Title: Rival
Series: A Fall Away Novel, Book #2
Author: Penelope Douglas
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Release Date: August 26, 2014
From the New Adult sensation and New York Times bestselling author of Until You
Madoc and Fallon. Two estranged teenagers playing games that push the boundaries between love and war…
She’s back.
For the three years she’s been away at boarding school, there was no word from her. Back when we lived in the same house, she used to cut me down during the day and then leave her door open for me at night.
I was stupid then, but now I’m ready to beat her at her own game…
I’m back.
Three years and I can tell he still wants me, even if he acts like he’s better than me.
But I won’t be scared away. Or pushed down. I’ll call his bluff and fight back. That’s what he wants, right? As long as I keep my guard up, he’ll never know how much he affects me….
I LOVE this series – so much! It’s one of my favorite series ever!
Check out my review for Bully, my birthday interview with Jared & Tate, my review of Until You plus a deleted scene and Jared’s Love Note to Tate for Valentine’s Day.
Title: Bully
Series: A Fall Away Novel, Book #1
Author: Penelope Douglas
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
My name is Tate.
He doesn’t call me that, though. He’ll barely refer to me at all, and he’ll hardly ever speak to me.
But he still won’t leave me alone.
We were best friends once. Then he turned on me and made it his mission to ruin my life. I’ve been humiliated, shut out, and gossiped about all through high school. His pranks and rumors got worse as time wore on. I even went to Europe for a year, just to avoid him.
But I’m done hiding from him now, and there’s no way I’ll allow him to ruin another year. He might not have changed, but I have.
It’s time to fight back.
When one brave young woman stands up to her best friend Jared, now tormenter, the consequences go beyond anything either of them ever would have imagined….
Title: Until You
Series: A Fall Away Novel, Book #1.5
Author: Penelope Douglas
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Have you ever been so angry that hitting things felt good? Or numb to all emotions? The past few years have been like that for me. Traveling between fury and indifference with no stops in between. Some people hate me for it, while others are scared of me. But none of them can hurt me, because I don’t care about anything or anyone.
Except Tatum.
I love her so much that I hate her. I hate that I can’t let her go. We used to be friends, but I found out that I couldn’t trust her—or anyone else. So I hurt her. I pushed her away. But I still need her. She centers me. Engaging her, challenging her, pushing her—it’s the one last part of me that feels anything anymore.
But then she went and screwed everything up. She left for a year and came back a different girl. Now, when I push, she pushes back…and I’m not sure either one of us will ever be the same.
And get ready for the last book in the series…it’s all about Jax!
Title: Falling Away
Series: A Fall Away Novel, Book #3
Author: Penelope Douglas
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Release Date: January 6, 2015
Jaxon is the guy she’s supposed to avoid.
K.C. is the girl he won’t let get away….
K. C. Carter has always followed the rules—until this year, when a mistake leaves her the talk of her college campus and her carefully arranged life comes crashing to a halt. Now she’s stuck in her small hometown for the summer to complete her court-ordered community service, and to make matters worse, trouble is living right next door.
Jaxon Trent is the worst kind of temptation and exactly what K.C. was supposed to stay away from in high school. But he never forgot her. She was the one girl who wouldn’t give him the time of day and the only one to ever say no. Fate has brought K.C. back into his life—except what he thought was a great twist of luck turns out to be too close for comfort. As they grow closer, he discovers that convincing K.C. to get out from her mother’s shadow is hard, but revealing the darkest parts of his soul is nearly impossible.…
Reaching around, he twisted my chin towards the mirror, and I sucked in a breath. “What do you see?!” he shouted.
“You and me!” I blurted out. “Madoc and Fallon!”
My heart was racing.
I looked at him through the mirror. I sat on one side of his lap, so he could see from the other side, and we stared at each other, my chest rising and falling more urgently.
“That’s not what I see,” he said in a low voice. “Those names mean nothing to me. They’re simple and empty. When I’m with you, I don’t see the daughter of a gold digging bitch and an Irish drug lord or the son of a crooked lawyer and a vegan Barbie.”
I almost wanted to laugh. Madoc had an ironic way of looking at the world.
But he wasn’t smiling. He was scowling. He was dead serious, and I knew from experience that his genuine moments were few and far between.
He reached up, threading one hand into my hair while the other hand rested on the chair.
“I see everything I want for as long as I can have it,” he continued. “I see a woman that wears the cutest little scowl like she’s two years old and was just told she couldn’t have candy. I see a guy that went and got an apadravya piercing, because he wanted to live in her world for even a little while.”
