Falling Hard by Jae

Falling Hard by Jae
Pages: Unknown
Date: April 5 2017
Publisher: Ylva Publishing
Series: 6th in the extended Hollywood/LA series or Stand-alone (it is being released as a stand-alone)

Review
Rating: 3.44
Read: April 5 2017

*I received this book from the publisher, in return for a fair review.*

As I tend to do with Jae books, I’ll spend a moment or two talking about links – how this book links up with others.

First up – the easiest link is with Heart Trouble since Jordan of this book is the same Jordan in that book – a best friend to one of the main characters in that book, Hope. Both Hope and Laleh, the stars of Heart Trouble, appear in this book here. In the normal course of events this book would likely be called ‘book 2’ in whatever you would call this series – except . . .. This is one of the few times I’d recommend reading books out of order – or, at the very least, just noting that you do not need to read any other book before you read this one. Because of two reasons. Heart Trouble is in a somewhat different genre than this book here, Falling Hard – because of a fantasy element that is a large theme in that book. And because it is linked to yet another series – the Hollywood series, of which there are three books and 1 short story – Laleh from both this book and Heart Trouble makes a very brief appearance in one of the books in the Hollywood series. By no means do you need to read that series, and then Heart Trouble, before reading this book.

Second up – well, I’ve already touched on it – this book is, in its way, linked to the Hollywood series by way of Laleh. A very minor side character in that series. To a large extent, if not for the Hollywood people popping up in Heart Trouble, I’d just put it down to an interesting item of little importance. But they do make a large impact on Heart Trouble. At least Jill does. Jill, who appears in all but the first book – and is the ex-girlfriend of Amanda – one of the main characters from that book, is best friends of Laleh – and several other Hollywood series people also wander through the pages. So, in a sense, Heart Trouble could theoretically be considered book 4 in the Hollywood series (but for the fantasy element and lack of a main character actress), and ‘Falling Hard’ could be seen as book 5 (except for that lack of main character actress, or – for that matter, any connection to the Hollywood series but for Laleh’s brief appearance in this book).

Third up – not touched on is the part where one of the main characters in this book, Emma (and Molly, of course, being Emma’s daughter) just moved to California from Portland. And one of Jae’s other series is a Portland series – one that has both 2 official books, one short story, and one unofficial book (main characters from the series make an appearance in Under a Falling Star). I kept examining each name as it appeared – each one that might be connected to that Portland series, but since I’ve only read the first book in the series (and Under a Falling Star) I can’t say that I recognized any name, nor can I say that that means that no connection exists since the connection might be to one of the works I’ve not read.

So – that was a lot of words to say – ‘this book is related to other books by this same author, but there is no inherent need to read any other book before reading this book here.’

So, what is this specific book about?

Dr. Jordan Williams, 34 (if I recall that correctly), is a surgeon and lives in a duplex. Recently her next door neighbor, the one who lived in the other half of the duplex, moved out. One day Jordan drove home only to find that her driveway was blocked by a moving van – someone had finally moved in. That someone would turn out to be Emma Larson, mother of Molly Larson (actually, since there is a comment that Molly ‘went back to her maiden name’, I’m not certain that Molly’s last name is in fact Larson) 5 year old. But Jordan didn’t know that immediately. All she knew was a super hot woman in shorts and with really long gorgeous legs was moving stuff from the moving van to the house. Jordan, and another neighbor named Barbara, introduce themselves to Emma – and Jordan’s personality shines through immediately (and the reason why I’m mentioning all of this). How? Jordan’s first words to Emma are flirtatious and indicating romantic interest. For, you see, in addition to being a young doctor, Jordan is also a massive player – the kind who, with few exceptions, does not get into relationships and rarely entangles herself with any other human – romantically. The exceptions would probably boil down to just one person, romantically, and that’d be Simone, a long distance friend with benefits. The non-romantic relationships would include family (sisters and the like, one appears in the book via phone call), work (Hope, from ‘Heart Trouble’), and neighbors (70+ year old Barbara).

Emma Larson, as the book description indicates, is ‘Jordan’s polar opposite’. That’s right, the 43 year old is an albino to the doctor’s ebony skin. Heh, no. Emma is 32, if I recall correctly, and while there is a brief mention about being pale, she is not an albino (when Jordan and Emma first meet, Jordan ‘assumes’ that Emma can’t be a native because of the fact that she isn’t tanned from the California sun). By the way, I forgot to mention that – Jordan does in fact have dark skin, though I do not recall if a specific word was used when describing her (like, say, her caramel skin, or coffee skin, or mocha or . . . ; Simone is also dark skinned; the assumption is that both are black/African American; though that really is an assumption – I do not know if Simone is American). Hmm. Jordan stuff in Emma paragraph. Mmphs. Physically, all that I recall about Emma is that she has blonde hair, gorgeous legs, and is, in some way, Caucasian. I might be making an assumption there about ‘pale’ and blonde hair equaling Caucasian. Emma works as a VA – a virtual assistant, has a 5 going on 6 year old daughter named Molly, and had been married to a surgeon named Chloe. Oh, and while Emma and Molly just moved down to California from Portland, Emma’s actually a native of South Pasadena (which, it would appear, is a neighbor to Pasadena, since a date occurs in a restaurant in the next town over – Pasadena). Ooh! South Pasadena ‘is a city in Los Angeles County’ – and I’d been calling the extended Hollywood series ‘Los Angeles series’, so this still works. Huh, a five star hotel costs only $272? Cheap place. Hmm, Pasadena is a city of 139,731 people, I shouldn’t call it a town. And South Pasadena, looking at a map, is directly south of Pasadena and has a pop of only 26,000 or something around there. Wow, my Emma paragraph really got away from me.

