Reviewed by Kat
TITLE: Accepting the Fall
AUTHOR: Meg Harding
PUBLISHER: Oceanside Press
LENGTH: 200 pages
RELEASE DATE: June 8, 2017
BLURB:
Confronting the past is never easy.
Cole Whitaker is happy. He has the job and boyfriend he always wanted. His heart’s in no danger of being broken, and he can’t ask for more from life. As a kindergarten teacher, he sees it all; however, one troublesome student has him reaching out to the parent, wanting to help. There’s something about Savanah that tugs at his heartstrings.
He never expected her father.
Zander Brooks hasn’t had an easy life, and he’s made some mistakes. Freshly retired from the military and working as a firefighter, Zander thought he’d left Cole in the rearview mirror. He’s not expecting him to appear in St. Petersburg, Florida, of all places, teaching his daughter’s kindergarten class. Suddenly, his biggest mistake is being shoved in his face.
This is Zander’s chance to close a door he’d never fully shut, but time with his former flame might change his mind.
REVIEW:
This is a new-to-me author and the premise sounded interesting.
Cole Whitaker is an ex-army brat who is an experienced kindergarten teacher. When a new student is attempting to get the better of him he realizes that he is going to have to speak to her parents. When Cole’s first love, the boy that shattered his young heart at the age of 16 in Germany, shows up at the door of his classroom in St. Petersburg, Florida, shocked is an understatement. Zander Brooks has had a lot of surprises in the last several months. First he finds out he’s a father when his daughter is left literally on his doorstep with a note that states she’s all yours now. The product of a one night stand, the bi-sexual man knows in his heart he has to be better father than his own dad had been. And Savanah is a spitfire. She doesn’t make life around her easy for anyone. When tensions keep igniting between the two men something has to give. But can Cole learn to trust the man who shattered his heart so many years ago?
Although Cole and Zander were nice men and I wanted to care about them, for some reason they just didn’t click with me. I thought that I would be more sympathetic towards Cole, with him being a teacher, a person who took in rescue animals in need and a giving heart but it just wasn’t there. And Zander’s story, although a bit sad and touching, just didn’t grab me either. Part of it was the fact, even though Savanah was basically a throw-away child by her mother, she was mouthy and disrespectful, something I have absolutely no tolerance for with a child. Don’t get me wrong, I understand and feel for the situation, but children are more resilient and I felt her acting out and rude behavior went on for way to long.
Something else that drug for me was the story plot. I realize that we needed the backstory to totally appreciate how each man became the way they were, but some of it repeated way too often and the story stalled out for me at times. I had to push myself not to skim the flashbacks at times. Once they finally worked out their situation and decided to take a chance, the story seemed to go in fast gear and was suddenly over. I just felt like the whole pacing was off for me.
This was a nice enough second-chance at love story with a bit of angst. But, unfortunately the pacing, and some typos that pulled me completely out of the story several times trying to figure out what the author was attempting to say, made this more than a miss that a hit for me. I hoped for more of a well rounded story but it just didn’t work for me. Good premise but fell short.
RATING: 
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