Customer Reviews

Falling

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Rhodes is one of my top favorite M/M writers and I am very glad to have "Falling" her latest in print.

The backdrop of "Falling" is an adventure fantasy involving mages, not the type of setting I would envisaged for emotional story telling, which is Rhodes' strength. I am proved wrong as the plot of magic and villians are very much secondary to the emotions build-up and interplay between her two characters. The love is so real, the emotions intense and the characters amazingly well developed and believable. Rhodes's men are such sensitive and vulnerable characters and Christian and Alec are no exception. Each man has his own ghosts to overcome but when they do acknowledge the attraction, their romance is sizzling and their sex intimately hot. Just look at the cover!.

I love Rhodes' writings. Oh yes, I also strongly recommend the lovely "The Professor's Secret Passion" and the deeply emotional "Souls Deep", her two other M/M romance under Amber Quill Press.

I'd give this book about four and a half stars; it's outstanding and I thoroughly enjoyed it and I shall now look for other books from the same author. I enjoy plotline, especially credible/steamy romance more than erotica, though I enjoy erotica that adds to the plotline. This book has several extremely attractive and likeable protagonists/lovers; they both develop an intense atraction to each other that becomes too much for either to deny or resist. Their relationship is certainly beautiful to behold. My problem with it (and why I deny the final half a star or so) is that it happened so quickly between the two of them that I had trouble believing it entirely credible. Still, it is fantasy and romance, so one must set aside a certain amount of credulity in this instance. If you want romance and plotline, this one is just fine, with some erotic moments that will add a lot of spice to the story. Enjoy and then join me in looking up other of this author's novels.

This is a fantastic gay love story. There is magic, love, murder investigations, love, action, love, romance, and love. This is the story of Christian, who is a Mage, or a person who has magical powers, is an agent who fights against black magic in the Magical world. He goes undercover to the United States because of a rash of murders that seem to be the work of a black mage named Rogan. Christian is teamed up with an American police dective who is in charge of investigating the rash of murders. Alex is the police detective, who is having problems getting any real or solid leads in the murder cases. Alec is gay and has lost his lover Drew, a fellow police officer a while back, and he is still trying to recover. When Christian and Alex meet, sparks start to fly. As they work on the investigation together, they begin falling in love with each other. Alex fights it as he is still mourning Drew. Alec relizing that he is falling hopless in love with Christian, finally allows himself to make a declaration to Christian, and thus begins the romance, but quickly there are problems as Alec is attacked by the mysterious killer. Christian saves him, then reveals to Alex about the magical implications of the case, of Christian being magical. But love finally wins through, after a near death event, that has them both back in England for medical repairs. The love is so intense, and pure that I have read this novel several times. It just stirs a cord within me. This book easily rates five stars and if there were more stars I would have given more stars. This a must read book. I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy gay romance novels. The author has done an excellent job of bringing these characters to life, one might hope that she would write a sequel.

I liked everything about this story. The characters were well-developed. The plot was exciting! The bad guy was really bad! The characters were hot and so was the sex! I like the secondary characters as well. This story moved along and I couldn't find any flaws. A very good read!

Falling is one of the best gay love stories I've read in a good long while. The author knows her craft and the writing is seamless and engaging. While the basic premise is that of good vs. evil, the plot itself is detailed and interesting with enough twists and turns to keep you glued to the page. The heroes share a fate and a love that's powerful and touching. And through it all, the sex is hot as hell and intimate (and did I mention hot?), used to show the building love between the characters. I highly recommend this book. This is one I'll reread over and over and I'll be buying more books by this author. I see from looking at her website that there is going to be a sequel to this story called Magic. I'll be keeping an eye out for that one! Don't be put off by the reviewer that was critical of this author because she's a woman. I think there are several female authors currently writing gay fiction who not only hold their own, they excel at it. Women authors often dare to delve into the world of emotions between their gay heroes (something I don't always find in gay erotica written by men) blending together the love and lust in a way that makes for a more satisfying overall read. And Rhodes's Falling is definitely one of those.

I dont usually like fantasy stories cause they do not pertain to real life. I like my stories a little more down to earth. But this story was amazing and had me hooked from the very beginning! Was superbly written and easy to follow. I didnt have to work to read it like some. Not only was the sex hot, the story itself was very, very interesting and had me wanting to find out what was going to happen next.
One thing i didnt like about it though was the fact that one of the characters brought another one back to life with his powers. I dont care how powerful you are, life has an end and to me bringing someone back from the dead means that they are playing God and there is only one God. I would have preferred they were hanging on by the smallest of threads before being brought back from death's door, then it would have been more believable. But other than that, it was a fantastic read!
My congratulations to M.L.Rhodes! Bravo!

An amazing read! Could not put it down. Beautifully written, and absolutely mesmerizing. Hope there'll be a sequel. Thank you Ms Rhodes! .....W. Cummings

Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.

Rating: 9/10

PROS:
- Two lead characters who are swoon-worthy. They're masculine, tough, determined, gritty, and streetwise. Yet they're also compassionate, selfless, and tender. VERY tender.
- Really good sex scenes. They're long and drawn-out, as Rhodes's sex scenes tend to be, but they are also extremely sweet. The sex in this left me with a similar feeling as the sex in Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux's Caught Running. Both books contain sex scenes that are so sensitive and gentle and affectionate that a little voice in the back of my head claims that I ought to roll my eyes and dismiss them as unrealistic. But I just can't, because the relationship in both books is just so...dang...beautiful.
- Funny, accepting, and exceedingly likeable secondary characters, male and female.
- Plot that's interesting even if it's not the most compelling I've ever read. There's a small helping of mystery, though I puzzled together some of the loose pieces a while before the characters did (but Rhodes might have intended for it to be that way).
- Supernatural element that adds to the story and serves as a handy plot device on a number of occasions. This isn't Harry Potter, by any means; I wasn't constantly surprised or fascinated by the characters' abilities, but little mentions of their actions here and there brought a smile to my face.

CON:
- The book is just a touch unbalanced. The sex, for example, is not at all evenly distributed through the book. There's a single scene about a quarter of the way into the book, and then it's about 100 pages before another one comes along. But that one is followed very closely by several more; in fact, the last 50 pages of the book are mostly sex...with a few death threats thrown in here and there. It didn't really BOTHER me while I was reading, but it's like the book has phases--it starts out with the "murder mystery" phase, then once we find out who the killer is, we move into the "secret longing" phase, then into the "fighting and separated" phase, then "DANGER," then "sex."

Overall comments: I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys m/m stories, particularly if you enjoy an emphasis on romance over plot (although again, the plot in this isn't bad at all). This was only the third m/m romance I ever read (I first read it about 9 months ago), and even now that I've read over 100 of them, this one's still in my top 10.

This was the first book I have read from this author and I really liked it. The only problem I had with it was the rapidness of the depth of the relationship of Chris and Alex. I felt that part jumped way too fast. For me it takes more than a week to know that someone is for you ....forever.

So far the books I've read from Amazon have been great, but "Fallen" has to be the BEST. I couldn't put it down. I even stayed up until 3:00 A.M. reading it, and I'm not a reader. I still thinking about the two main characters. Wish there was a sequeal to it. Way to go M.L. Rhodes.