THE SPIRAL DOWN
Series: The Fall Up #2
Genre: MM Contemporary Romance
Author: Aly Martinez
Release Date: May 17, 2016
Standalone M/M romance.
I was afraid to fly.
He made me soar.After years of climbing the ladder of success in the music industry, I finally had everything I could want.
Yet I still found myself wandering through life alone.Captain Evan Roth was the one man I never saw coming.
Tall, dark, mysterious… Straight.We were both damaged beyond repair and searching for something so elusive we weren’t sure it even existed.
But, when two broken souls collide in midair, falling is a given.
I just never expected to crave the spiral down.
This doesn’t make you gay, Evan. It just makes you mine.
Book slump officially over! #DoublePeenForTheWin
It’s no secret that I’m gaga for pretty much every Aly Martinez book that I read. There’s just something about her writing that simply clicks with me. She manages to create heroes that have me head over ovaries for them each and every single time. Henry Alexander was the lovable secondary character from The Fall Up that I absolutely fell in love with. When Aly announced she’ll be writing his book, I may or may not have done a pervy dance of excitement around my living room. What? This chick just happens to seriously love her some delicious MM, mkay?
But I digress. Henry Alexander has lived a hard life but now has everything he can ever desire; an amazing best friend that he sometimes performs with, a successful singing career, fame and fortune. Henry is also openly gay and happens to get his kicks by seducing straight men. There’s just something about that rush that does it for him, no matter how badly it ends at the end of the night…
One of the things I adored about this book was the banter. Man. The banter. It was amazing. With Henry neuroses and his fear of flying, I found myself giggling like a school girl at his antics though most of the book.
Another loud bang made me flinch. “What the hell was that?”
He sighed. “Man. Up.”
“I’d like to meet the pilot before we take off. Get his credentials and all. Maybe he’s willing to take a bribe.”
Fate has some irony in store for Henry, when the man that has a horrific fear of flying ends up lusting for a sexy pilot that just happens to be straight…or is he?
Aly serves up some of the best sexual tension I have ever read with this book. Oh my GOD but it was utterly delicious. The very second that Henry and Evan appear in a scene together you can practically feel the crackle in the air. It was electrifying. The chemistry between them was instantaneous and just got better and better with every turn of the page.
Written in dual first person POV, you get equal time in both Henry and Evan’s heads and it just makes the story that much better.
Henry is the lovable goof to Evan’s dark brooding. Together they’re sheer magic. They balance each other out and the sexual chemistry between them is so hot, I swear to you I actually felt an electric shock each time I turned a page. The author did a perfect job balancing just the right amount of steam that it adds to the story as opposed to distracting from it. The character development was absolutely fantastic. I fell so hard for both of these guys.
I also loved the cameos from Sam and Levee. I adored the friendship between Levee and Henry in the previous book and it only manages to get better here.
“Yes. Sorry. I forgot. Please relay my apologies to Prince Everhard.”
The Spiral down was everything I had hoped it would be and so much more. It was emotional and angsty perfection. I was glued to the pages from beginning to finish with the biggest case of book butterflies I have had in a very long while. Evan and Henry were absolutely magnetic together. If you haven’t read anything by this amazing author yet, you’re seriously missing out. And if you haven’t yet read The Fall Up, I can’t recommend it enough. However, you may easily read The Spiral Down as a standalone.
DON’T MISS THE FIRST BOOK IN THIS AMAZING SERIES!
You know that moment when you pick exactly the right book at exactly the right time? You know what I’m talking about here; when all the planets aline and you pick the book that’s guaranteed to be the perfect one for your mood and taste. Well this book was that for me! And what perfect timing too because I’ll be going into my weekend with a perma-grin on my face. Dirty was laugh out loud funny, with a cast of secondary characters that you’re guaranteed to fall for right away. It’s filled with amazing banter, swoony moments, and make-your-ovaries-happy-sort-of-sexy times.
