Review – After We Fall by Melanie Harlow

What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly? ~Erin Hansen

I fell in love with Melanie Harlow’s latest sensation, After We Fall, by just reading the synopsis. I had not even sunk myself into story and I KNEW it would be a heart-thrashing hit. Cowboy…OH YES for this Southern gal. Ex-Army soldier…DOUBLE YES for this Army wife. Brooding, hot, muscular, rugged alpha…YES, YES, YES! SOLD! SOLD! SOLD!

After We Fall held me in its clutches, quickly captivating and claiming me in one utterly UNPUTDOWNABLE tale. I was at this story’s mercy, needing to sink myself so deeply into After We Fall that I never wanted to surface for air. This heartbreaking yet heartwarming story stole my breath where I was drowning to breathe.

My emotions were engulfed by this beautiful yet broken book, feels flowing all over the pages. Chills ran through me. My breaths were bated. My pulse raced. My heart shattered. I felt every word I read. After We Fall was my adrenaline…my anguish…my ache…my addiction. I WAS ALL IN.

Gorgeous and brooding cowboy, Jack Valentini, wants nothing to do with the beautiful blonde and blue-eyed Margot ‘Barbie’ Lewiston who is bringing some much-needed PR expertise to his family’s struggling farm. This rich gal is an annoyance and he doesn’t want any more changes in his already devastating life.

“I’d already met the love of my life…I’d married her, and I’d lost her…There was no second chance.”

I wanted to wrap up Jack in a huge hug. My heart bled for this cowboy who suffered a great loss and is still stuck in the darkness. The closed-off alpha reveals a peek of his big heart and Margot can’t help but become enamored by this complex cowboy.

“Someone who loved like that had to have a big heart, even if it was buried beneath prickly layers of grief and bitterness. I’d give him another chance.”

Margot is smart, funny, and beautiful inside and out…I loved her! The sweet and sassy woman wants to get to know the gorgeous, annoying, and tender-hearted man who gets under her skin.

Jack wants to ignore the first woman since his late wife to invade his head and heat his body that’s been in hibernation for three years but the magnetic force between Margot and him is too powerful to ignore.

“I knew what I was going to do before I did it. I knew it was a bad idea. I knew I’d regret it. And I still did it…I kissed her…Our tongues met and I tasted her hungrily, like I’d never get enough…sweet and forbidden.”

The chemistry burns bright between Margot and Jack, a forbidden flame that fights to ignite, so hard to resist. Oh did I love their angst that bled all over the pages!

“He was kissing me like I’d never been kissed before. Like he was going to war.”

Margot awakened a sleeping bear in Jack that had been hibernating too long, years since a mere kiss.

“Her lips on mine felt like rain after a drought.”

The beauty bathed in heat in these words that melted me to molten lava, my feels flowing all over the pages. Swoon and sadness sent me over the edge. The passion poured off the pages, the pent-up tension a dam ready to burst. I was that dam too, my feelings bursting and bleeding too.

This country boy made me swoon! His sexy, seductive, sad, and soul-filled words made me sink under his spell. This tender and troubled, and soulful and swoony alpha held my heart in his hands. Oh did I love Cowboy Jack! PURE PERFECTION.

“I wanted to admit my guilt. Open my wounds. Bleed for her.”

Margot is the beautiful angel who brings light to this broken and handsome cowboy. They are the perfect mix of dark and light, heat and cold, and city gal and country guy. Opposites attract but the storm of the past may be a stronger force than love.

“Everything was bare to her now, all my secrets, all my suffering, all my scars. And she still wanted me. I felt myself falling…I had no right. No right.”

After We Fall is not simply a broken and beautiful romance; it’s a story about heartbreak, hope, and happiness. It’s a story about LIFE AND LIVING. It’s about overcoming tragedy…taking that leap of faith…living for the moment…living life now.

The inner dialogue that is a consistent Harlow fixture in all of this author’s work is the icing on the cake in her creations, bringing realism and depth to already amazing stories. With every tale that Melanie Harlow writes, there is more heart and soul poured into each one…more emotion…more everything. EVERY WORD MEANT EVERYTHING that Melanie Harlow penned to life in After We Fall, Harlow’s most heartfelt masterpiece and BEST BOOK EVER.

This magical mix of heart, heat, and humor in After We Fall, this shattering and soul-searing story of love and loss, was my EVERYTHING!!! Oh did I FALL HARD for After We Fall, this breathtakingly beautiful tale of hard-fought love that rendered me breathless. After We Fall BLEW ME AWAY with more heart, more tears, more sorrow, and the most love I’ve had for any Melanie Harlow romance…ever. After We Fall is one of those books that OWN MY HEART AND SOUL FOR LIFE. I want to bask in the glow of this Harlow hangover a little longer.

★★★★★ ‘hard not to fall’ stars

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Jack Valentini isn’t my type.

Sexy, brooding cowboys are fine in the movies, but in real life, I prefer a suit and tie. Proper manners. A close shave.

Jack might be gorgeous, but he’s also scruffy, rugged, and rude. He wants nothing to do with a “rich city girl” like me, and he isn’t afraid to say so.

But I’ve got a PR job to do for his family’s farm, so he’s stuck with me and I’m stuck with him. His glares. His moods. His tight jeans. His muscles.

His huge, hard muscles.

Pretty soon there’s a whole different kind of tension between us, the kind that has me misbehaving in barns, trees, and pickup trucks. I’ve never done anything so out of character—but it feels too good to stop.

And the more I learn about the grieving ex-Army sergeant, the better I understand him. Losing his wife left him broken and bitter and blaming himself. He doesn’t think he deserves a second chance at happiness.

But he’s wrong.

I don’t need to be his first love. If only he’d let me be his last.