Author Groupies: Review of Falling by E.K. Blair

Title: Falling (Fading #2)

Author: E.K. Blair

Rating: 4 Groupie Stars

Sometimes it takes someone else to show us what we are truly capable of becoming.

Suffering from years of violent abuse, Ryan Campbell has learned how to keep people from getting too close. But when you shut yourself off, people get hurt along the way. Never caring much about others, Ryan creates a world in which he doesn't have to feel.

When Ryan meets Candace Parker, all of his walls slowly begin to crumble. Not sure of the truth of who she is, he feels his mind is playing tricks on him. Unable to force out the thoughts that consume him, Ryan is haunted by visions that torment him every time he looks at her. He finds himself swallowed by guilt and blame, but he's unwilling to turn his back on the one person that could possibly save him.

You've heard Candace's story in Fading, now hear Ryan's.

Falling by E.K. Blair book trailer from Novel Idea Inc. on Vimeo.

THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART!!

"I'm sure she can hear my heart pounding, but I need her to hear it. I need her to feel it as it thuds in my chest because I need her to hear me falling for her, 'cause that's what's happening here-I'm falling."

This may be a love story but it is full of heartache and broken pieces. Ryan and Candace have a long rough path to go down before they meet and mend each others souls.

I want to connect, I want everything that I've been afraid of…

Oh Ryan. The dear tortured soul. Ryan has lived a hellish life with a very abusive father and has brought that package into his adult life. He has never really dealt with it and harbors guilt and fear that he will turn into his father one day. So he has kept women out of his "emotion" box and never keeps them around longer than a quickie.

"He's a part of me. He runs through my blood. I hate him. I don't want to be him, but I am."

Ryan owns a busy and popular bar near campus. While it pretty much runs itself, he tend to stay there late doing work and sometimes to find his next "quickie." It is one of those late nights when he encounters one of the worst things a person could. He hears sounds down in the alley but just assumes that it is some drunk people leaving the bar. He ignores it until he hears a woman screaming. He runs down to find a woman being raped. He beats the guy up but he ends up running off. Ryan calls the police but can't identify the girl because she is so badly beat.

"She is so small, and when I look at her tiny hands, her nails are shredded. Shit. She fought. She had to have fought hard. The thought nearly makes me vomit, and when I shift my eyes away from her hands, I notice a little tattoo of a heart."

Ryan has a hard time forgetting about the incident and finds himself not wanting to partake in his regular ways with women. He keeps replaying the scene in his head over and over again and can't get past the guilt that he feels for not going down there sooner. He hates that he didn't follow her to the hospital and make she was ok or find out who she was.

"The whole time I knew there was someone back there, and I ignored it. I sat in my office while that girl fought so hard she had no nails left."

Talk about walls crumbling! Ryan's walls didn't just crumble, they came crashing down when he met Candace!!! Ryan meets Candace Parker at a nearby coffee shop. When he first sees her working there he feels like he as seen her before but can't figure out where. She is not his type of girl that he would regularly pick up so he is stumped.

"I think I know this girl 'cause something about her seems familiar. I stare, trying to pinpoint who she is, but she's so different from any girl I would ever go for, so I'm confused."

Ryan keeps seeing her every now then at the coffee shop and soon learns that she is a mutual friend of his friends Jace and Mark. The more he sees of Candace, the more he can't get her out of his head. He likes to be around her but she is very standoffish and he is confused by her. He's never had to work for a girl's attention and this one isn't even giving him a second of her time!

"Damn, I feel like a deprived puppy, smitten over details of a chick I don't even know."

After helping her out with her parents and taking her to his mom's for Christmas, Ryan starts to have some real feelings for Candace. Ones he has never felt for another woman. He isn't sure how to deal with them, but he knows that he can't live with out her in his life. He also knows that she has been through something terrible in the recent past and that he will have to tread lightly with her or risk scaring her away. But he can't get rid of the feeling that he somehow knows her.

"She has a depth to her. A depth I've never seen with the girls I've been with. She's different than the chicks I normally go for." "In what way?" I turn back to my mom and respond, "In every way."

It isn't until after Ryan has finally broken through Candace's barriers that he figures out who she is. An incident with her behind his bar triggers the thought but it isn't until he sees her tattoo that is exactly like the one from the girl he saved from behind his bar, that he realizes who she is. But Ryan, too afraid that she would run if she knew it was him that saved her, says nothing to her and strives to make himself the one and only that she wants to lean on. Hoping that he will be able to tell her one day and she won't hate him for keeping it from her. But all good intentions fall wrong somewhere. Can Ryan keep Candace in his life or are they destined to fail? Can Candace move past her fears and love Ryan the way she wants to or will her past ruin it all? Will Ryan break her barriers and become the man he wants to be for her.

GOD!!! This book was so heartbreaking and I loved it even more than Fading, This is one of the first books that I actually liked that was told again but from the other point of view. I was very hesitant to read it because I haven't liked any of the others, because I felt it was just retelling the story again. But not with Falling!! Ryan's side of the story was just as heartbreaking and sad and Candace's and I loved reading his thoughts and finding out more about his life before Candace. So many questions were answered for me about what he was thinking after her rape and how he dealt with it. This book gave Ryan more depth and soul and really made you fall in love with him! I hope everyone enjoys Ryan's story as much as I did!!

USA Today bestselling author and International Amazon bestselling author, E.K. Blair takes her readers on an emotional roller coaster with her FADING series. A former first grade teacher with an imagination that runs wild. Daydreaming and zoning out is how she was often found in high school. Blair tends to drift towards everything dark and moody. Give her a character and she will take pleasure in breaking them down, digging into their core to find what lies underneath.

Aside from writing, E.K. Blair finds pleasure in music, drinking her Starbucks in peace, and spending time with her friends. She's a thinker, an artist, a wife, a mom, and everything in between.