Neon Hearts by Stefanie Simpson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Neon Hearts is a beautiful angsty romantic suspense
Neon Hearts is an angsty romance with a little suspense that will have you intrigued from the first page. Bea and Josh are perfect together.
Neon Hearts contains an Author’s Note which I will try to quickly summarize here: this book is a disability centered romance, it’s not emotionally manipulative, it’s not an inspirational meme, no one is magically cured. This is told from the perspective of a disabled person without bias as a lot of stories are told from the abled perspective. It’s about adjusting to disability, accepting new realities and learning who you are within that, The question is asked “Who am I in this new brain?” As a disabled person, she still exists.
There are also content warnings which I will list here: Depictions of medical care, including coma. References to past medical trauma. References to and a brief description of a car accident. Moderate threat and peril. Suspense-lite, mostly off-page references to crime. PTSD. Brief court case appearance. Challenged ableism. Strong language. Explicit sexual content, including a soft femdom dynamic, masturbation, oral, penetration including pegging.
Bea woke from a coma with a brain injury and nerve damage, unable to remember how to walk, or speak, or who she was.
She is slowly undergoing treatment to help her to re-learn how to walk and talk again. She has a support group online and feels connected to the group moderator, Josh.
Something nefarious and criminal happened where Bea was working and she went to the police. She doesn’t remember what exactly happened, only that it resulted in her ending up at the rehabilitation clinic where she is now.
Bea sees a therapist regularly who tells her: “You are not a tragedy, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s painful and hard. Surviving what you did takes huge strength and resources. There’s a cost to it.” She is finally able to cry at this session over all that has happened.
Josh Cotterill is the moderator of Bea’s online support group and an ex-patient of Bea’s current rehabilitation center, CAPTA. He was burned in a fire while working for his security company on a job. When he goes in to resign they ask him to do one more job, protect a woman who was almost murdered who is at CAPTA, but Josh is too affected by his past to agree, even if the woman is Bea.
Bea and Josh begin messaging each other. She wants to confide in him but is afraid to put him at risk.
Neon Hearts is the story of a woman learning how to function again after a brain injury, the story of her connection and romance with a man who has also experienced trauma and the suspenseful tale of the criminals who tried to kill her and are still after her.
The romance in Neon Hearts begins as a tentative situation starting on the message board and then moving on to texts and phone calls for a long period before an in-person meet-up is forced upon them. We get to have the “snowbound in a cabin” trope which is one of my favourites. It’s all keeping warm in front of the fireplace and lots of snow. Love it!
Josh is demi-sexual so that added another level of tentativeness to the situation. The romance builds with the appropriate amount of tension and sensitivity.
There’s angst as things come to a head with the villains getting closer to finding Bea and Josh and Bea’s relationship hitting a rough patch.
The angst is beautiful and painful and the resolution is tender. I really enjoyed this book and the relationship between Bea and Josh, Bea learning who she is again and the strength within her, the exploration of the power dynamic between them in the bedroom. It was all very sensitively and dynamically handled.
WRITING STYLE: 4/5
PLOT: 4/5
WORLD-BUILDING: 4/5
PACING: 4/5
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: 4/5
ROMANCE: 4/5
HEAT: 4/5
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Please see my list of April’s Must Read Romances. I hope you enjoyed this review of Neon Hearts by Stefanie Simpson.
