Author: Jaime Samms
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Pages/Word Count: 350 Pages
At a Glance: But Bound to Fall wasn’t the smooth glide that Jaime’s books typically are for me.
Reviewed By: Jules
Blurb: With so many fences between them and happily ever after, two men wonder if it’s worth opening the gate.
Ten years ago Eddie Crane, an actor on the rise, loved his costar and dreamed of the day they could be together. But his love, with his submissive nature, couldn’t handle fame, and before Eddie could help him, he died in a car accident—with Eddie at the wheel.
Now, guilt-ridden, Eddie buries himself in bad decisions and prays that a stunt—on or off camera—will go wrong.
Teenaged fantasies about the actor on his wall distracted Arthur Pike from real life—his dead father, runaway mother, gruff grandparents, and his unrequited love for his cousin’s straight husband. Now grown and off the farm, Pike is a horse stuntman hired to teach a reluctant Eddie to ride.
Pike is drawn to Eddie’s dominant nature despite the sadness clinging to the actor. Eddie let one lover down, but in Pike’s submissiveness, he sees the possibility for redemption.
Review: Eddie Crane’s career is teetering on the edge of disaster. His manager – the spitfire that is Margaret – has pulled some strings to get him a gig that could revive things for him if it goes well, but he hasn’t even bothered to read the script. Not a great way to start things off. Right off the bat, we see that Margaret has her hands full with Eddie (whose given name is completely fabulous, by the way: Angus Edwin McCrea – friends call him Annie, which I love), who has basically been on a ten year bender. Unable to get over the grief of losing his costar, best friend, and first love, it’s been a rough go for Eddie – but, it’s time for him to end the pity party and get his life back on track.
The new film calls for Eddie to be comfortable on a horse, so Mags takes him to a ranch in Canada to meet up with his stunt double, Arthur Pike, who is going to teach Eddie how to ride. I liked Pike very much. He has a lot of fire in him but is also very caring and gentle, which you can especially see in the way he interacts with the horses. The storyline involving Pike’s misplaced feelings for his cousin’s husband didn’t really add to the story for me. Pike was an extremely strong and likeable character, and his having such a hard time for so long over dealing with the reality of his relationship with Ryan didn’t feel entirely realistic.
I’m a fan of Jaime Samms’ work, and I liked many parts of this story…Passages like this one for instance:
“Pike had always loved that exact moment when the flowers were open before the petals snowed down on the grass. In the sparse light, the trees were globed shadows and the lawn stretched out, a sheet of lighter gray, like the color had been stripped from the world for a few hours.”
Beautiful, right?? She writes so many lovely words. And, I loved the little shout-outs she gave to Patchwork Heaven, both the boys from the band and the guys from The Detail. But Bound to Fall wasn’t the smooth glide that Jaime’s books typically are for me. I stumbled with this one quite a bit. The BDSM part of the book just never really came together. Things weren’t clearly defined, and the roles didn’t seem to fit or be true to the characters on either side. For the most part, Pike didn’t seem to have a submissive bone in his body – though I get that he craved dominance in the bedroom – and for the majority of the book, Eddie seemed to need Pike to take the lead almost as much as he wanted to dominate him.
I loved the nod to Brokeback Mountain, and the acknowledgement of the rough ride stardom can be for some of our brightest shining stars, and the care Jaime took in telling Annie’s story…I get all of that and love what her intention was…I just wish the story, overall, would have meshed better for me.
You can buy Bound to Fall here:
