No Falling Allowed by Melissa West

Blurb:
My life just went South…

Twenty-four hours. That’s how long it took my life to flip upside down.

Wake up in bed alone after the best night of my life? Check.

Get fired instead of the promised promotion? Check.

Wealthy parents cut me off when I refuse to follow their path for my life? Check.

Now I’m in Cricket Creek, SC—a place where no New Yorker belongs—disowned and broke, with a new job that I can’t mess up. Oh yeah, and staring at my one-night stand, who happens to be the complete opposite of my type.

Southern.

Cocky.

Bartender.

Noah Hunter never should have made it back to my apartment in NYC, and I definitely shouldn’t be in his small town. But fate had another plan. Or a horrible sense of humor.

Who knew Mr. Wrong could feel so right…

    

My Review:
4 stars — I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

This could even be a 4.5 stars…so maybe like 4.25 stars?  But I’m not sure if part of that is just profound relief.  I read the first book and was just disappointed…not that it was bad, it was just really unremarkable.  So I did in fact take a break and read a different book in between, and I’m not sure if that helped, or if this book really was just much more suited to my tastes, or if it was just better in general!  Whatever the reason, I really enjoyed this book, and that is such a relief.  This is what I was expecting, so yay!!

One major difference between this and the first book that may have contributed to my enjoyment was that this book was in dual POV (whereas book one was told only from the heroine’s POV, and I felt like I didn’t get to know the hero).  It’s not that I don’t enjoy singular POV books, but I think this author definitely benefited from giving both of our MCs a voice.

I was surprised by how much I did enjoy Grace!  I wasn’t expecting that from the little we’d learned of her in book 1.  She just seemed shallow and out of touch with reality.  And occasionally I would wonder at the bit of dichotomy in her character — she was a girl who really took advantage of her wealth and didn’t always understand the perspective of her friends who lived on budgets, but she was also embarrassed of her wealth.  But somehow it still worked for me, I still bought it and could see how she could come to be a bit of a contradiction.  I really didn’t expect her to have so much depth and hurt.  In some ways I felt like the resolution with her parents was a bit too easy given some of the realizations she was coming to, but I was mostly in it for the romance, so I’ll brush that aside.

And Noah/Hunter was an intriguing character all on his own.  I wish it hadn’t taken til so late in the book to find out the details of his past…it might have helped figure out why he was so guilty feeling and why he was so hellbent on making things right.  But I’m just glad we did finally get that explanation.

I will admit I didn’t always buy into the responsibility Grace was given so easily on the wedding planning…or how late in the game she was.  But it really wasn’t the focus, so I’m ok letting that go as well.

And since I adored the chemistry between Grace and Noah, I was getting a bit impatient at how long it took for them to find one another again after the one night stand, b/c oh baby did they just have a certain magnetism, you know?

All in all, this one succeeded in so many of the ways that the first book failed me.  And I know I’m doing a lot of comparison, and it’s not necessary to read the first book to enjoy this one.  It’s just the way my mind works I guess.  I will definitely be watching to see if Lauren gets a better HEA than the one she settled for.