Jackson (Jax) and Gianna (Gia) dated each other a few years ago. Gia fell in love and Jax left. Without a word. Fast forward 2 years. Gia is well on her way to becoming a successful business woman. Jax is still Jax. Jax happens to be a Rutledge; a family famous for their business and political clout. This is why he broke it off with her; he had Reasons. 
I was surprised I liked this as much as I did. While I didn't like Jax (surprise there) at the beginning, he grew on me and I liked him by the end of the book. Gia was awesome and I liked her. She didn't make it easy for Jax and I liked that. Gia's mentor, Lei was also likable and I could relate to her. 
The Rossi's, Gianna's family, were fucking awesome! Her brothers love her and are supportive of her without being overprotective. The Rutledges are the complete opposite of the Rossi family.
I did think Jax's "Reasons" were lame; that is what COMMUNICATION is for.

This book took me by surprise. It was nothing like I expected. I went in believing that this would be an ordinary young adult romantic story. Man, was I wrong. There is nothing ordinary about this story. This not your typical story of teenage love. It is a story of survival, forgiveness, coming of age, learning tolerance and love.

Courtland Reese has loved Adela Castielle since the fourth grade, but she had no idea how he felt. Considered weird, because of his uncanny ability to communicate with animals, he spent most of his time alone. Adela has no idea what to make of him, especially when her best friend Max (the guy she hopes will become her boyfriend and future husband) continues to spout his hatred of him. However, when a catastrophic earthquake slammed into California and Courtland rescued her not once but three times, she questioned the stories she heard and was eager to uncover the mystery that is Courtland.

I don't read many young adult books, but I found the premise of this title intriguing and could not resist the lure. I am happy to say I had a great time with this story. The story was well written, and it flowed fluidly from start to finish. I never had a chance to be bored. The story was intense and had me on the edge of my seat. I felt nervous for Adela and Court as they traversed earthquake ravaged territory in their quest for survival.

The story told from both the POV of Adela and Courtland, allowed me to develop a connection with them. I got the opportunity to learn the reasons for their actions. It made me privy to their thoughts and feelings, thus allowing me to relate to their pain and fears. I loved that in spite of their fears they were able to keep a level head during times of crisis.

When I first met Adela I was not a fan, as she appeared a judgemental, spoilt and selfish brat. Her treatment of Courtland at the time was unfriendly. Her treatment towards him was no better than that of his other peers. However, when disaster struck, I saw a different side of her. I came to appreciate this version of her, which proved to be sweet, caring and protective. Her actions towards Courtland demonstrated these traits.

Courtland was a sweetheart. He is half Miwok Indian who had to deal with bigotry on many levels. He did not have an easy childhood. He lost his mom at an early age and his dad and the bottle became best friends as a result. However, he remained strong through it all. He is not the type to wallow in self-pity. He is a take charge person, which he proved by his actions after disaster struck. What I liked most about him was he did not allow what people thought of him to change him. Even though Adela treated him with disdain, his love for her never faltered.

Max was the least likable character. His hatred of Courtland was not justified. It was hard to believe that they were ever friends. He is selfish, cowardly and belligerent. In the end, he developed a measure of kindness, but it was too late for it to endear me to him.

There are some areas that I had a bit of a problem with, fortunately, it did not take away from my enjoyment, but it left me with some questions.


*** THERE MAY BE SPOILERS AHEAD *** -

I would love to know what transpired with Max after he left Adela and Courtland in his parents' wine cave on the pretense that he was going to get help. Nothing is heard of him again until Courtland and Adela found him on the brink of starvation.

- It would have been good to know what exactly happened to Adela's dad. It was stated that he had not survived, but there was no evidence to indicate this. How did he die?

- I am one of those readers who is all for an epilogue, however, in this case, I was disappointed. It would have been nice if it was geared towards what took place years later, instead of what was expected to happen.

*** END OF SPOILER ***

Verdict

The story demonstrates the value of teamwork, friendships and the dangers of accepting rumours without having the facts. If you are a fan of the young adult genre and looking for a unique story, then you will enjoy this book.

Freefall -- Jill Sorenson

Book 2 of Aftershock series

2013 Release -- Harlequin HQN

Adult, Romantic Suspense, Mystery, Crime, Sports

I like that the Aftershock series is a different brand of Romantic Suspense than what I’m used to--the stories base themselves around situational happenings, such as certain disasters, nature expeditions, sporting activities… etc. The first book in this series, Aftershock, was centered around a natural disaster, an earthquake, that stranded our heroes under a collapsed freeway. Of course, things would have been bad enough, but the author also had to include in the dangers of bad people trying to take advantage of bad situations for their own benefit.

