Fable of Happiness (Fable, #3) By Pepper Winters

Feels 4
Storyline 5
Steam 4
Overall Rating 5
Kindle eArc provided by Author
Reviewed by Lindsey

Gahhh! I knew it! I freaking knew it! Pepper totally just rocked my world with this last book. I knew she was setting something major up and I can’t freaking wait for it. This book is not for the faint of heart. This series isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s a little dark and a whole lot twisted. Absolutely gut wrenching story but the strength and dignity that Kas gained throughout was completely astounding! I adore him! Gem learns so much about life though him. The good the bad and the oh so ugly. Brilliantly written and addictive! Pepper once again shows why she’s one of my all time favorites. Definitely not a series to miss! Pepper Winters “We can’t predict the future or control every aspect of our lives, but we can choose to take it one step at a time.”

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CHARACTERS:
** Kassen: **
~ Held captive and sexually abused by sadistic people for years. He’s been isolated and secluded for the last eleven years.

**Gemma Ashcroft:** Age: 26, Rock Climber
- Gemma made a name for herself with her extraordinary climbing skills. Her You Tube channel catapulted her to a successful and financially profitable life.

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OVERALL PLOT:
When a new post on a climbing website catches Gemma’s attention, she knows she needs to check it out. However, when Gemma stumbles across a mansion in the middle of the forest, she’s not prepared for the man she encounters and he’s none too happy that she’s invading his space.

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Book 3 picks up exactly where the previous book left off - with a somewhat new character added to the lives of Kas and Gemma. And he definitely added some complexity to their little world.

So here we are - still at the Fable mansion. And, even with the addition of Jareth, the story started out with a little repetitiveness with the choking and I thought….ugh, not again. But, it took a big turn because Jareth was an “in the face” kind of character and he would not allow Kas to hide his demons. He pushed Kas to the extreme and forced him out of his comfort zone.

Hands down, I thought this was the best of the series. It was less repetitive, brought many more characters into the story and really tugged at the heart strings. There were some surprises along the way that connected characters in ways that were unexpected. But through it all, there was this thread of hope that continued to weave its way through the unfolding tale of Kas and Gemma.

In the end, Kas found a path to healing that worked for him, but everyone’s path is different. This book packed an emotional punch that even had me in tears for a little bit. I felt much closer to Kas and Gemma and their connection was very strong and believable. And Kas….Gah!!! He fought so hard not to let the demons consume him. I loved him in this book. ❤️

After the separation of the Fable kids in book one, I wondered if they would ever see each other again. Throughout this series, I was really hoping it would end with all of them safe and united once again. By the end, I realized I was naive to think it would end with all of them living a life full of happiness. And they didn’t deserve some fake HEA just to make a reader happy. Geez - they went through unimaginable hell and some were just not going to come out ok.

This ends with a HEA for Kas, and after Jareth’s introduction in this book, I’m looking forward to what Fable of Monsters will bring.


“I saw every broken piece that might never glue back into the right order, but they would glue into something. They would find their place, they would form into something valuable, and eventually, they’d be stronger than anything before.” Pepper Winters Binge read this in a single sitting.

It started great, but towards the end, it kinda fell apart for me.

It didn't felt as exciting as the first 2 books, or even the first and middle portion of this book.

I swear, they never should have gone back to civilization, things got kinda mundane after that, and when I reached the last few pages I was like: What? that's it?

It didn't felt....conclusive.

Thank God Kassen's not real, every word in the dictionary seems to remind him of his awful past.

I think he got offended like 100 times here.

Sensitivity is definitely not my area of 🌟Speciality🌟 Pepper Winters I'm literally in tears.
I've never been so sad to leave a character, to finish a story.

This story, this trilogy is an emotional rollercoaster that drained me and left me empty but content in a way I can’t even explain.
I really don’t know how to put into words the immensity of each emotions,  each word, each character and action....

Pepper Winters has always amazed me with her books, but WITH THIS STORY SHE HAS OUTDONE HERSELF!!

