now years later, he's become a different man, one who wouldn't think twice about putting a bullet in a fool for getting in his way. There was nothing left of the carefree young man he'd once been, until the night in a casino game room when he looked into the eyes of a dream. She wasn't supposed to be real, his dying sister had mentioned her with her last breath, but he'd never expected to one day hold her in his arms. Now he found himself face to face with a promise made long ago. But all is not as it seems, as he finds that there's more to the woman who was destined to own his heart than meets the eye.
I got a little bit emotional on this one. So far, this book is the longest book I've read by JS and I really liked this one. I know other won't like this like I did though.
The story was about Stefano and Jenna, 21. He's older than her. Maybe 8 years. Maybe more.
Stefano's a wealthy man. He gambles for fun. There at the casino, he met Jenna. She's autistic and she's with her brother. The slot machine caught her attention and she wanted to go over there and play. Stefano stayed out of it because it's family business but when Jenna tried to pull her brother with her, her brother smacked her hard enough to draw blood, Stefano was up and hit her brother with a bottle. He took her with him and there's no way he's giving her back even though he knew it would cause trouble.
Ever since his little sister died, he changed. The old care-free boy he was was gone. He's now hard, cold and scary but with Jenna, he's different. She's not afraid of him because he's her angel and she can sense danger. She has a calming effect on him. He's so attentive, patient and gentle with her.
Some scenes were like supernatural or let's just say not normal like her being able to talk to his dead little sister and she seemed to have a lot of personas. She also knew a lot
There were obstacles along the way. There were lots of enemies but they got what they deserved. And Stefano and Jenna got their HEA.
There's a nice epilogue too.
I know some scenes are not realistic but I enjoyed reading this one. And some won't like this because it's like taking advantage of a woman with special needs but I really liked how Stefano took care of Jenna. And he didn't saw her condition as a flaw but a blessing. He always see to it that she gets what she wants and what she deserves. He's very protective of her.
Stefano had a dream about his little sister. The same dream he always has but at that time, the last part changed and they were able to talk. It's so sad and wonderful. Sad because your sister won't be coming back but she's happy where she is now and that you have the love of your life with you
Stefano Andros had made his life living with enemies and frankly not caring about a single soul, that is until he sees Jenna for the first time. Jenna reminds him so much of the sister he lost years ago. He wants to be her protector, but as he gets to know Jenna more he finds that all is not what it seems for she has more enemies than he could ever imagine.
Torn on this one, it was not quite what I was expecting and had a hard time grappling with Jenna and how innocent she truly was until about midway through. Not sure I would read this again.
I'm just going to say this book wasn't for me. Skipping over the iffy feelings I had about the heroine and how childlike she was described as being, the writing style was also a big part of why I couldn't get I to the story. I found it hard to follow sometimes, especially after the 50% mark when the book started to go all over the place with some very out-there storylines that came almost out of nowhere. I see a lot of high ratings for the book so this was probably just a me issue.
Readers need to be aware that this book involves a female MC with special needs, a developmental mental disorder that the author alludes to as autism. I did not finish the book to ever discover if a name, diagnosis was given to her.
I refused to read any further after a naked bath tub scene followed by her watching Tom and Jerry. I don't care if the author turns her into a Hoffman "Rain Man" or where the story was going. It's clear that they're going to have a sexual relationship, and as the mom of a handicapped child, that's just f'ing wrong on so many levels. She acts like a six year old for f's sake!
Great story! I have a nephew who is autistic so I know that the childish way he communicates masks what's truly going on inside and it was the same with Jenna. There is a difference between sounding childish and being childish. Jenna's character displayed this beautifully. Her inability to communicate didn't make her any less of a woman and I loved that that shone through in the story.
Disgusting! Be aware that the female Heroine suffers from a development disorder and because of it she behaves in her social interactions like a six year old.
Ever watched the movie Rain Man? Let's just say the Heroine is the female version of it. I don't care how clever she can be with numbers, or if she has the body of a porn star, putting her character in a sexual relationship is just wrong. I would have never bought this book if I had known that the Heroine is basically a child in a woman's body. So reader's be aware!
Ok so this book had me researching the law regarding mental delays and physical relationships. This is one of those taboo subjects when it come down to the law here in Canada he would be in jail for rape and child molestation. This is one that had me hoping he would not sleep with her but at the same time had me questioning what limits I place on my understanding of love. Maybe it's because I am an educator and I have dealt with these kinds of special needs kids that I felt their relationship was wrong. She has the mental age of around 12 so how could a man take that sweet child and introduced her to sex when she had no understanding of it. When he takes her hymen and she cries, I cried. She had no real understanding of what was going on only that this made her Angel happy. Omg I was so devastated. I am so sorry I had issues with this cause it was one very well written book and yes I know he struggled with this internally but he still did it. I gave it 2 1/2 stars because it made me feel but I hope to never deal with this issue again. Just too much for me to deal with.
I have to admit that this one took me a lot longer to read than I was expecting it to. It was the fact that I wasn't really connecting with the characters as well as the fact that this had too much going on for me to be able to keep all of her abilities straight.