Even so, I still enjoyed it a lot even if it wasn’t incredibly awesome. (Link to my review of Aftershock.)

Freefall was just as exciting and enjoyable, with so much forward progression that you don’t really have time to stop and think about the few quibbles that arose due to logical questioning of the happenings in the story itself. The book went by so quickly that I simply enjoyed it for what it was: an entertaining Romantic Suspense based in a national park where natural dangers can lurk around every corner.

As I had stated, sometimes nature is unforgiving enough without a dangerous human presence to make the situation even more frantic; but that is how this book was written and I’ll go with it. Honestly, I would have liked a book focused more on how our heroes would cope with surviving a natural disaster, or being stranded on a mountain, or something of the like, without human baddies to contend with.


The Story in Brief:
A plane has crashed on top of a remote mountain, cutting short Hope Banning’s plans for white water rafting with her sister. As the only park ranger available at the time who can climb to the summit to assess the situation, she heeds the emergency call to investigate. Unfortunately, the only climbing partner she can find is none other than Sam Rutherford, a man she would rather not have contact with again due to a night spent with him six months ago, which followed with him practically throwing her out of his home without explanation.

Sam Rutherford’s memory of losing his girlfriend in a climbing accident is gone after the San Diego earthquake knocked him unconscious (from the first book). Ever since then, he has insisted on climbing solo and braving dangerous expeditions in order to feel anything. The last thing he wants to do is climb to the summit of any mountain with a partner, especially Hope; he still feels a sizzle of chemistry between them and he doesn’t like it (since he has confusing, lingering feelings for the deceased girlfriend, Melissa, and hasn’t been able to remember the period in which he’d been grieving).

But Hope has to do her job, with or without him, and he can’t leave her hanging on her own. But as soon as they reach the site of the plane crash, it turns out that there is something much more dangerous going on: a killer is now wandering the mountainous national park, the plane belonged to that of drug smugglers, and the person who owns that plane has dispatched his own minions to retrieve both the drug cargo and the man who escaped the plane.

So now Hope and Sam must track down the killer in the unforgiving terrain of mother nature’s playground as they attempt to put their own personal issues aside.


Overall Thoughts:
Yeah, I know. Not the best summary ever, but the official blurbs I’ve found really are a little misleading. At first, I had been expecting a commercial or private plane crash wherein the survivors (yes, plural) are stranded at the summit of a remote mountain and there’s a killer amongst them. I figured that Sam and Hope would climb to the top of the summit and become stranded with the survivors and a killer and must figure out who the baddie is before everyone dies. And then at the same time, they’d have to figure out how to survive on the mountain until reinforcements arrive.

That’s what I had thought the story would be about and got really excited about it.

Instead, it turns out, in the actual story, that the plane was a cargo plane, there were only two passengers, Hope finds the pilot with a hole in his chest from a gunshot wound, and the only other passenger is AWOL. And so Hope trudges through the mountain tracking down the killer on a rather TSTL mission. But I forgive her for making bad decisions because she is tough as nails and can take care of herself… and a multiple of other reasons.

But I still wish she would have called for help. Because man or woman, it’s still a bit dangerous to be tracking down a killer in a humongous, mountainous national park alone; the terrain is bad enough to travel over even when you’re just going on a leisurely expedition with no killers running around. So it was fortunate that Sam felt obligated to follow her and keep her out of trouble--still, he’s not law enforcement and shouldn’t have had to keep an eye on Hope. Hope should have known better.

Then again, if our park ranger had been a man and had done the same things that Hope did, lots of people would have been applauding his heroic behavior. This is why I don’t give Hope any crap about her actions. But, I honestly think that even if the park ranger were a man, he would still have been better off waiting for a partner to help him.

So, anyway, it wasn’t the story I was hoping for, but I don’t deny that I enjoyed it nonetheless. There’s a deeper emotional tension between our main couple that seemed to pluck at all the right places in my non-existent heart. The personal drama going on between Hope and Sam was enough to propel the development of their relationship in a good progressive direction.

Mainly, I liked the characters, even Hope’s sister, Faith. And I’m also glad we get to see more of young Owen and see how much he’s grown since the events of Aftershock.

Like Aftershock, the imagery and descriptions in Freefall were dark and vivid. The tone was gritty and extreme. The romance wasn’t all that great and the sex scenes were a little bland and raw, but the friendship-non-friendship-romance between Sam and Hope was intense enough and emotional enough that I liked it. Their unsatiated chemistry was actually a lot more full of FEELS than when they finally got together in the end to have their Happily Ever After™; not that I don’t like a happy ending, but it did get a little tacky.

And a short, brief thoughts review turned into a rambling, so I’m going to have to stop typing now.