To be honest i didn’t know what to expect at all at this point but she just gave me the end i needed without even knowing it.
Once again she stole my breath and my heart....

Kas own my heart now.
His struggles, his scars, his past, his strenght, everything make him imperfectly  perfect and having to leave him is pretty painful.
He fought so hard to be the man Gemma deserved, but he already was!!
And Gemma showed him he deserves just as much love, trusting him.
The kind of love they share is unbelievable and so powerful....

Pretty much like the second book, this one is not so dark (at least for me).
Apart from the beginning and some awful memories of Kas' past, the story is more emotional and introspective.
It's mostly about healing.
It's painful...
It's meaningful.
It's beautiful.

IT'S A STORY EVERYONE SHOULD READ!!


Ps. I'm sorry my review doesn’t explain anything but i'm an emotional mess thanks to Kas so that's the best i came up with🙈🤣 Pepper Winters Rtf Pepper Winters

summary Fable of Happiness (Fable, #3)

From New York Times Bestseller, Pepper Winters, comes the third and final book in Kas and Gem’s fated romance.

A stranger full of rage.
A battle that has no victors.
A decision that has to be made.
And a future that has to be fought for.

Scarred and learning how to live again, Kas might never be free of his darkness.
A life full of triggers is no life at all. But a love full of pain can only grant heartache.

Gem made the decision to stay, but at what cost?

Kas made the choice to claim her, but will he ever be worthy?

To love is the simplest choice of all.

But healing is the hardest struggle.

Final book in the Fable of Happiness Trilogy
Dark Romance Fable of Happiness (Fable, #3)

THE EXPLOSIVE AND BEATIFUL ENDING I WAS WAITING FOR

“He wasn’t just beginning to live again. He was choosing to. A future where he was more than just happy. He was free.”

There is love, happiness, and light at the end of this tunnel. Kas and Gem – an epic romance that seared itself into my heart, made my pulse pound and heartbeat stutter, tickled my fear factor, embraced me in an edgy and incomparable love, broke my heart til it cracked, stole my mind and senses in a breathless rollercoaster of warring emotions, and melted me with an unpredictable vulnerability and redemption that set this hero apart from all PW’s others. Kas is nothing short of a self-sacrificing, noble savage lost in his tormented past, but hopeful for his future with no clear path how to get there. How can he fit into a world he doesn’t know or understand?

I felt glee and trepidation at the nail-biting, dark cliffy at the end of book 2. What glorious mischief did PW have up her sleeve? How would she resolve the tortured romance? How could Kas reconcile his grisly past with a future happiness of possibilities? I’ve learned one thing in all PW’s series: total unpredictability. Her creative mind is a tricky sidewinder of surprising twists and turns that shifts story direction on a dime, and always keeps me off-guard. This visceral love story didn’t evolve as expected, but took me exactly where I wanted to go and needed to be.

In the finale book, Kas’s past collides with his present in crafty ways. The couple would eventually need to leave the hidden valley and face the real world, but the way it happened left me stunned. I wasn’t sure I wanted it to happen the way it unfolded, and worried that the story might turn tame to achieve an HEA. There were so many fears and questions. Was Kas simply too damaged by Fables to exist in the real world? Was his violent nature manageable? What about his blackout rages? Was love enough to surmount all obstacles in the lovers’ path? Could he truly fit into Gem’s world?

The cliffy in Book 2 BLEW MY MIND with dark possibilities, but the uplifting direction of Book 3 gave me giddy hope for love in a real world test of Kas’s survivability outside Fables. He was like an alien, a babe in the woods, with no points of reference. 1 step forward, 3 steps back. Frustrations galore. There were some daunting obstacles for the lovers to face for sure, and it was no picnic for either one. Kas’s imploding impatience was grounded by Gem’s love and temperance. This couple was so perfectly matched, but their love and happiness was not assured.

