Stepbrother Dearest
By Penelope Ward
Synopsis
You’re not supposed to want the one who torments you.
When my stepbrother, Elec, came to live with us my senior year, I wasn’t prepared for how much of a jerk he’d be.
I hated that he took it out on me because he didn’t want to be here.
I hated that he brought girls from our high school back to his room.
But what I hated the most was the unwanted way my body reacted to him.
At first, I thought all he had going for him were his rock-hard tattooed abs and chiseled face. Then, things started changing between us, and it all came to a head one night.
Just as quickly as he’d come into my life, he was gone back to California.
It had been years since I’d seen Elec.
When tragedy struck our family, I’d have to face him again.
And holy hell, the teenager who made me crazy was now a man that drove me insane.
I had a feeling my heart was about to get broken again.
Stepbrother Dearest is a standalone novel.
**Contains graphic sexual content and harsh language. It is only appropriate for adult readers age 18+
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Stepbrother Dearest by Penelope Ward will be on sale for $2.99 Release Day Only
Michel’s Review
Wow! Stepbrother Dearest is one of those books that held me prisoner from the very first word to the end. I was captivated by the story and felt like I knew Greta and Elec personally. Their story seemed very real and touched my heart.
We meet Greta and Elec when they are both teenagers. Greta’s mother married Elec’s father. Do to circumstances in Elec’s home life, he is forced to go stay with his father. He’s an angry young man with a chip that is larger than a boulder on his shoulder. He’s prepared to be hostile and belligerent. He’s prepared to share his misery with every member in the family, including his stepsister Greta. On the surface we see a very angry young man, but under the nasty exterior, there is a boy that is hurting very deeply.
Greta is a happy, go lucky, naïve teenage girl. She’s excited to finally have a sibling to share her life with. What she gets instead of a brother is a bully. A brother that fully intends on making her life miserable. She has a hard time understanding Elec’s monstrous behavior. That is until she looks beneath the surface. Once she begins to see the real Elec, her opinion changes drastically. Once he knows he can trust Greta, Elec begins to show her the real Elec that hides beneath the sneers and smart mouthed punk.
Greta and Elec become close. They realize they have feelings that go beyond brotherly sisterly love. One forbidden night will change their lives forever. One forbidden night will never be forgotten. One forbidden night is the end of their time together.
As the years go by, neither Greta or Elec has forgotten that forbidden love. Life has taken them in different directions. Both have moved on in their lives. They are pursuing careers and building lives of their own. All seems well until there is a family tragedy that brings them together once again. Now they are adults that can make their own destinies. They will have to chose between the new lives they have built for themselves or chose to pursue their forbidden love.
I can’t say too much more about this book without giving spoilers. I will say Penelope Ward wrote a powerful story of love and redemption. The story was written from duo POV’s and was easy to get inside the characters minds. She portrayed the characters maturity and emotional levels with perfection. The teenage Elec and Greta were exactly as teenagers should be. The adult Elec and Greta had matured gracefully and became strong individuals with a great sense of self. They had become the children most parents want their kids to become in their adult lives. How they handled their reunion was with the utmost care and consideration for those in their lives. The love they shared was a powerful once in a lifetime love that time could not take away.
Penelope Ward is a talented writer. She creates characters that are very real and memorable. Their stories are emotional with a strong dose of reality. Stepbrother Dearest deserves a 6 Star Review!
I highly recommend this book.
Tracey’s Review
Greta is seventeen when her stepbrother, Elec, comes to live with her family for the year.Not quite sure what to expect, Greta is hopeful that Elec will be the brother she never had.
‘I had a stepbrother.
That was a weird thought. I hoped we would get along. As an only child, I had always wanted a sibling. I laughed at how stupid this was, fantasizing that this was going to be some kind of fairytale relationship overnight, like friggin’ Donny and Marie Osmond or Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal.’
But paradise it isn’t. Elec’s arrival is less than friendly, and he is very clear about not wanting to have any kind of relationship with Greta or her parents.
‘He wouldn’t look at me, so I used the opportunity to continue examining him as he dumped his bag on the floor.
Thud.
Was that my heart or the bag?’
With his dark good looks and bad boy demeanor, Elec inspires thoughts that are anything but sisterly in Greta. Sibling rivalry just got a lot sexier.
I was absolutely hooked from the first page of Stepbrother Dearest. There was no way that I was going to be able to put this book down without finding out exactly what was going to transpire between Greta and Elec. There was some serious sexual tension going on; the smolder between these two had me fanning myself, and waiting for the moment when the spark became full-on combustion. But this is not just a hot and sexy read. There is so much more to Elec than is apparent at first glance. His painful past has shaped him completely, and there are secrets that he refuses to share, even as he and Greta grow closer. When events arise that cause Elec and Greta to go their separate ways, Greta knows that she will never be the same. And, when the find themselves together again, it’s clear that she is not alone in her feelings.
I am personally a fan of stories where we, as readers, get to see the perspective of each of the main characters, so I was not disappointed that there was dual POV in Stepbrother Dearest. Reading about how Elec felt, in his own words, allowed us to see the issues that had driven him from the first time he met Greta, and gave him much more depth. And, even seven years later, the chemistry between Greta and Elec was off the charts hot, and seeing how both of them felt made it a much more satisfying read for me.
Penelope Ward has done another fantastic job with Stepbrother Dearest. I absolutely cannot recommend this book enough, and give it 5.5 deeply satisfying stars.
Author Bio:
Penelope Ward is a USA Today Bestselling author.
She grew up in Boston with five older brothers. She spent most of her twenties as a television news anchor, before switching to a more family-friendly career.
Penelope lives for reading books in the new adult genre, coffee and hanging out with her friends and family on weekends.
She is the proud mother of a beautiful 10-year-old girl with autism (the inspiration for the character Callie in Gemini) and a 8-year-old boy, both of whom are the lights of her life.
Penelope, her husband and kids reside in Rhode Island.
She is currently working on her fifth novel, Jake Understood. She is the author of Gemini, Jake Undone, My Skylar and Stepbrother Dearest.
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