THE HARDER HE FALLS by Lynda Aicher

2 STARS

A new to me author and not a good fit if this book is representational of their work.

Sporty guys going full throttle is my thing and the blurb drew me in. I was totally sold on an outdoor adventure with some smoking hot men. What I got was BDSM club book with hurt/comfort themes. None of this was evident in the blurb.

So, there's entry level kink, which attempts to explain as it goes about the dynamics and procedures in play. Features light D/s, more just D (dominance) than s (submission), strictly in the control during sexual congress and the trope of I don't bottom. Neither are alphas. Well, that is until it isn't. The author seems to be trying to explain the blurred lines, but it seems pretty straight forward by the end. A whole lot of no, no, yes. 

Not thrilled with the over emotional guilt Grady drags us through during this story. People who do extreme sports don't complain, or they shouldn't. They take risks, that's the deal. Grady is so emotional that he doesn't elicit empathy at some point, it's just too much. And that's just the tip of the issues that rubbed me wrong.

Insta-lust and pining. I wish books would lose the awkward boner popping in anyone past puberty that's not used ironically. Please.



Yes, the first thing I think of after a medical episode is sex. Tack on some abysmal communication issues and this starts to get squirrely for me when Grady and Micah become sexually involved. Micah's failure to share critical information was selfish and stupid. Then there's the cross speaking, which is marginally better than no communication.

I was not enamored with either character.

PTBDS, Post Traumatic Bad Dom Syndrome. Another trope in BDSM books that I'm not overly fond of. Grady's internal questioning is relentless and repetitive. Then again, let's do a scene after suffering another injury. Forget sound body and mind, and enter the Psychic Dom with unnegotiated ball torture and pain play. How did we get here when both characters swore they weren't kinky? Yeah, no.

The grand finale: Label phobia crisis and kumbaya



I was hoping for outdoor action. I picked this story because whitewater rafting was in the blurb and I hoped in would be featured. Unfortunately, it's backstory and this was a rather significant disappointment for me. Honestly, I really didn't process that this was going to be a BDSM club book, and while they might have appealed to me when I first started reading the genre, I pretty much steer clear of them, now. This was an uncorrected proof, so there were a few instances of stray punctuation and inconsistencies that I feel confident will be caught before release. That isn't what affected my rating. This just was not a good fit with the amount of angst. Your mileage my vary.