Reviewed by Heather C

TITLE: Fall Apart
SERIES: The Liaisons #4
AUTHOR: S.E. Culpepper
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 327 pages
BLURB: Dodging his ex, giving the Best Man speech, and smuggling home extra slices of wedding cake are Damon Wright’s only plans on his buddy’s wedding day. Capturing the attention of a renowned photographer with twice the sexual magnetism of James Bond doesn’t even make the list. Accustomed to a life spent keeping his head down, managing family obligations, Damon is unprepared for even a lukewarm pursuit, much less the hot, focused advances of a man like Alarik whose sophistication leaves Damon reeling.

Tired of the vapid, morally bankrupt and grasping fellows so common in his line of work, Alarik is through serving as just another step for mercenary men on the ladder to success. Damon’s kindhearted reserve excites a profound response within him, enticing him with the idea of an honest future. Compelled to dig beneath the surface in search of something lasting, Alarik can’t help but wonder if falling in love can be as easy as breathing.

Yet, fairytales don’t exist in the pace of real life; they disappear in shadow. Absorbed by the happiness of finding one another, Damon and Alarik never see the darkness coming…

REVIEW:

Yaaaaaaay!!!! I was so excited when I saw that a new Liaisons book was going to be released, even though I had no clue who the characters were. I couldn’t recall a Damon or an Alarik from any of the previous books, but I was still inpatient to get it onto my Kindle.

Fall Apart is about Damon, a thirty-three year old guy with a record of two nasty, failed relationships who is devoted to working for his family’s sporting goods store; and Alarik, a thirty-eight year old semi-famous photographer who is bored with meaningless hookups. The two men are set-up at their friends’ wedding and after a very brief and adorable courtship, they both agree to pursue a long-term relationship. Ah, but real life happens and two other men interfere with Damon and Alarik’s happy ever after. (There’s no cheating so get that out of your head already.)

Oh, I forgot to mention in my story summary that Mark and Zane from the second book of the series, Question Mark, appear in a large portion of this book. But I will come back to them a little later.

So back to Damon and Alarik: I really liked the tension and the flirting in the early stages of their relationship. One thing I can usually count on with this author is that the characters never meet and immediately jump into bed together. If I remember correctly, all the books so far in this series meet my “sex after 40%” standard. Anyway, once they finally were “together”, it’s pretty much insta-love…ick. And then they both started doing stupid things: Damon used his own pain to hurt the people he loved, and Alarik allowed himself to be tempted by a past crush. Yes, I admit that these were realistic reactions of real people, but the way it was handled made me doubt that there was real love between Damon and Alarik. Dammit, I was so frustrated reading this!! Don’t forget, there was no cheating, but jeez I was worried there for a while. I do have to commend Alarik for staying true and faithful to Damon. I don’t think I would have if I had found myself in a similar situation. Ugh. Sooooo, the sweet, romantic ending really redeemed this story for me. It was very sappy, but it made me smile. Still, way in the back of my mind, I’m not 100% convinced that Damon and Alarik’s love was real.

Now, let me talk about Mark and Zane. I might be in the minority here, but Mark and Zane are probably my most favorite couple of this series. Yes, their story was really fucked up, but there’s just something about them that I adore. They are so sweet and romantic, and I actually loved that I got to see them happy together again. On the other hand, I’m really not sure why Mark and Zane had to play such a big role in this story; they are now happily married, but I suppose they needed to tie Max (Alarik’s crush) into the story and maybe set him up for the next book of the series? I don’t know, but for me, their storyline really didn’t relate to the main plot, and I found it very distracting to what was going on with Damon and Alarik. I actually found myself more excited to read the scenes with Mark or Zane than I was to read about Damon or Alarik, and that’s just not right!

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the secondary characters in this story; not only Mark and Zane but also Damon’s friends and family, especially his parents. I even liked Max in the end; boy does that guy have a lot of demons, so I really hope his story is next. I even have a strong suspicion of who his love interest will be.

One last issue for me was that I really didn’t “hear” Alarik’s accent. I wanted more Britishisms or Finnish-isms or whatever Alarik’s heritage was.

While there were parts of this story that I loved, there were other parts that really frustrated me…obviously. But I’m still giving this 3.5 stars because once I got past all the information dumping in the beginning, I couldn’t put the damn thing down, even when I really wanted to throw my Kindle across the room.

For those of you who love this series, I definitely recommend keeping Fall Apart on your radar, but I wouldn’t say it’s a have-to-read-right-now kind of story…for me anyway. Sadly, its my least favorite of the series so far.

Heather rates it –

BUY LINKS: Amazon

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Heather C. is one of the official reviewers on The Blog of Sid Love.

To read all her reviews, click the link: HEATHER’S REVIEWS
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