My feelings yo-yoed with ups and downs and an uncertain mood as the end neared. Were they headed for a soft landing that would end the love story with a whimper, instead of a roar? There was my arrogant presumption that I’d seen and heard it all by this point ~~ that there would be no more surprises because I “had it all figured out.” Silly me. I feared there wouldn’t be a serious, shake-up to raise my blood pressure and unleash a big, catalyst moment … and then PW let it rip and slapped me between the eyes with even more surprises, twists, and a gut-wrenching, heart-palpitating homage to Kas that’s unforgettable.

Nothing is ever quite as it seems. Pepper Winters saved her best tricks and imaginative brilliance for last with a solid punch. If you fell in love with this couple during their heartbreaking journey, you will realize the beauty of their full-circle resolution. I cried. I cheered. I fist-pumped. It was beautiful, uplifting, and so fitting. Kas and Gem dragged me from the dark into the blinding light of love and happiness, choice and freedom.

Theirs was an exhausting journey of darkness, recovery and love in the best ways, as Pepper played me again so masterfully with all her sleight of hand. Leading me along with a gentle and rough hand, always taking my feet out from under me for assuming that I knew what she was doing, all while she actually played my emotions like a maestro. Being free and having a choice are important concepts in the finale. Kas’s turbulent navigation of Gem’s world makes things very hard-won for him, but blissfully satisfying. I loved watching him find that path … that grace …that light … to move on with his life and find forever HAPPINESS. The series did beautiful justice to him with a rare vulnerability that reminds me of beloved Ren. Kas was simply a beautiful character with a light and dark contradiction. That vulnerability inside him, despite all he’d endured gave him a special place in my heart. His strength and heroic selfless side still tug at me until I cry just thinking about it.

“It was you from the start. Pulling me back into the light. I’m free.” ~~ “I was hers. I’d chosen her. It was my choice.”
Pepper Winters It has taken me weeks to decide to write this review. I’m just gonna wing it at this point and write out my honest thoughts.

I’m a huge fan of this author. And this is my first series of hers that I’ve read that I just did not like at all.
The plot was fine, the characters were just horrible. The repetitiveness was so hard to read through without DNFing the series.
It’s the I hate you, I’m going to run, but I need to stay to care for you bullshit. Over and over again.

Book 3 starts right back where book 2 ends. Where we meet a side character and he has his own way of trying to help Kass get through his PTSD.
Of course Kass’s memories magically come back and he remembers Gemma and grovels. And says how sorry he is. It’s been like this over and over and over again throughout the books.
Of course the mansion went up in flames and that was how Gemma and Kass got out.
Of course they got away with everything that they have done especially Kass.
Of course he was magically put together and they get married and have an HEA.

I’m not one to tell people how to live their lives or question peoples love. But I had trouble believing in this love story. This was not a normal captive romance. Kass had zero redeeming qualities about him. He doesn’t know you, he doesn’t want you there, he rapes you, and he is constantly choking you until you pass out.

But you feel bad for him because in his sleep he talks about his past. And you feel like you have to stay there and help him? And then fall in love with him?
And when the sex is consensual, and he has flashbacks, and starts choking the shit out of you… come on.
Every action and emotion Gemma had, I just could not understand it. Instead of shoving the man off of a cliff and giving him a horrific concussion and possibly giving him brain damage for life, she should’ve left the first time she had the chance to seek help for herself and him if she truly cared. But of course we would not have this unnecessary dramatic story.

The whole series was just.. not it. And I hate saying this about author that I absolutely love.

Pepper Winters


DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW - and books 2+3 in this series - IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE FIRST BOOK YET!

Gemma + Kassen #3

We all remember how the second book ended, right? Kassen wanted to let Gemma go, because he hated what he did to her while he was in one of his concussed 'moments'. So he runs away, hoping she'll be gone when he gets back, but that's not the case. She tries to find him, but she finds someone else.
Jareth. One of Kassen's Fable brothers.
What is he doing here? And why now, after so many years?

