FALLING INTO YOU (Falling #1) by Jasinda Wilder-a review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date March 14, 2013

I wasn’t always in love with Colton Calloway; I was in love with his younger brother, Kyle, first. Kyle was my first one true love, my first in every way. Then, one stormy August night, he died, and the person I was died with him.

Colton didn’t teach me how to live. He didn’t heal the pain. He didn’t make it okay. He taught me how to hurt, how to not be okay, and, eventually, how to let go.

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REVIEW: FALLING INTO YOU is the first storyline in Jasinda Wilder’s New Adult contemporary series Falling. If you have not read this series, be prepared for a heartbreaking storyline of love, loss, death and more loss. Book one focuses on Nell, Kyle and Colton Calloway but the next book takes an abrupt turn and follows Nell and Kyle’s high school friends who must overcome some trauma of their own.

Falling Into You is a new adult storyline that is told from Nell and Colton’s POV and in the beginning it is Nell who will introduce the reader to the early years where Nell and Kyle have bonded from birth. Their mother’s were best friends, who gave birth within days of each other, and therefore Kyle and Nell have been inseparable ever since. Until the night that fate took Kyle’s life and Nell will never forgive herself or forget what happened to the only boy she has ever loved.

Kyle’s brother Colton is reintroduced into Nell’s life by way of the funeral and, mutual pain and sorrow. Nell will begin to withdraw into herself and it will be two years later that Nell and Colton reignite a passion that started as comforting sorrow with each other.

Colton and Nell both have secrets and demons that have been buried and resurfaced over the years. Colton’s past is mired in family betrayal and heartache that left a young man-barely able to survive-on his own in a strange city with no support or money. When Nell drifts back into Colton’s life, he pursues her relentlessly and it is this relationship that will bring both of them full circle. They must face their demons, their pain and sorrow together, and in doing so will discover more about each other than anyone could ever have known.

This is a story of love and hate; loss and pain; sorrow and grief; but it is also a story of finding the one-the one who knows the suffering and betrayal first hand, as well as the pain of losing someone that it feels as though you can no longer breathe without them.

The writing is simple. There is nothing complicated or awe-inspiring about the premise, but it is a story that will probably bring you to tears and break your heart. This is also a story of family; two well to do and connected families who cannot fathom the anguish these two young adults have suffered until it is too late. And it is also a story of moving on and letting go. Forgiveness may take more time.

The relationship between Kyle and Nell is sweet, pure and innocent. From friends to lovers, the build up takes years until in one fateful night Kyle is killed and Nell will forever never be the same.

Colton and Nell begin their relationship as two people grieving a loss and not necessarily with the same emotional attachment as Colton learns that the past begins to replay over and over at each turn. Colton is good for Nell as he is willing to push her beyond the boundaries of what little self esteem and control remains within Nell, and it is Nell who will accept everything Colton has to give and the man he has become. The sexual heat is palpable as their love making goes from gentle to firm, to all out aggressive-but saying that-it is something they both need to help bury the demons.

If you like a storyline of heartbreak, sorrow and finding the one person who will start you on the road back to emotional health, than FALLING INTO YOU is the story for you. The world building is smooth and the character development is paced throughout the novel: and you cannot help but feel sympathy for our leading characters.

Reviewed by Sandy