REVIEW: Falling From the Sky by Sarina Bowen
B+ Reviews / Recommended ReadsAthlete / Contemporary romance / medicine / Sports21 Comments
This book has been republished and is now available. Sorry readers!
Dear Ms. Bowen:
Your books have been one of the highlights of my 2014 reading year. Your character seem so genuine and real and I feel like they are people I would enjoy spending time with and I certainly enjoy reading their stories. Hank “Hazardous” Lazarus is a bit of a male counterpart to the heroine in The Year We Fell Down. After a bad crash in the half pipe, US Olympian and freestyle snowboarder Hank ends up in the hospital unable to move his legs.
Doctor Callie Anders met Hank when he was at the top of his career[FN1] and he dismissed her with a look. He doesn’t remember the encounter but Callie has never forgotten him. When they meet again, he’s a patient.
Hank Lazarus was in for a shitty time, truly the shittiest time of his life. the distance he’d come these past five days was a descent from the highest tide to the lowest low. And it wasn’t a damned either of them could do about it.
“Hang in there,” Callie whispered. “This right here is the very worst part.”
He didn’t break their staring contest. “You promise?” he rumbled, his voice pure whiskey and smoke.
Fast forward nine months and Callie’s dealing with the break up of her ex, a fellow doctor who she allows to walk all over her, and Hank is dealing with his continuing paralysis. He has sensation in his legs but he can’t control them and he’s wheelchair bound with his wealthy parents still scrambling to find any specialist who can get Hank on his legs again.
A vist from an old friend leads to over imbibing alcohol which lands him in the hospital for alcohol poisoning where Callie and Hank meet again. Hank’s struck by her good looks and nice rack and a fervent desire to be discharged. Callie’s overwhelmed by her continuing attraction to Hank. With his family on him to try FES, an experimental therapy that could help Hank walk again, he agrees so long as Callie administers the program which she resists because she’s not a rehab doctor. You do a good job of walking us through why it’s okay for Callie to be in this position (basically hospitals would allow clowns to administer a study if it meant millions in donations). Callie’s only role is to observe and collect data from the FES patients to help prove to insurers that FES is a viable form of therapy worth paying for.
The flirtation between Hank and Callie is charming and while much of the story is propelled by Hank’s involvement in FES, the “cure” is almost secondary. Part of Hank’s dilemma is that some organs aren’t working properly, not even with the little blue pill. This has less to do with his physical condition and everything to do with his big head. I don’t remember many books, if any, that feature this problem and it was treated not only with delicacy but a light touch, as is most of the book. The emotional impact of scenes linger well after the “big moment” because of how subtle the movements are.
The two characters come together and then their emotions careen elsewhere. Callie gets bogged down in her seventeen year plan, a potential job in California, her possible ethical conflict in sleeping with Hank, her insecurity. Hank has moments of insecurity, frustration over his situation, general malaise over how greatly his life has changed, his insecurity.
Because none of the issues are overplayed (or at least not played for hyped up drama), it is all the more affecting in part because I can visualize these two characters and their circle of friends. The crisp air of Vermont and the antisceptic smell of the hospital and the warmth of Hank’s bedroom were all easy to visual.
The ending brought the book full circle, filling me with a general sense of happiness and contentment. Callie and Hank overcame their issues and were stronger together. It’s a great book to read now, while the winter is at our door and the snow is falling outside the windows. Hank loves the snow so much and it’s evident in the way he talks about it, how he views it, how he allows us to view it and there was something truly romantic and beautiful how it was brought to life for me, the reader. This book had one of the best epilogues I’ve read (no babies) and I can’t wait for the next Bowen book because I’m sure it will be full of tender romance, real characters, and a genuineness I have a hard time finding in lots of other books. B+
Best regards,
Jane
[FN1] This seemed like one thing in the beginning but become something wholly different in the end and I loved that detail.
I couldn’t find this on Amazon, BN, or Google. Sounds good though.
Goodreads says it is expected to be published on January 1, 2015. I will definitely put it on my “waiting for” list, as I have really enjoyed the books in her Ivy Series.
Ugh sorry. It was in a box set but I guess will be released in January. I apologize. You can buy it at MB.
Thanks, commenters! I was confuuuuuuuuused. Didn’t think to check Goodreads.
This sounds interesting.
