Reviewed by Larissa

 

TITLE: Make Me Fall

SERIES:  Water, Air, Earth, Fire, Book 2

AUTHOR: Riley Nash

NARRATOR:  Michael Gallagher, Theo Sinclair

PUBLISHER: Self-published

LENGTH: 8 hours and 36 minutes

RELEASE DATE: January 6, 2023

BLURB: 

You can’t fly without falling, so close your eyes and let go.

People ask me if I’m human. If I have feelings. If I’ve ever loved anyone. I’m the lawyer who has never lost a case because I have nothing else to live for.

Until Jonah.

He’s my complete opposite: a reckless boy 12 years younger than me, made of sunshine and wicked smiles, pure and breathtaking.

It all starts with a secret. He wants to find out if he’s bi, and he begs me to teach him because we’ll never see each other again.

Until he shows up on my doorstep with nowhere else to go. I can’t draw lines faster than we blur them. He’s the unstoppable force; I’m the immovable object. When we collide, things get filthy. Complicated.

More beautiful than I ever could have imagined.

He’s the only person ever to learn the truth: I’ve always been human. I’ve always had feelings. I’ve been so, so afraid to lose.

Because the moment we find enough trust to jump is the moment we realize our wings might be too broken to fly.

A heartfelt, emotional story of two lonely souls searching for meaning, featuring a bi awakening, grumpy/sunshine opposites attract, an age gap, and a main character with a disability.

The books in this series take place in the same universe and have recurring characters, but each book is a stand-alone that can be listened to separately or in any order!

REVIEW: 

Make Me Fall is the follow-up to Riley Nash’s stupendous Hold Me Under, and it doesn’t fall short despite the high bar set by that first series book. However, before I explain why Make Me Fall is so exceptional, especially in its audiobook format, I feel compelled to give a PSA to anyone intending to read this book without having read the first book in the series, Hold Me Under. 

Although the blurb indicates that each book in Nash’s Water, Air, Earth, Fire series is a standalone that “can be read separately or in any order”, I (partially) disagree. Can you read it without reading Hold Me Under? Yes, because Nash provides enough background and context within the pages of Make Me Fall to make this story successful on its own. Should you read it without reading Hold Me Under? If you want the complete picture, to get all the nuances, and to not have a pivotal plot point from Hold Me Under spoiled, no, you should not.

One of the two main characters in Make Me Fall, Gray Freeman, is shaped by what happens in Hold Me Under. It’s the primary driver for just about everything he does in Make Me Fall. His whole identity lives in his professional success as a lawyer. Coming out of Hold Me Under, that self-esteem has taken a severe hit. Gray’s running from the metaphorical scene of the crime, but even flying 3000 miles away to start a new life in New York doesn’t unburden Gray of the self-imposed albatross around his neck: his overwhelming guilt about what happened to his friend, his client’s son, Victor Lang, the controversial main character of Hold Me Under, and Gray’s part in it.  Now he’s skittish and scared, and he lives under the constant need to make sure he doesn’t miss anything ever again and that he’s making things right.  If you haven’t read Hold Me Under before Make Me Fall, you’ll know there’s more to Gray’s story (YMMV in terms of how much that bugs you), but it doesn’t take away from Gray and Jonah’s story which is must-read material. 

In contrast to its predecessor, Make Me Fall is less distressing, although still poignant and angsty.  But it leans towards the reassuring and heartwarming side rather than the rip-your-heart-out devastation of Hold Me Under.  Additionally, its two main characters, Gray, the grumpy, closed-off, emotionally scarred lawyer, and his much younger airplane seatmate/mile high club hookup-turned student-turned-intern-turned roommate, Jonah Scott, are so damn endearing you can’t help but fall in love with them and their relationship. They “fit together into something better than the sum of its parts” and they succeed as friends, lovers, and devoted partners despite their “parts” being quite different.

Gray’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders, and his cross-country flight doesn’t relieve any of that, but it does bring him the most unexpected, life-changing surprise – Jonah.  Jonah is a sunshiney, indefatigable, adorable train wreck. He operates on a different wavelength than most.  Social skills, concentration, … just sitting still – these are all significant challenges for Jonah. Yet he doesn’t want to disappoint anyone or admit his weaknesses.  In fact, where Jonah gets himself into trouble is when he rises to every challenge because he thinks he needs to prove himself over and over.

Nash cracks open Jonah’s cheery exterior to show us his pain, frustration and loneliness. His confusion over his bisexual awakening and reconciling his sexual identity with expectations. How he feels he’s a failure and doesn’t know how to make things right. Jonah is one of those indelible characters that you simply cannot look away from and cannot help but love. He is a colorful bird that needs to fly free, and only a special man can love him while not caging him. Gray is that man, it just takes time for them both to see it. 

This story is about healing and redemption and the hurt/comfort dynamic that plays out between him and Gray as they help save each other will snag you in its web and not let go.  By the end of the book, those warm fuzzies will be flying.  Then you need to read the continuation of their story in And All Their Stars. Oh my heart.

I didn’t think this book could get better until I heard this book narrated by Michael Gallagher (as Jonah) and Theo Sinclair (as Gray).  Gallagher’s voice contains a youth and energy that totally fits Jonah’s personality, but he delivers it with a wry edge and tightens up his voice to express frustration and the need to prove, to succeed – something Jonah experiences frequently.

Sinclair’s voice is lower pitched, and weightier. It sounds sedate, but far from serene. You can hear the burden Gray carries in the slow, almost plodding way Sinclair narrates him. You can speed up the audio playback, but just don’t … The slower pace is intentional, and you lose a significant aspect of Gray’s character if you strip away the beleaguered tone that Sinclair hits so perfectly throughout this audio.

Both narrators nail the fundamentals. They pick the right pitch for their characters, inflect and intone appropriately, and consistently and clearly distinguish between them.  They also both have that “something special” – they know how to tell a story, one we can relate to and get absorbed in. They make Jonah and Gray our friends, two men we want to understand, root for, and for whom we crave a HEA.

I highly recommend Make Me Fall in audio format. It will introduce you to two lesser-known but highly talented MM romance narrators, and it elevates Nash’s superb, impactful story into a living, breathing embodiment of Jonah and Gray’s very special love.

RATING: 

BUY LINKS: 

Audible  

Amazon