We are introduced to Stefano Andros, our hero, who is a "businessman" with some interesting ties to the underground community when he steps in to protect Jenna, our heroine. Jenna is autistic with some very special skills. She is . I felt that she had so many skills that the supernatural element, while I understand why the author included it, just seemed excessive. There was so much going on that at times I was confused as to what was going on.
I couldn't really connect with Jenna as the story was told mostly from Stefano's point of view. She had a few scenes but for the most part we see the story through Stefano's eyes and it was a little complicated. She seems to understand everything that goes on around her but isn't always able to form the words to express herself. She is a . Then we have Stefano who falls in love with Jenna at first sight. While this works for this story it does seem to be overdone in almost everything I've read for the last few months.
There are too many twists and turns that just seem to serve as nothing other than filler to boost up the page count. This story has a lot of potential but there was just too much plot without any real substance. This had all the makings of a great soap opera, dramatic pauses, eyebrows raised and all.
I do have to admit that Jordan Silver is a guilty pleasure for me. I read her books when I'm in the mood for an alpha male (sometimes slightly jerky but we can't have everything) but there are the grammatical errors that accompany her books. Overall, I liked this book but I probably won't be rereading this one.
Very interesting premise. This one started off strong, but I really lost interest in the last half. Four stars for the first part and two for the last.
DNF!!!! No, JUST HELL NO! The h is like a child...If you want to write about autism please only make it about a child or brother or sister...not about the h that the H, grown ass man is pursuing. Good God, the H is having thoughts and actions of f---ing the h but he has to make sure she "gets up every morning to watch her cartoons..." are you kidding me???
I was almost put off by some negative reviews of this. I am so glad I didn't heed any of them!
It's much more than a story about a man starting a sexual relationship with an autistic young woman with developmental delay. It focuses on their innate connection and the chemistry that leads to love and intimacy.
This story has a huge and exciting plot! Jenna has far more capabilities than anyone can imagine. She's incredibly intelligent, talented and gifted. The world is coming down on some powerful ears and Jenna is the hellfire. She had every man in the book by the balls, whether they realized it or not.
I thought the intimacy and relationship that developed between Andros and Jenna was lovely. There was nothing sordid or creepy about it. This was an amazing love story - everyone deserves love and romance in their life and with the right partner it is such a beautiful and pure thing.
The grammatical errors stood out here, although it's normally something that I can overlook, it did affect the flow, hence knocked it from a 5 star read.
P.S. The relationship between Andros and his Gramps was hilarious.
The gambler herself is Jenna, a young woman with autism whose savant abilities are exploited by a criminal gang to which her brother has become beholden. At a high-stakes poker game one night, Jenna is struck in the face by that brother, angering Stefano Andros, another one of the players. Andros is particularly enraged by the assault because of his close relationship with his (now deceased) sister, who also had autism. He therefore kidnaps Jenna from the poker table and takes her to his home, where in short order he begins a sexual relationship with her.
Depictions of love and sexual awakening blossoming between female kidnapping victims and their male captors are a well-worn trope in the genre, particularly several decades ago. Allowing for the suspension of disbelief required to accept that virginal women will eagerly welcome the advances of the men who kidnapped them (an allowance that likely demands its own discussion) does not diminish the question of sexual exploitation of a vulnerable person. Jenna’s perceived “consent” is not at issue; she is depicted as a willing and excited partner. However, questions of her capacity to consent are left grossly underacknowledged.
In this book, Jenna’s autism is manifested as childlike innocence and wonder at small pleasures, porous interpersonal boundaries (like accepting her kidnapper as her friend and exhibiting no sense of him as a stranger), and limited but appropriate verbalizations. Jenna can speak only in 2-word phrases. She can, however, text at a staggering speed; her communication impairments are cast as speech difficulties rather than more encompassing language ones.
Through Andros’s eyes, we see her requiring supervision in the bath, greedily seeking chocolate at every meal, and watching Tom and Jerry cartoons. Yet these evident developmental disabilities do nothing to decrease his lust for her, a desire on which he acts within the first 24 hours of her capture. He takes some pleasure in her delight at what he describes as her “new kissing game.” Images of her childlike behaviors are juxtaposed with descriptions of sexual behaviors; in one such scene, Jenna sits on the bed playing with her butterfly garden almost immediately following penetrative activity.
Andros is in no way a nice man. He and his grandfather head an involved criminal enterprise, and Andros himself is described killing multiple people and ordering hits on many more. In one particularly gruesome scene, he eviscerates a victim and rips out the heart. Disturbingly, however, his sexual relationship with Jenna is not depicted as yet another manifestation of his antisocial and exploitative tendencies. Rather, the relationship is painted as a counterpoint to his negative side. Readers are told that Jenna is “good for him.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
DNF I have come to the conclusion that I just can't read anything written by Jordan Silver. Not only are the books terribly written but they are over priced and all have little to no editing.
This book was no exception but on top of all the issues I've stated above, the story was just not well done. I have no problem with romances involving a character with a handicap. In fact, Puddle Jumping by Amber Johnson is one of my favorites. It was well written and realistic in showing the affects of autism in a relationship.
