Review: Falling for You

Falling for You by Barb Curtis
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

She'd been rendered homeless and inherited a freaking house in the same day. 

A yoga instructor who travels around a lot to work corporate retreats, Faith finds that the buddy's apartment she planned to stay at after coming back from her latest job, has skipped out on paying the rent and she's locked out. However, after checking her phone messages, she gets a call from a lawyer from her mother's hometown. Losing her mother to a car accident when she was younger, her father moved them away and didn't talk about her mother because of how painful it was, Faith has never felt like she had a connection to that side of her. So when Faith is sitting in the meeting with the lawyer and learns that her uncle left her the Victorian family house, she's shocked but feels an instant connection with the house her mother grew-up in, even if it needs a ton of work. 

Rob is a couple months divorced and looking to get his life back in order after losing his job because he punched his boss, the boss his wife had been cheating on him with for over a year. He's done with the anger management classes he had to take in order to get visitation with his two little girls and looking to solidify his custody rights. When the owner of the Victorian home he's dreamed of fixing up and living in with his daughters finally shows up, he's thrown by the instant attraction. 

Faith Rotolo was invading his entire life, which both intrigued and infuriated him, depending on the day. 

Falling For You is third in the Sapphire Falls series that previously starred Rob's sister paired with his bestfriend and two of their other friends coupled up. I started here and had no problem getting into the small town world. Faith and Rob have a bit of a non-meet-cute when they bump into each other when they're both stressed out but their attraction to each other gets going as soon as they're formally introduced. Both characters had a lot on their plates and it took until around 30% for their flirting to really get going. Faith has been divorced for five years and has given into her wanderlust with traveling for her job and since her mother's accident twenty-three years ago, hasn't had a supportive circle around her; her father loves her but remarried and is a busy doctor. Rob has a supportive circle of family and friends but his ex-wife obviously likes to be in control and is using the custody battle to pull his strings, this along with him deciding if he should leave his banking career behind and work construction for his uncle, has him dealing with a lot issues too. These were two busy characters that I thought had their romance detracted from a bit too much with all the other real world issues demanding their time. 

“You matter to me,” he whispered. 

The second half does have them together more, we get some kissing and a fade-to-black scene but then some family history and mystery from Faith's side comes into play. Her great-great grandfather was a gangster during prohibition times and her great grandmother had a love affair that went wrong and there's questions about what happened to her lover that Faith suddenly feels drawn to figuring out. This brings on a third act break-up scene that had the last ten percent finally making Faith and Rob decide what they want, Faith dealing with her insecurities if she's worth investing time in and Rob learning how to navigate the life he wants and still be able to have fifty-fifty custody of his daughters. 

She could belong here. 

If you're looking for a story with characters that have a very full plate, the custody battling, Faith dealing with the emotions of infertility and insecurity, and family history mystery, then this had all that and even more. I felt like the romance got drowned out too much for me and I started to feel like the story pace began to feel a little slow as it meandered away from the romance. If you're a reader of the series, past couples do make appearances here and you'd probably enjoy book one heroine's brother getting his happily ever after.

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