When We Fall by Marquita Valentine
This book was provided to me for free through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Thoughts at a glance: *** (I liked it)
Summary: As the good-girl daughter of a society matron and the Chief of Police, Piper has been in love with her best friend's brother, bad boy Jase, since she was fourteen. She hung onto her feelings for him even during all those years she watched him chasing other girls and even during the seven years he spent in prison for killing a man. (It was self-defense, of course.)
As she finally decides to stand up to her parents about her future, she finds herself cut off and without a place to stay - until Jase conveniently has a spare room and an opening at his tattoo shop. Jase has always avoided letting Piper get too close, since she is too good and pure for his world, and he wants to protect her from it. But her goodness is what makes her irresistible to him.
But they can't escape reality for long - as more people, including Piper's parents, catch wind of their relationship, trouble starts to brew.
Thoughts: This was another two and a half stars for me. Overall, I liked it - some romance novels I read are a little more coy about the language of their love scenes, but this one is not, and in a way, I prefer language that is more frank and straightforward because euphemisms and flowery language are just too cutesy for my taste.
On the other hand, I feel like the two main characters got together too quickly and too easily? I know that the main conflict of the novel is not in the getting-together part, but the staying-together part. But still... I was like, "That's it? That's all she had to do, and now they're totally an item?" It felt a little far-fetched to me. But hey, it was still an enjoyable read.
PS - Can we just stop using the name Jase/Jace in romance novels for a while? I feel like I've read a large number of main characters with that name this year. And there are so many other names to choose from. Just please.