I closed my eyes. Don’t do this to me, Madoc. Please.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
*ARC Given to Blog for Honest Review*
5 “I’m free” “Valknut” “I don’t try to kill your demons. I run with them.” Kisses
OMG…loved…loved…LOVED this book. This…the way I feel right now…is one of the many reasons I love this series! So…seriously, I really didn’t know if I was going to love Madoc and Fallon as much as I loved Jared and Tate, because I love Jared and Tate A LOT…but I tell you what, Penelope Douglas did an AMAZING job of making that happen. I was completely sucked in…felt every emotion…I really enjoyed where she took the story line and of course, the characters absolutely rocked my face off. So Rival is part of a Series, Fall Away, the first two books Bully and Until You really should be read first in my opinion, but each book is about a different couple, so it’s not like it won’t make sense…you just don’t know some of the other characters as well. It makes things better…but it’s not a deal breaker.
Fallon Pierce…OMG I loved this chick…so much. For one reason, because she’s a lot like Tate and absolutely adore that girl, but she’s Tate with an edge. She’s a skater girl to Tate’s rocker chick, but the fact that they have so much in common made them fast friends which was another thing I absolutely loved. She’s dry and sarcastic, a little rough around the edges…and honestly, a little jaded, but in a likeable way. I really connected with Fallon, possibly on a deeper level that I did with Tate…Fallon has a different kind of pain and not like I want to compare whose pain is worse, but Fallon’s really hit me hard. She’s not just this girl with a grudge and an agenda to make the people that wronged her pay…there is more to her story than that. God, she’s a feisty, fierce little thing…all of this pent up emotion that has been buried for two years that’s just bursting to come out and I couldn’t wait for it to happen because once it did, I was in awe of her…Fallon was like amazing times a zillion. I loved her before…but after everything happened…I couldn’t get enough of her.
‘What he said didn’t matter. I liked who I was. No one told me how to dress, how to behave, what clubs to join…I made my own decisions. Madoc was a puppet. A drone.
I’m free. ‘
Madoc Caruthers…this boy…*sigh* He is Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky…the life of the party…the jokester…charming, charismatic…everyone loves him and it’s really easy to fall in love with him. He’s just one of those guys. He’s got it all…looks, personality, money…he doesn’t have to work too hard to get what he wants but at the same time, a lot of what he wants is just handed to him. With that kind of lifestyle, it’s easy to grow up being cocky and arrogant…and annoying – but Madoc manages to balance it brilliantly with his fabulous personality. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still got the cocky and arrogant thing down, but he’s also got the balls to back it up and sadly enough, for me, it just made him hotter. And good lord is that boy drool-worthy. From the top of his head to the tip of his toes…he’s just too beautiful for words…and that mouth! Oh-em-gee…I love 99% of the things that come out of Madoc’s mouth period…but then when he gets a little dominant and demanding. Sweet baby Jesus…it did things to me. But it gets better…then he turned on the swoon. Madoc is the complete and total package…and I loved every ounce of him!
“This is my father’s house.” I spoke low and straightened my back. “And someday all this shit will be mine, Fallon. That bed you sleep in, along with everything under this roof.”
“Not me, Madoc. You don’t own me.”
“Yeah.” I brushed her off. “Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt. Thanks.”
Oh Fallon and Madoc…I really didn’t stand a chance against them because, technically, they have my kryptonite. History. Granted…they weren’t besties or anything like Jared and Tate, but there is some deep history between them and it struck a chord for me. (on a side note, I feel like I am comparing Fallon and Madoc to Jared and Tate a lot…and I don’t mean to but it’s hard not to – the books complement each other very well but they’re distinctive in their own rights. I loved the similarities that I found between the books as much as I loved the differences.) Their story might not be perfect…but it was unique and special to them and I think that’s one of the many reasons why I enjoyed it so much. They had such a combative relationship…they didn’t want to like each other but they couldn’t help it. They were polar opposites in every respect but still couldn’t deny their feelings. I am an angst whore…I want to feel that tension and build, give me as much angst as possible, I will love it every time and Rival is a perfect example of why. Fallon and Madoc have so much between them…so much it almost killed me, but I still loved it, because in the end, it made everything they went through so worth it.
‘“Madoc.”
“I love it when you say my name.” His head fell back, and his chest rose more quickly. He looked like he was enjoying this although I wasn’t touching him. He just liked touching me that much?
My hips rocked into his hand, and for the first time in two years, I wanted things. I wanted this. I wanted him. I wanted it all again.
But I knew I couldn’t have it. I knew this was it for us.
This was the last time he’d make love to me. The last time I’d kiss him.
The last time he’d want me.’