Emma’s best friends are still in Portland and are friends of both her and her ex-wife, so she’s mostly been ignoring them. She does, on occasion, speak with a ‘Lori’ though. She’s also become friendly with two neighbors – Barbara and Jordan.

Recall how I mentioned that part about Jordan immediately flirting with Emma when they meet for the first time? Well, her ‘gaydar’ was pinging Emma as being a lesbian. But then little while later, the next day or later, Jordan’s progress home is again interrupted by having her drive-way blocked. This time by a five year old girl drawing on it. They meet, and stuff. I’m mentioning it more because we have an aspect that I’ve seen pop up in lesbian fiction that I didn’t expect to see pop up here – Jordan immediately moves Emma into the straight column. Because . . . daughter. It was a very brief kind of thing, Emma immediately calls Jordan on it – noting that lesbians can in fact have children. But still . . . to immediately go from ‘*internal thoughts/ping ping ping* that woman is lesbian lesbian lesbian lesbian . . . wait wait . . . child child straight that woman is straight straight *ping ping ping*’ is very confusing to me. But, meh.

So - the book. Jordan and Emma become insta-friends. Hang out together all the time. Sorry, I should have worded that as ‘Jordan, Emma, and Molly’ become insta-friends. Somewhere along the way, Jordan is looking around for Molly in the backyard, and is confused. Doesn’t see her. Then realizes that Molly is way up in the backyard tree. An important point, of course, but I don’t want to reveal everything – just the part where, during the saving of girl and stuffed animal, Jordan fell and broke her arm. And then had to spend even more time hanging around the duplex – wearing a cast. Emma immediately begins helping Jordan do things that Jordan now has trouble doing (like removing clothing). But the two remain friends, and only friends.

There’s kind of an insta-lust going on in this situation, though, for the two keep finding themselves near each other, lingering, hugging, near-kissing. But – Emma doesn’t want anything to do, romantically, with a player (nor, for that matter, a surgeon), while Jordan . . . well, she doesn’t do relationships.

So . . . time passes. People visit (like friend with benefits Simone; and ex-Chloe). Birthday’s come and go. Babysitting by Jordan occurs. Story unfolds. I’m being purposely vague.

For the most part the characters, at least Emma, Jordan, and Molly, are well developed. For a while there I thought Barbara’s character would get some meat, but alas, no. And Hope and Laleh have character, in my mind, more because I already knew them from Hearts Trouble. Most of the side characters are just people passing through – names on the page.

Unfortunately, exaggerating this, this is something like the 3000th time I’ve read a ‘player meets up with a ‘relationships only’ type, walls are beaten upon, conquered, people change’ that I’ve read. Several of which involved single mothers. None, including this book, of these stories have the single mother be the player, maybe for obvious reasons, though occasionally the single mother character would be against . . well, everything – relationships, flings, etc. For her kid. Celibate. And that’s the wall that has to be broken down. There are elements that drift in and out of this book that indicate that Emma was supposed to be that type of single mother, though they are thin elements. Overwhelmed more by ‘eww, player, not for me’, and less by ‘eww, relationships/sex – not for me’.

This is one of those books that, if it had been a television episode, would be called a ‘bottle episode’. Mostly tied to the duplex, with occasional excursions elsewhere – including to the hospital that appeared in Hearts Trouble. I might be thinking of a different term. That or it’s a feeling I probably should not be having for the book – since there were those excursions elsewhere, and there were these other characters. It’s just that so much of the story seems to take place at the duplex or at the hospital that it just feels ‘constrained’ (which is vaguely weird, I know, since one of the things Jordan likes to do to blow off steam, to think, to relax, is to just drive around).

I’ve been attempting to not actually reach this point in my review. The part where I mention that, while I kind of liked the characters, in theory, I was also . . . kind of bored. It’s one of those unfortunate things – I expect a certain ‘spark’ in a Jae book and . . . there wasn’t anything super special about this one. This is unfortunate since there were avenues for some of that to occur. Like, one of the neat things about the previous book in this series (if you want to pretend there’s a series here), Heart Trouble, is the part wherein one of the main characters is/was Persian and part of her culture got intermixed in that book's plotline. The fact that Jordan is black does come up, though rarely. And in a way that would have occurred for anyone who isn’t lily white (like one scene has Jordan take Molly to get ice cream, one of the workers there assume Jordan is Molly’s nanny based entirely on Jordan’s skin color; Jordan could have been Latina and the same reaction could have occurred, or she could even have been white with that reaction – if she had been Eastern European, Russian, etc). There was a point made that, once they got to know each other, they – Jordan and Emma – realized that they had a lot of things in common (things liked, books, etc.). So there was no ‘cultural differences’ to inject into the book. Or something like that.

Right, so. Decent book. I would not necessarily recommend or not recommend.

Rating: 3.44*

* I deduct 0.06 stars for all that kissing. Kissing is icky. Hehe. Okay, I probably would have rated this book the same regardless.

re: 'setting-los-angeles' shelving - South Pasadena is in Los Angeles county.

April 5 2017