This Woman by Jodi Ellen Malpas

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

This Woman by Jodi Ellen Malpas
on 15 November 2022
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 582
Format: ARC, eBook
Source: PR Company
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Jesse Ward has stumbled through life drinking and indulging himself within the rooms of his high-class sex club, The Manor, numbing himself to the pain, grief, and guilt of his wrongs. Pleasure and alcohol are his medicine. Hedonism is all he knows.

It’s how he copes.

How he survives.

Until Ava O’Shea strolls into his office and knocks him back with her breathtaking beauty, ambition, and drive. It only takes one look into her eyes, one touch of her skin, and one word murmured, before his heart is kick-started, offering him something he never thought possible. A distraction from his daily torment. A semblance of peace.

Women never reject Jesse Ward. They fall at his feet, melt from his charismatic, devious smile, and obey his every salacious command. All except the one woman who unwittingly becomes his obsession and the only thing that can keep him from the brink of self-destruction.

He needs Ava and will do anything to have her.

Even hide every last skeleton in his large closet.

Because the truth could destroy them both.

Jodie Ellen Malpas is back with the man that started it all, Jesse Ward. The trademark emotion is back. This Woman is bleeding in authenticity, welcome back to Central Jessie Cloud Nine!

This Woman is Jesse Ward’s POV from the This Man series. It’s the story that we always wanted but didn’t think we’d get. Not going to lie, I’m a slave for this series, and always have been. I must have read it around five times. Jodie Ellen Malpas weaves a tale of trauma and emotional pain, and it doesn’t fail to tug at the heartstrings. It leaves an imprint that doesn’t fail to leave an imprint upon the brain, leaving us thinking about the story for hours and days later. It’s a story that opens the never-ending conundrum of why people behave the way they do.

The first installment, This Woman, could be read on its own but to get into the thrall that these characters have upon you, it would be best to read the This Man series first. Jesse Ward delves into his deeply flawed character, and you get immersed in Malpas’ raw and gritty writing style. Alongside adoring Jesse, which is never going to change, we see the events that played a central role in his trampling and controlling-ish behaviour. The loss of his brother started the derailing and it set him up for a life of self-destruction and alcohol abuse.

“I’ll always win. She needs to get used to that. Especially when she’s the prize.“

Don’t get me wrong sometimes you need to smack this man around the head. He acts quite unreasonable and brutish but reading his POV makes perfect sense. The events that happened in his early years were traumatic and had a deep impact. A scar that never faded, it broke his heart time and time again, everything was fresh, still too fresh and raw that he needed something to make him numb – that thing was alcohol and random hookups. The reality is that it broke him further, he didn’t have any self-belief and didn’t think he deserved anything good. Then Ava walked into his office and the rest as they say is history.

If you think that you’re just getting This Man all over again, be assured this is a new story, a different side of Jesse, the reactions and reasons of a deeply flawed man, but one that is determined to grasp the future with both hands and trample it until it listens.

It might be over ten years since Jodi shared Jessie with us, but the love and frustration have never waned. Lovers of the This Man series should get their trigger finger ready because you are going to love every delectable page of This Woman.

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