Review: Falls Boys by Penelope Douglas

FALLS BOYS
Series: Hellbent #1
Genre: New Adult Romance
Author: Penelope Douglas
Release Date:
March 21, 2022

The HELLBENT Series—a spin-off to the Fall Away series—is coming!

“The kids are growing up—different from their parents but the same in so many ways…”

ARO
Hawken Trent. So polite. So sweet. Such an upstanding young man.
A virgin, too, I hear. He never gets naughty with a girl. Probably because Jesus told him not to. And now here he is, trying to be the hero by protecting another girl from me.

He calls me a bully. Irrational. Unreasonable. A criminal. He can call me anything he wants, I’ve heard worse.

And he can try to stand between me and my money, but he’s never had to fight for food. That rich, clean, school boy doesn’t have what it takes.

HAWKE
I surprised her. You should’ve seen her face.

Just because I don’t have a record, honey, doesn’t mean I’m clean. It just means I’m better at not getting caught.

That is until I realize I might’ve actually gone too far this time.

She’s there. I’m there. The scene of the crime.

It’s dark. The police show up.

We have no choice. We run. Down High Street, into Quinn’s bake shop, and I pull her through the entrance to the old speakeasy that everyone forgot was here decades ago.

The door locks, the cops circle the building, never knowing we’re right here, and I’m hidden in plain sight, indefinitely, with someone’s who’s awful.

Mean. Rough. Dirty.

A thief. A delinquent.

Until one night, lost in all of these rooms together, I don’t see any of those things anymore.

She’s smart. Daring. Soft.

Hot…

Everything’s changing. It’s this place. It does something to people.

We have a silly urban legend in Shelburne Falls about mirrors. They’re a gateway.

Don’t lean back into them.

But we came through front first.

I don’t care what the county records say. This was never a speakeasy.

It’s Carnival Tower.

*FALLS BOYS is a standalone New Adult romance suitable for readers 18+. Reading the Falls Away series first is helpful but not necessary.

AMAZON 

My name is Aro Marquez,” she says. I meet her eyes. “Aro Teresa Marquez,” she tells me. “And you may not remember me years from now, and maybe no one will think of me and no one will want to, but I was fucking here.”

Penelope Douglas starts this series off with a bang, and I am so here for it!

I fell so hard for this world back when Bully first came out. And when I read The Next Flame, I was pretty much rabid for this spin off. Funny enough, I don’t usually enjoy the next generation thing. There’s a very select few authors I’d change my tune for, and Douglas is one of them. I was salivating for this series and these characters, dying to see that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

This book really switched up the usual formula, and was so different from what I’m used to with Douglas books. Why? Well, we get the quintessential good boy meets bad girl, and the vibes were FIRE.

Hawke is Jaxon’s son Falling Away but he’s not your stereotypical 18 year old male. He’s a good guy, a guy with a plan for his future, and a virgin. It was so refreshing to read about a guy who has his own hangups with sex and not shy to open up about it.

Yeah, everyone assumes,” he fires back. “Why can a woman be picky, but a man’s sexuality is questioned if he’s not diving into every short skirt like an animal who can’t control himself?”

Aro and Hawke’s story is full of chaos. Aro hasn’t had had easy a day in her life, forced to do whatever she needs to survive and take care of her foster siblings, she’s stuck in a life she fears she’ll never escape from. Then chance and circumstance lands her into Hawke’s fancy world, and everything gets turned on its axis.

…you’ve taken over my head, and I haven’t thought about anything else since. You’ve either had me pissed off or naked, so I’ve been distracted.”

Hawke spends the majority of the story trying to save Aro from one thing after another, and I loved his savior complex. While we get just enough development for Hawke to make him endearing, at times he did feel like a secondary character to Aro, and I’m not even complaining about it. Aro was just a complex, multilayered character, and I couldn’t get enough of her. My heart hurt for everything she’s been through. She never stops fighting for every piece of goodness she can get. And I loved the way that Hawke began to thaw her hard pieces.

I want to crawl inside of you sometimes,” I whisper. “Sometimes I want you to be all that I can see and hear. So that nothing exists in the world to me but the feel of you.”

There’s so much that happens in this book, some of it without full closure or answers. So of course I’m already rabid in my need for the next book. There’s just a taste given for Dylan, and damn, I’m so desperate for her book that I can’t deal.

This was the start of what’s sure to be another addicting New Adult series from one of my absolutely favorite authors. It was a character driven story full of emotion and a splash of heat. A tale of two opposites who crash each other’s worlds and make it shine brighter.

Penelope Douglas is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. Her books have been translated into fifteen languages and include The Fall Away Series, The Devil’s Night Series, and the stand-alones, Misconduct, Punk 57, Birthday Girl, and Credence. Please look for Tryst Six Venom and Motel, as well as the Hellbent series, coming next!

She lives in Las Vegas with her husband and their daughter.

     
AUTHOR LINKS
 
Website: http://natasha-knight.com
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/natasha-knight
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2kg2fRX
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/natashaknightauthor
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1752075498339742
Newsletter: http://natasha-knight.com
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