Good gravy I just want to take all the feelings I experienced in this book, bottle them up and experience them over and over again – I feel like an addict, I will never get enough of those emotions. Speaking of emotions, there is a scene…towards the end, where I felt like I got total insight into Fallon’s character. The entire book we’re fed little facts here and there about what happened to her and about her past but this scene was completely eye opening for me. Fallon is a very strong character IMO…but she’s very emotionally contained and I feel like while I might be seen glimpses at her true feelings in her head, this was actually witnessing her raw emotions and it broke me. It was so incredibly painful…she was hurting, I was hurting for her and the next thing I knew, I was actually crying. I’m not a huge cry baby by any means but if I feel it, I can’t help and I totally felt it. It’s a pretty crucial scene for me because it was the beginning of the change in Fallon and what she needed to do to guard and protect herself in order to get through an incredibly painful time in her life.
‘When he stared down at me, everything was still except for our feet that moved to the music. It was like he was searching my eyes for something.
Everything about him, the shade of his eyes, the muscles I felt under his shirt, the way I already knew how his body moved when it loved, everything about him drew me in.
I sucked in a breath, wishing he’d stop touching me and wishing I could pull away. In another minute I would. In another minute I’d be satisfied with the warmth I hadn’t felt in months or the heartbeat I could feel again.
In one more minute I would let him go.
I closed my eyes. Just. One. More. Minute.’
Penelope does an absolutely fantastic job of writing these characters and stories that completely own my heart. I truly felt everything that Fallon and Madoc were going through and it made the experience reading them effortless. I didn’t even have to try, they captured my soul and sucked me in, how can I not love something like that? I’ve loved Penelope’s writing from the very beginning, she has a very easy style to fall into…not too fluffy on the details, it’s crisp and clean, incredible emotion and feeling, enough sarcasm and wit to keep me laughing at all the right times and good-freaking-lord-have-mercy does she know how to write some hot sex. Really hot…like, I was expecting that to a certain degree, especially with Bully and Until You…but Madoc definitely had some delicious surprises up his sleeve. Above all what I love the most about this series…are the characters…I will always have a soft spot for the original couple that started it off and seeing Jared and Tate from another perspective was AH-MAZE-ING…obviously it made me miss them, but they’re still just perfection on paper and even though it’s just a taste of them, it was enough to satisfy me while I continued to fall in love with Fallon and Madoc.
‘I crumbled.
The tears spilled over my lids, and I gasped as my body shook. I couldn’t open my eyes. The pain was too great. I doubled over, clutching the sea otter, and put my head down, sobbing.
Up came the sadness and despair, and I wanted to take back everything I’d said to him. Every time I doubted him. Everything I didn’t tell him.
Madoc, who saw me.
Madoc, who remembered me.’
Oh and speaking of other characters…we get to know a little bit more about the illusive Jax and there are some very interesting little hints and teases that were dropped, which now means I am dying for Falling Away. Like I was already giddy to read them, now I’m about at the point where I need to start stalking Penelope because holy banana’s…am I excited! This series has yet to disappoint me and if Falling Away is packed with half the fabulocity that was in the other books, I’m pretty sure it’s going to blow me away. Bring it on Jax!
Penelope Douglas is a writer and teacher in Las Vegas. Born in Dubuque, Iowa, she is the oldest of five children. Penelope attended the University of Northern Iowa, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Public Administration, because her father told her to “just get the degree!” She then earned a Masters of Science in Education at Loyola University in New Orleans, because she hated Public Administration. One night, she got tipsy and told the bouncer at the bar where she worked that his son was hot, and three years later they were married. To the son, not the bouncer. They have spawn, but just one. A daughter named Aydan. Penelope loves sweets, the show Sons of Anarchy, and she shops at Target almost daily.
I am really looking forward to reading this series.
Scorching hot excerpt!
Love your reviews and love these books. Thanks for the chance to win!
Great post. There are a lot of great looking men on here.. lol
I swear this series has been on my TBR shelf forever. Moving it over to my Kindle wishlist on Amazon for me to see every day as a reminder to buy when I have money.
I had never heard of Penelope till today and now I can’t wait to read this whole series.
Loved this series so far and definitely looking forward to this book.
Love it when you come across an awesome series like this, it means you get to read more 🙂 Thank you
Series are a favorite for me, sometimes one book isn’t enough!
Looks like a good read.
Read this the day it was released! Loved it!
Can’t wait to read!
sounds great…love the blurb !!
thx u for the chance 🙂
I LOVED the images and gifs and excerpt!!!
I would love to win and read this series! Awesome giveaway!
I have this series on my TBR list and can’t wait to read all of the books one after another. Thanks for the giveaway
Thank you for the giveaway. I think my temperature has risen significantly in just scrolling through the pictures and teaser.
Great post! Thanks for the giveaway!