Five Ways to Fall – K. A. Tucker

Title : Five Ways to Fall
Author : K. A. Tucker
First published in : 2014
Genre : New Adult
Edition : Atria Books
Pages : 370
Status : read from 07/11/19 to 07/15/19
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Synopsis : Sometimes you can’t change – and sometimes you just don’t want to.
Purple-haired, sharp-tongued Reese MacKay has made plenty of bad decisions in her twenty-odd years. So when her impulsive, short-lived marriage ends in heartbreak, she decides it’s time for a change. She moves to Miami with the intention of getting herself on the straight and narrow, and she does quite well… aside from an epically humiliating one-night stand in Cancun with a hot blond bouncer named Ben. Thank God she can get on a plane and leave that mistake behind her.
Football scholarship and frat parties with hot chicks? Part of charmer Ben Morris’s plan. Blown knee that kills any hope of a professional football career? So not part of the plan. Luckily Ben has brains to go along with his knockout looks and magnetism. And after three long years of balancing law school with his job as a bouncer at Penny’s Palace, he’s ready to lead a more mature life—until his first day of work, when he finds himself in the office of that crazy, hot chick he met in Cancun. The one he hasn’t stopped thinking about.
If Ben were truly a smart guy, he’d stay clear of Reese. She’s the boss’s stepdaughter and it’s been made very clear that office romances are grounds for dismissal. Plus, rumor has it she’s trouble. The only problem is, he likes trouble – especially when it’s so good-looking…

Review : After two first books I really enjoyed and a third one I was less convinced by, I had some expectations for this fourth novel by K. A. Tucker. If you read my reviews, you already know that I wanted either to find back Kacey and Livie, or to discover a lighter love story between lovable characters. I had what I was looking for with Ben and Reese. At first, I have to say that I was a little bit afraid it would be another romance with the same background as the previous books, as it was about Ben, who worked at Penny’s. Fortunately, we follow him once he has started his new job at a law firm. We’re done with this club with naked girls and macho boys. Even if Ben isn’t ready for a relationship and highly prefers having sex with different women, I was more interested in this novel and wanted to know more about him and this new character, Reese. I haven’t been disappointed at all by what I discovered in Five Ways to Fall.  I loved the relationship between Ben and Reese, the fact that they become really good friends before falling in love with each other. I think it is more passionate and believable when characters don’t fall in love at first sight, but when they learn to know each other and like each part of their personalities. I also liked the fact that Five Ways to Fall is not only a love story, but also about family, daily difficulties, revenge and lies. In my opinion, this fourth novel is the more accomplished of the series. The plot is more detailed, the characters are stronger ones and the book is full of suspense, from the beginning until the end.
A little bit more about the characters now. As I already said, I really liked Ben and Reese. Ben is much more complex that I thought in the previous books, in which he was a secondary character. I’m glad I discovered him in another way because he is now one of my favorite characters from the series. Reese is one of them too. I appreciated her personality, with her passionate nature and her weaknesses. This is also the case for the secondary characters such as Mason, Jack and Wilma, who are really interesting to follow. I think it would have been a good idea to develop more their role in the plot or in another book as they have a good background to write about.
To conclude, Five Ways to Fall is definitely my favorite book of the series. I enjoyed following these characters and discovering this story. The series could not have ended in a better way! If you haven’t read Five Ways to Fall yet, I highly encourage you to do so. It is not necessary to read the previous ones, as some actions are developped in this book and the rest of the story is independent from the other novels.

Also by K. A. Tucker : Ten Tiny Breaths + One Tiny Lie + Four Seconds to Lose