Review: Deeper We Fall (Rise & Fall #1) by Chelsea M. Cameron

Deeper We Fall

Author: Chelsea M. Cameron

Series: Fall and Rise

Genre: New Adult

Pages: 280

Publisher: DRC Publishing

Amazon – The BookDepository

Synopsis:

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.

Review: 3 out of 5 stars

Thank-you kindly to DRC Publishing/Netgalley for providing me with a copy of Deeper We Fall by Chelsea M. Cameron, the first book in her Rise and Fall series.

The New Adult genre has been a bit hit or miss for me lately, I liked this book but I didn’t fall in love with it and a few days later I didn’t remember much of the characters or storyline unfortunately.

Charlotte ‘Lottie’ Anders was a character with strength and resolve, she went headfirst into everything and at times didn’t have a filter; I liked her but didn’t find myself fully connecting with her, maybe because it was her hot and cold personality or her feisty attitude but there was something about her that didn’t really endear me to her.

Lottie suffered from terrible guilt after letting her best friend Lexie get into a car with a drunk driver two years prior, as a result of that fateful night she no longer remembers much of her past after suffering a traumatic brain injury.

When Lottie starts college the last people she expected to see were the brothers responsible for her best friends trauma – Zack and Zan Parker, Zack who is cruel and selfish and shy and reserved Zan  who has always had a bit of a crush on Lottie.  

Zan was a tortured hero who was filled with anger and pain because of a silly drunken mistake, you couldn’t help but feel for everything he had been through and want happiness and forgiveness for him; what had happened was a terrible tragedy that caused pain to so many people but he tried to make things right the best way he possibly could.

The romance was definitely slow to build due to the circumstances, I did like the way Lottie and Zan came together but to be honest; I wouldn't have been so easy to forgive despite his guilt and he wasn't really as forthcoming with bits of information that were important as what he should have been. Overall, they were good together.

For an NA novel, Deeper We Fall was a lot more original than others out there at the moment; it is still filled with angst and drama but the subject matter was completely different which I was thankful for.

Despite not connecting fully with the MC, I did enjoy the storyline; A few elements I found frustrating and overdone such as the drawn out truths and Zack’s relationship with Katie; the synopsis I also feel reveals too much about the overall plot – the twist and turns throughout I saw coming so there was no real element of surprise.

I did like Ms. Cameron’s writing and despite not fully connecting with Lottie, the other characters I quite liked – especially Simon and her twin brother who was protective and fun.

Deeper We Fall is a book about finding forgiveness and letting go of past pains in order to move forward; there were a lot of revelations and healing which I feel were dealt with well by the author.

About the author: Chelsea M. Cameron is a YA/NA New York Times/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 (this one time, she was tweeted by Neil Gaiman). 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.

Her New Adult Contemporary Romance titles include My Favorite Mistake, which has been bought by Harlequin along with a sequel, Deeper We Fall and Faster We Burn (April 20, 2013)

Her Young Adult books include Nocturnal, Nightmare and Neither, the first three books in The Noctalis Chronicles. The fourth and final book, Neverend will be out in 2013. Whisper, the first in The Whisper Trilogy is also available, with the second book in the series, Silence and the final book, LIsten coming out in 2014.

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