April 26, 2013

BLOG TOUR REVIEW & GIVEAWAY: Deeper We Fall (Fall and Rise #1)


I'm so happy to be a part of the Deeper We Fall, by Chelsea Cameron blog tour. This book was so captivating and heartbreaking! Read on for my full review, plus a chance to win copies of Chelsea Cameron's books and a Kindle Paperwhite or a Nook Simple Touch Glowlight!

Deeper We Fall (Fall and Rise #1), by Chelsea Cameron
Published January 24, 2013
Publisher:  DRC Publishing
Format: e-book - provided by author and Xpresso Book Tours
Genre:  new adult contemporary romance
To Buy:  Amazon * Barnes & Noble

Rating:  4 STARS

(From Goodreads) Two years after her best friend was involved in a car accident that caused a traumatic brain injury, Lottie Anders is ready to start her freshman year of college. Ready to move on. Ready to start forgetting the night that ripped her life apart.

Her plans come to a screeching halt when not one, but both brothers responsible for the accident end up back in her life again.

Zack is cruel, selfish and constantly rubbing what happened to her friend in Lottie's face.

Zan is different. He listens to her awkward ramblings. He loves "To Kill a Mockingbird" as much as she does, and his dark eyes are irresistible. His words are few and far between, but when he does speak, she can't help but listen.

The trouble is, Zan was the driver in the accident, and now Lottie's discovered he lied to her about what happened that night. Now she must decide if trusting him again will lead to real forgiveness, or deeper heartache.


Deeper We Fall was a fantastically heartbreaking book. Like many books in the new adult genre, it addresses a really tough issue - what happens when one drinks and drives in this case - and speaks a lot about forgiveness and love.

Two years after a horrible accident changed her best friend's life forever, Lottie is still reeling from it. She has come to college along with her twin brother Will to try and run away a little bit from what has become her reality. She still harbors such hatred and resentment toward the brothers who caused the accident, that when the brothers turn up, not only at the same college, but in the same dorm building as Lottie, she doesn't even know what to do with herself.

Zack and Zan are as different as night and day. Zan, the driver of the car that caused Lottie's best friend's permanent brain damage, has done his time and is now looking for any kind of redemption he can find. Zack, the real reason Lexie got in the car that night in the first place, is an even bigger douchebag than he was two years earlier. He uses people, abuses them and then throws them away without a care.

Lottie's path to forgiveness was the most captivating part of Deeper We Fall. When she first sees Zan and Zack, the familiar loathing sets in. But, as Zan slowly chips away at her hatred, Lottie starts to experience other feelings - mostly guilt for actually liking him and wanting to be with him, despite what he has done. The development of these characters was done so well. The reader really has no choice but to feel so badly for both Zan and Lottie. And, it's easy to understand how they both feel the way they do and to see Lottie struggle with her confusion.

Thank goodness for Will and Simon! There are so many deep issues and feelings being thrown around in Deeper We Fall. There is an intense need for some comic relief, which we get in the relationship between Lottie and Will and Will's BFF Simon. I especially appreciated all of Will's corny Star Wars references. If Will was a real person, I'd definitely want to be friends with him.

The romance between Lottie and Zan is very slow to develop, but in this case, that's a very good thing. Given the circumstances in their history, I would've called BS if there had been some sort of insta-love or quick fix. It takes Lottie a long while to get to a place where she can even comprehend some sort of relationship with Zan. And, it takes equally as long for Zan to feel worthy of her love. The pacing was just right.

Although I didn't review Faster We Burn (which is the story of Skyler, Zan's BFF, and Katie, Lottie's BFF), it's already on my wishlist. I hope both these books are on yours now too.

I also hope you check out the other blogs on the tour for more reviews, interviews and giveaways!

The Giveaways

Enter to win one (1) e-book set of both Deeper We Fall (Fall and Rise #1) and Faster We Burn (Fall and Rise #2). Also enter the tour-wide giveaway of either a Kindle Paperwhite or a Nook Simple Touch Glowlight

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About the Author

Chelsea M. Cameron is a YA/NA New York Times and USA Today Best-Selling author from Maine. Lover of things random and ridiculous, Jane Austen/Charlotte and Emily Bronte Fangirl, red velvet cake enthusiast, obsessive tea drinker, vegetarian, former cheerleader and world's worst video gamer. When not writing, she enjoys watching infomercials, singing in the car and tweeting. She has a degree in journalism from the University of Maine, Orono that she promptly abandoned to write about the people in her own head. More often than not, these people turn out to be just as weird as she is. Find Chelsea on her website, Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads.  

1 comment:

Melissa @thereaderandthechef said...

Sounds like a book worth reading and I especially like the fact that the characters really do pace themselves when falling in love, slow and building some sort of trust plus forgiveness. Thanks for the review and the giveaways!