What will happen with Kas + Gemma?
Will we get a happy end?

READ THE BOOK TO FIND OUT ... 😎

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I really liked this last book. Well, it's not the last one. There are lots of Fable kids still left to tell us their stories. (GIMME!)
But this was Gemma and Kassen's final book - and I loved it.
I also loved finally seeing another living person in that house and in their life.
Jareth is even more dark and broken than Kas, it seems ... But he's also the push they needed to get out of their 'rut' in that house and get help for the dangerous concussed moments.
I really enjoyed this final book. It was so very sexy and dangerous and heartbreaking and scary ... but also so very hopeful and adorable and sweet and moving. We so hope that Kas and Gemma will get their happily ever after in the real world - but it won't be easy - IF it will happen at all.
Anyway - nothing more to say without spoiling too much.
Perfect final book for our two darlings - and now I can't wait to see what all the others will have to tell us!

FABLE OF HAPPINESS #3 was the perfect final book in Kas + Gemma's story! Beautiful. Sexy. Heartbreaking. Scary. Full of hope. READ IT!


💜 💜



Pepper Winters
📚'FABLE OF HAPPINESS'📚Is the third and final full length dark romance book in Pepper Winter's 'Fable' series. It picks up where the previous book left off. Spoken in 'Dual perspectives.'

Geez these authors lately have made it hard with the wording and writing up of reviews as I try not to divulge spoilers, so much happens in this book, every which way I go it will spoil it for you, so you need to go in blind.

The feels will hit you where they matter..

With how the previous book threw me over that cliffy this was the one book I've been anticipating like no other book before it.

Was the trespasser friend or foe?

This is by far my favourite book of the series, this took me on a more emotional ride than the others, I connected on a higher level, I fell deeper in love with this broken man, I felt everything I was meant to feel.

This book wrung every emotion out of me! My heart strings were played like a yo-yo, up and down, round and round, out of control, my tears fell freely, my heart broke, these broken souls had me glued to the pages never wanting this journey to end!

I loved this series from front to back, book after book, this ended with an open end, I have no idea how to word that, you'll understand when you get to it, I'm hoping she's done it like that so that she can come back to it in the future with a whole new carry on series? I have everything crossed in the very hopes that that happens!!

Pepper Winters A whole new world!



The following ratings are out of 5:
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Romance: 💛🖤💜💚❤️
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌏🌍🌎
Character development: 🫣🤭🫠😮🥰

The heroine: Gemma - Taken captive while rock climbing far off the beaten path in Mammoth Cave National Park after trespassing into a stone mansion that was hidden in a forgotten valley. Gem has since fallen for the man who took her. She has empathy for what he went through and wants to help him.

The Hero: Kassen - he was the only one of his family left in his valley. He has lived alone for eleven years until Gemma arrived. Every time the memories of his abusive childhood would try to resurface, he would shove them into a box in his mind, though they have been pushing themselves back out more and more and he has been losing time and is afraid of what he becomes during those times.

The Story: Another huge cliffhanger ended the last book. I started this one right away after finishing, I just couldn’t wait to see what happened. A figure from Kas’s past resurfaces, threatens Gemma and brings about a big change.



The book was told in dual points of view and narrated by Tor Thom and Charley Ongel. I loved the narration in these books, the narrators are perfect for the characters. I especially loved Tor Thom’s deep and menacing inner voice. Like the first two books, the narration in this one was dual narration in every chapter no matter whose point of view it was in.

I don’t want to give away anything more than I already did above, but to say that I really liked the fact that each book in this trilogy took an entirely different direction than the prior books and kept things very interesting throughout the trilogy.

Also I just can’t say enough about how much I enjoyed these books since I usually don’t like the tortured Hero trope, especially when they delve into the torture. But this series went deeply into Kas’s past and I liked it. It really showed how PTSD can affect a person, in a way, it is a commentary on getting over a tragic past. This was a terrific ending to a great trilogy.

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