REVIEW - Fall (Seaside #4) by Rachel Van Dyken

If you look up British in the dictionary…A-list celebrity Jamie Jaymeson’s name would be next to it. Along with charming, witty, man-whore, and a lot of other adjectives that he wouldn’t appreciate being attached to his name.

He has everything in the world going for him.
Until fate decides his number’s finally up.
Caught in a compromising position that really wasn’t his fault to begin with (really it wasn’t)—Jaymeson’s been told by his agent to lay low in the one town he swore he’d never return to—the seventh circle of hell, known by its residents as Seaside, Oregon.
Two months? He can do anything for two months. Especially if it means getting a part in the new book-to-movie series that has girls all over the world swooning.
Play nice? Keep it in his pants? Please. He played an alien once—he was going to totally rock it.
Until a certain someone who he may or may not have publicly humiliated—rejected, then humiliated again, suddenly pops up next door.
Self control has a way of flying out the window when the one girl you can’t have—is suddenly dangled right in front of you.
But Priscilla isn’t just off limits—she’s a pastor's daughter and barely legal to boot. So Jaymeson does the one thing he swore he’d never do—he tries to be friends. With a woman.
Only, it’s exactly what he needs.
Until suddenly, he craves more.
He wants to date her.
She wants to date someone else.
He wants to kiss her.
She asks him to give her lessons for her new boyfriend.
When opposites attract, sometimes the only option you have is to leap—and trust the fact that when you fall—that special someone falls too.

The battle in my head for which Seaside guy I love the most is seriously starting to give me a headache. It’s like a never ending neck-to-neck horserace. One guy keeps barely getting ahead of the others, then the next second it’s a different guy. I was originally for Alec... Then during Pull, I was Demetri. Then, I was Alec most of the other two even when he started to get super questionable. Then comes freaking Jaymeson and he's like ooh I want to be in the fight too! What’s a girl to do…So many RVD boys, and only one me. Right now, I’m totally team Jaymeson. He has a British accent people, and that alone makes me want to die. Under that playboy exterior, is a guy who’s genuinely just afraid of falling in love and letting people in.

“You’ve experienced family drama, but you don’t know what it’s like to yearn for someone’s touch, to want them to want you so much that you’d die just for one taste…You don’t know that feeling…You have to feel it to play it, that’s all I’m saying. You can change your image all you know what it’s like to get your earth completely and totally shattered.”

It’s best to read the first three and a half books in the Seaside series before reading Fall, but it isn’t necessary. I mean it’s only the beginning of this amazing series, the introduction to the gorgeousness that is Jaymeson, and the backstory of all the rest of the characters you see in this book. But, if you don’t want to read it then fine, I guess this can be read as a standalone. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if I would like Jay’s story that much from what we knew of him from Shatter and Fall, but right now he is leading the horserace.

“I grasped my girl as tight as possible and fell asleep with a grin on my face. Not because I was having sex. Or because I was whoring myself around. Not even because I was the luckiest bastard in the world. But because, I had the heart of the girl I loved – and I wasn’t ever letting go.”

Jaymeson met Priscilla at Nat and Alec’s wedding. Long story short, Alec and Dem forbid him from looking at her (she’s kinda too “young” and “virginal” for him), but they kissed, then he acted like a total douchebag because he freaked out like the commitment-phobic jerk he was, and he pushed her away. So, at the beginning of Fall, Priscilla absolutely hates Jaymeson. But, you know what they say about that fine line between hate and love/attraction… Jaymeson, on the other hand, knows that he was definitely an idiot that night. But, he really thinks he’s wrong for Priscilla, and that a relationship more than friends would be dangerous no matter how addicted he becomes to her. Oh yeah, how did Jay end up back at Seaside? He has to “reform” his man-whore image. One of those ways involves Jay doing community work at the church Pris’ dad preaches at. Eventually, they reconcile and agree to become friends, but can a guy and girl who are hopelessly attracted to each other really just be “friends”?

“Friendship doesn’t feel like this. Friendship doesn’t feel like I want to kill any guy who looks at you longer than two seconds. Friendship doesn’t feel like my body’s burning from the inside out. I want you.”

And the rest is history as they say. Or so we think. It’s a Rachel Van Dyken book for crying out loud. We all know she might as well have her own genre. The only thing this book was guilty of being was a typical RVD book. It had the killer emotions, the quirky lines, the swoon-y one-liners, the riveting plot, the loveable characters, the almost too good to be true love, and the plot twists that have your jaw dropping. I loved the sexual tension between them. Their chemistry was sizzling. They got along so well, and their banter was just second nature. I had lots of fun watching them try to resist their attraction, when meanwhile Jay is Facebook messaging her under a different name and growls at Smith, the douchebag trying to get under Pris in order to get over his ex.

“Some people are built for relationships. They’re strong, they learn from their mistakes and they move on. I knew myself well – I wasn’t one of those girls. I was a lifer. I was the type of girl that put every part of her heart and soul into something and gave until it hurt. I knew that if I gave Jaymeson an inch, he’d take everything.”

I think I’ve been talking about Jaymeson too much. Let’s talk about Priscilla for a bit. I loved her. She’s young, but she has a good head on her shoulders. I actually never wanted to cause her bodily harm at any point in the book, which is what I usually want to do to the heroine in cases where they try to stay away from the hot guy who is so obviously attracted to her. I felt kinda bad that she was just so sheltered and I felt like she was missing out on a lot of life experiences because of the way her family was living. She just seemed so real (not unlike Nat and Alyssa from the earlier books). I loved watching Pris not only fall in love, but she found herself in this book. We really got to see her mature and grow into her own skin. I liked that she stood up to Jaymeson when needed, and she always kept him on his toes. She was too adorable.

“She was my everything. And in that moment, I finally understood what had made Alec and Demetri lose their minds. Love. She was mine. And I’d take her – if she’d have me.”

I feel like Jaymeson also did a lot of self-discovery throughout Fall. I mean, he knows he loves acting and that it’s his passion, but he needed to find his inspiration. And he needed to figure out who he was first before he started losing himself to the fame, the women, and the characters he was portraying. He found his muse in Priscilla, she grounded him and showed him it was okay to feel emotions outside of acting. He has a messed up family for sure, but everything happens for a reason, and who he is now is important. He had to let go of his demons and let love in to heal him. It was adorable watching him try to get to know Priscilla the normal people way, he’s never dated. It was too cute. Pris and Jay bring out the best in each other and make me smile way too much.

“This was it. I’d gone and done it. Because I’d rather hold her in my arms all night, then have sex with anyone else. Ever. Which only meant one thing. I was going to murder Alec and Demitri – because they’d been right. I wasn’t falling. No. I’d already fallen.”

The storyline really started picking up that last one-third. I found myself racing to get to the end. I remember wanting to slow down and savor the last Seaside book we might be getting for a while, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m a sucker for an RVD book, they’re just too captivating. I love, love, loved the ending. I was giggling, swooning, and sighing the whole time. I got so depressed after reading. All the Seaside guys are just too perfect. My next goal? To go to Seaside, Oregon and find me a guy to love because apparently all the magic happens there.

“Don’t you understand? The depth of what I feel for you? I’m not just crazy for you, I’m out of my mind, out of my depth, love. You are my life—to leave you would be like leaving a part of myself.”

“What happened to you?”

“I thought it was obvious. You happened. It was you.”

Rachel Van Dyken is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling author of regency and contemporary romances. When she's not writing you can find her drinking coffee at Starbucks and plotting her next book while watching The Bachelor.

She keeps her home in Idaho with her Husband and their snoring Boxer, Sir Winston Churchill. She loves to hear from readers! 

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