Texting Dr. Stalker by Pepper Winters
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I have a stalker.
Texting Dr. Stalker
A masked man who watches me from the shadows. A guardian who says he’s there to protect me—to help me heal from almost dying at the hands of another man.
He says he’s willing to do anything to help me move on. That I needn’t be afraid of him.
I agree to keep him my secret and share how much I’m truly struggling.
In return, he guards me. Even if it means guarding me from himself.
I’ve known her my entire life.
She’s the girl next door who I share a childhood betrothal with thanks to our two grandmothers wishing to turn their lifelong friendship into family.
I’m also the doctor who tended to her in the ER after her ex tried to kill her. I want to help her in any way I can, but I also know she’ll never accept my help because I’m the reason he tried to kill her in the first place.
But I can’t stand by and see her suffer, so…I come up with a plan.
A highly illegal plan that ends with me breaking laws, rules, and my own heart…
Doctor/girl next door, childhood friends to lovers, green-flag stalker, hidden identity, lots of texts, masked protector, would do anything to keep her safe, standalone, he has a motorcycle, he does things to her in the dark…
A not so dark stalker!
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 🖤💙💜❤️
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏🌎
Character development: ☹️🥲😋😘🥰
The heroine: Sailor – she grew up with parents who never really wanted a kid. When she went away to college, they left her and went traveling and were killed somewhere in the middle east. She had visited her grandparents for a week or so every now and then and really loved them. She moved in to take care of her gran after her grandfather died. Her gran died two years later and left her house to Sailor. She has lived there since, and her boyfriend Milton moved in a few months ago. He recently accused her of fantasizing about sleeping with Dr. Alexander North who lives next door, and when she denied it, he beat her up and tried to kill her by strangulation until one of the old men in the neighborhood heard her screams and saved her.
The Hero: Zander – he and his two sisters moved in with his grandmother when he was seven. She and her best friend Melody bought houses next door to each other and had always hoped they would be family. When Sailor was born, the women put it in his head that she was his and someday when they grew up, they would get married. He didn’t think much of it as Sailor was younger and rarely around. Though in the past years since she moved in, he had a fascination with her that wouldn’t go away.
The story: Sailor and Zander lived next door to each other, but they rarely spoke more than the occasional pleasantries when they happened to be outside at the same time. He was one of the doctors in the emergency room when she was brought in after the terrible beating and attempted murder, but now that Sailor was recuperating at home, she could barely look at him and got embarrassed whenever she saw him, remembering the awful things Milton had accused her of when she had never done anything wrong.
Zander knew that Sailor was having trouble getting over what happened to her and wanted to help her but knew that she wouldn’t be receptive, so he bought a burner phone and started texting her. Though Zander is definitely a stalker, this book isn’t dark like many of the stalker romances I have read. Zander is a genuinely good guy at heart, he just has a crush, and he has an obsessive need to help people in need, so when he sees Sailor in need, he can’t stop himself from doing whatever he can to help even though it is in a very unconventional way.
I know this is just one of my pet peeves, but throughout this book it really bothered me that his name is Alexander and he is called Zander with a Z instead of Xander with an X. It just doesn’t make good sense and every time I read his name, I thought of that. Zander even told Sailor to call him X in their text messages since he was doing it as an anonymous person trying to help her. When they meet, he colors his hair, wears a skull half mask and puts in brown contact lenses so she doesn’t figure out who he is.
“All I knew was…X was my dirty secret, Zander was my guilty pleasure, and right now, I needed to hide what I was going through so my best friend wouldn’t judge me.”
“Apart from work, I’ve never seen you have a hobby or interest outside of the hospital. Sure, choosing stalking as your favorite pastime might not be the best thing, but it’s forgivable because your intentions were pure.”
Overall, I liked the story, and liked the fact that X was a bit of a mysterious character while Zander was kind of nerdy and anxious. It made him quite lovable. I think the whole secret of his identity was dragged out longer than it should have, but I did enjoy the way it all came together. I did get a bit bored at the very end though after the truth came out and they admitted to loving each other, and I actually skipped the epilogue.
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