As for Vaughan? Well, let’s just say the man lives up to his promise. I fell for him when I first met him in the Stage Dive series, and I loved him even more here. He’s just the right amount of alpha and yet he’s funny at all the right times and even sweet at others, without ever losing any of his edge.
Let’s talk about things that trigger my one-clicker for a second here, shall we?
As for that ending? Well let’s just say I may or may not be rocking myself in a corner as we speak while I wait for July 25 to finally get here
And if there’s one thing that I’ve come to love from her it’s her incredibly sexy MM that she somehow manages to pack full of so much feeling, it practically jumps off the pages at you. And this book? This fantastically written, utterly unputdownable book may be my favorite book by her yet. I never thought I’d say this, but Finley and Brantley took my number one spot from Tate and Logan, and let me just tell you that I LOVED Tate and Logan.
The chemistry between Daniel and Brantley was palpable, as was their emotional connection. I absolutely loved the way that Ella Frank managed to flawlessly weave very well times flashbacks to work with the story. I’m a picky reader when it comes to flashbacks and I can easily say the way they were written here was my absolute favorite. They were well paced and perfectly timed to work with the story and drive the plot.
Powerful.
Rebecca Zanetti’s Sin Brothers series was easily my favorite that I read by her…until I read this book. I’m hooked and there’s no looking back. Now admittedly I’m not a reader that enjoys the post-apocalyptic world in my books. But Rebecca is one of the few authors I was willing to make an exception for because I truly love her work, and boy was I glad that I did because I loved the absolute hell out of this book. It’s not your typical post-apocalyptic zombie story. It’s so much more than that and with an intriguing twist to boot. The world building is rich and captivating, the romance is sizzling hot, and the set up is so enticing that you’ll be hooked from the very first chapter!
Lynn was a fantastic heroine with just enough backbone to make her the right sort of kick ass but also with a vulnerability to endear her as well. Jax was everything I love in a hero; damaged with a hidden vulnerable side with a dash of dirty talker. He was absolute perfection. There’s a slew of secondary characters introduced as well, that caught my attention right away. The main one being Raze. Lucky for me, his story will be next and the set up for it? Shiver inducing.
You know when you read an epilogue that’s so good, it not only manages to be the perfect conclusion to the book but it actually flawlessly ties the entire series up. Like you have this amazingly delicious three-tiered cake, and it’s already prefect without anything, but then you add that icing that takes it from delicious to amazing? That’s what the epilogue of Appealed was to me. It was simple perfection. It deserves 5 stars just for that. But let’s talk about the actual book for a hot second here, shall we?
So at this point of the book, I’m as giddy as a Bilieber at a Justin Bieber concert. Their constant barbs in the courtroom and outside of it are laden with a heavy undercurrent of lust and you’re reading just waiting for them to give into the undeniable chemistry that’s brewing between them. And let’s be honest, what’s better than hate-to-lust? When it’s gloriously written entirely in the male POV and I fell hard for Brent from the very first chapter. He may be the happy-go-lucky friend of the group, but there was always something to him that just drew me. It may be because it’s not often you’ll read about a hero with a prosthetic leg that didn’t suffer his injury during a deployment. Or it may be because of his humor. But really it’s because when this man falls, he falls hard and he has no issue showing it and fighting for what he wants.
You know when you read the first book in a series and you love it so much that you don’t think anything can top it, but then you read the second and you love it just as much? So then you know that the chances of that continue to hold for the 3rd book are slim, right? In my experience, it’s tough to keep that sort of momentum going…unless, of course, you’re Elle Kennedy. Because not only was The Score absolutely fantastic, but it turned out to be my favorite in the series. And considering how much I loved the previous two books, that’s saying something.
What I love about Elle’s writing, is the depth that she gives her characters. And Dean certainly was no exception. He may be the hard partying manwhore with a crass sense of humor, but beneath that perfect exterior there’s so much more to him and you really get to see it blossom here.
