A review by writerbeverly
Fall into You by Roni Loren

4.0

Things I loved about this novel:

1) Tomboy Charli has an amazing, fresh voice, and wonderful sense of humor. For example, after a day at the spa getting prettified, after she’s been instructed by her dom to wear a pair of high heels for dinner, and is barefoot, instead, “I’ve been waxed and plucked exfoliated and... ironed, I think. Some woman whose name I can’t pronounce has now seen more of me than my gynecologist ever has. And this dress is...drafty. You gotta give me something here.”

Charli manages to get under Grant’s skin, and not just because she’s beautiful, and untamed, but because she pushes back. After XX many years as owner/operator of one of the most ?popular? BDSM clubs ever, Grant has gotten jaded by the sight of gorgeous women lining up for a round of “Can you Bottom this?”

Charli knows she needs to come across as more feminine and graceful, for the sake of her career. Plus, she likes sex with Grant. She really, really likes sex with Grant. But she is very dubious about the whole BDSM game, which makes her somebody I can relate to.

2) Humorous touches throughout. Tom Brady, Charli’s cat, is also not at all interested in obeying Grant, and Grant doesn’t know whether to shit or wind his watch.

3) HAWT sex scenes. Whether you’re “into” BDSM or not, the sex scenes are true “clit lit,” as my friend Kim refers to it. Text your boyfriend, or turbo-charge your vibrator, you’re going to be needin’ him/it (or perhaps both!).

I enjoyed seeing Jace again, as well as Andre and Evan (okay, I seriously want to throw Evan under a bus and take her place).

Hard to swallow:

1) Grant is a former CIA operative and husband/expectant father who lost his wife and unborn child through being too dominant and unwilling to ask for help. He is dealing with his losses by a) not letting anyone get close to him (okay, I can buy that one), and b) becoming super-dominant. That’s the one I have trouble with. I get it, there’s no way The Ranch and all the previous stories “work” without Grant being an alpha male and a dominant. But, seems to me, they’d work better if his past included a traumatic incident (or more) where he hadn’t taken the lead, and things turned out badly.

2) Little details that don’t quite match up. For example, Charli sees her boss Trey (who is also a former lover) a day or two after she’s been knocked out with a concussion and a huge goose egg on her forehead, but they meet and he doesn’t even see/remark on some bruising or continued swelling? Grant takes Charli from behind in his kitchen with its cold granite countertops, on which she is sliding and moving. No mention of what is going on with her breasts - are they stimulated and pointy from the action? Schmushed flat and perhaps hurting? Loren describes so many details so well, I feel bad nitpicking, but these are things that took me out of the story.

3) The suspense plot doesn’t carry the same level of intensity throughout the novel. It starts high, and ends high, but in the middle, kind of sags.

All in all, I recommend this book as smart, sexy erotic romance, and still count myself as a big Roni Loren fan.