Jordan Silver's attempt was awful, even a bit offensive. There were a number of ways the author could of handled Jenna's character since there are number of different forms and degrees of autism. I just wonder how much research was done before writing this book.
As a mom to two girls on the spectrum, I'm always looking for heroines like my girls. When I first started reading this, I wasn't sure what to think with the heroine acting so immature and was afraid she was too immature mentally to be in a relationship. But the longer I read, it slowly thread out and worked. Hero is super alpha and had an autistic sister he lost years before. Heroine can't communicate "normally" and is a savant. Hero's protectiveness is over the top, but cute.
This was a great read. I loved it. I know some will have a problem with her being Autistic and having a sexual relationship with Andros, but I loved it. I thought it was written pretty well, but I’m a huge fan of this author. I loved the sex scenes, they were pretty sweet, not as rough as normal for this author.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
The mechanical writing and overly done attempt at trying to be too sweet (especially by a supposedly hot tempered, bad to the bone hero) by instantly calling each other pet names like "My Angel" and "Sweet Jenna" was just one of several aspects that ruined this book for me. The far fetched, stretch of the imagination abilities of the heroine who spoke mostly in two word sentences made her come across more like she suffered from a permanent head injury and not autism, folks. The idea of these two having a sexual relationship felt wrong from the get go. She came across more like a 6 year old trapped in a woman's body. Honestly, did the author think we would ever be OK with the hero having sex with a child like woman who spends hours watching Tom & Jerry cartoons?
The dead like stare of the female gracing the book cover should have been warning enough. All of this is a dang shame, because it seemed like a huge waste of a perfectly great alpha protective hero. I bumped it up one star just because he was determined to protect her from her family.
This all leads me to conclude this author's writing style likely just isn't for me.
(These comments are based on Kindle Unlimited version. This is not an ARC review.)
As a mother to an autistic child, this one felt a little strange for me to read. The FMC appears to have a savant style form of autism, and the story also blends in a supernatural element. While I understand this is fiction, it is hard to ignore that no real person is perfect at everything while being portrayed as simple because of autism.
That said, one part did ring true. Her fast moving mind and difficulty communicating because her thoughts come too quickly felt very realistic. That struggle to translate what is happening internally into words is something I recognize, and it added an interesting layer to the character.
This is a very different take on romance. The MMC is controlling but also surprisingly soft with her. He makes a lot of threats and bold statements, but rarely follows through, which was honestly kind of funny and made him feel less intimidating and more bluster than bite.
Overall, this book felt unconventional and a bit uncomfortable at times, but also unique. It is not a typical romance, and while it did not fully work for me, I appreciated how different it was from Jordan Silver’s usual stories.
I love JS books and have been reading many related to his new Squad series. So I came across this book since it seems this character will appear in Squad 2.
I understand why many people have an issue with the book because of the romantic relationship between Andros and Jenna who is autistic. But what I think many people are not understanding which is mentioned in this book is that Jenna speaks like childlike because apparently her mind rambles sentences faster then she can speak but she is still capable of understanding things as an adult which is why she can text what she wants to say and is actually a genius so she also understands concept of sex.
Overall the book was different. It was tragic that Andros suffered loss of his sister who was also autistic which is why he was such a heartless person until Jenna. Now they have a family together and are happy. Can't wait to see how their characters play out in the Squad 2 book whenever it gets released.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Okay so the word third person wrong where you don’t understand who is speaking when was quite irritating. Idk how she was able to speak in full sentences to the H’s sister’s ghost but was mostly non verbal with everyone else including the H. Like how did the switch happen ? I am not sure if she was in the position to give consent for a physical Relationship. I was not expecting this particular spectrum representation the way it was done and I am not sure if it’s precise as well so it was an interesting but an odd read. Good number of editing issues. A lot of monologues and background explanations instead of interactions between MCs which I think was mainly because of weird writing in third person.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This is a very intriguing story to start with. It is interesting when you consider the heroine of this story is autistic and in so many ways are innocent to a fault, then she has so many abilities that put you in awe of her. Stefano became a very cold man after the death of his sister who was in so many ways just like his Jenna. She was killed because of her innocence by young men who used it against her. Before she died, she told him he would meet someone special who would call him her angel which is exactly what happened before their adventure began. This story grabs your attention from start to finish and gives new meaning special needs.
I swear the way this book is written it just takes you along for the ride. Jenna is an amazing woman who desperately needs a man lile Stefano. Het Angel saves her in so many ways and gives her a life she truly deserves. Most people don't write about people with Autism. My life has been filled with children with Autism since we learned my son had Global Developmental Delays. He is truly a special human. The intelligence is beyond my comprehension. It was nice to see a story written with taste and a HEA.
Dear Colee - When you look back at this book to see how you felt about it, remember that it was done tastefully. Angel loves with his all due to a promise. Jenna is unique and strong. She needs no one to fight the wrongs. She is the bases of their love and is the light to his dark. You enjoyed the book and found it to be one of the longest you red from Silver. Small continuity issues but not many. It’s tolerable. Enjoy it for a second read, your love it.