I have a concern about language – does Bowen use the term “wheel chair bound” in the book? It’s an older term, associated with ableist attitudes, and it’s use is kind of a red flag for me – not that everyone who uses it is ableist, but I’d hope an author writing about disability would know it’s a hot button term. It also surprises me, because I thought The Year We Fell Down was pretty good about not using ableist language.
@cleo why don’t you blame the ableist language on me instead of the author
@Jane – whoa. I thought I asked who used the term, instead of assigning blame.
It did occur to me that you, not Bowen, used the term and that you used it without realizing it can be offensive, which is why I asked and why I explained my issues with it.
I guess I was trying so hard to sound like I wasn’t blaming you, and wasn’t making assumptions, that I went too far the other way. I was trying to bring this up in a way so you could hear it and not get defensive. But I clearly failed to not put you on the defensive. Sorry about that.
As a physician, clinical researcher, and having a disability from birth, I am pretty much expecting this one to push about 500 of my own hot buttons (though “wheelchair bound” doesn’t happen to bug me, weirdly). What I suspect I will be unable to overcome is Callie sleeping with Hank while she’s supervising or administering the trial (or whatever she’s doing). If she sleeps with him under those circumstances, it would be too much of a conflict of interest for any insurer to trust her opinion, not to mention the absolute uncoolness of sleeping with a patient. It’s kind of too bad, because I adored all of her Ivy Series books.
@cleo: I’m not defensive. I’m pointing out that the logical person to blame here is the person who used the words–me. Since you’ve read her other book and know how she treats the subject matter, why infer that it was the author who was insensitive rather than the person who actually wrote the words.
I really enjoyed this story, and the others of Sarina Bowen’s that I’ve read. She’s definitely an auto-buy for me now.
Darn, I saw the cover model as RPatz, and now I can’t unsee it. I’ll keep an eye out for it when it’s released by itself, and try to overwrite my mental image.
I was so happy when I saw a tweet about this book today. One question is Hank the frat guy from Blond Date?
Yay – thanks for reposting this. One-clicked it and can’t wait to read it. In between the original post and now, I bought and gobbled up Bowen’s Ivy League series. Like @neurondoc, I’m wary of the boundary-crossing, but I’m going to give it a try and hope for the best.
Thank you for reposting. I too didnt get it when part of a box set but have just one-clicked (my bank statements are just Amazon, Amazon, Amazon) – so looking forward to this,
I agree with neurondoc’s points above. As a rehabilitation physician myself, I am definitely uncomfortable with the fact that she was his treating doctor at a time when he was probably the most vulnerable and devastated. How can that not affect his feelings towards her and the power balance in the relationship? I guess we all have our boundaries. That’s a big one for me. I’m curious enough to give it a try, though yeah, lots of hot buttons will probably be pushed.
@Annette: I don’t know if this helps or not but she is not his doctor. She administers the program that his family is funding. It was the requirement of the funding itself. She doesn’t treat him or have anything to do with the treatment. But it still might bother you.
@Jane:
Thanks, Jane. Ah, that would make a difference. I got the sense from the excerpt about him going through a sh***y time that she was his doctor around the time of his injury.
@Annette: So I’ve really muffed this review. LOL. She is the emergency room doctor after he imbibes too much alcohol. They flirt and he asks her out which she turns down. Later his parents want him to participate in some kind of special therapy (I can’t recall what it is but basically the idea is that he gets on a bike or some other apparatus that moves his limbs and maybe the remembered muscle memory can result in him doing those tasks independently). He agrees if she’ll run the study.
So she is approached by the director and asked to do this because it’ll mean a huge boon for the hospital. All she has to do is collect the data etc. She’s not involved in rehab in anyway. Before she sleeps with him, she calls her supervisor to ask if it would be a conflict of interest.
(I’d paste the text from the book but I can’t find it on my computer right now).
I also just finished this book (which is available on amazon now individually http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Sky-Gravity-Sarina-Bowen-ebook/dp/B00T1XMJ5G/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1423087254&sr=8-7&keywords=sarina+bowen)) and I thought that the author did a very good job touching on the ethics of Callie becoming involved with Hank. She worries about it, she talks about it to him and her boss and she’s prepared to lose her job. This is an auto buy author for me now and I can’t wait to get the next book. But I don’t understand why the publisher is releasing these out of order.
Aaaand it’s a new cover! My first comment makes no sense now. Ha!
@Jane:
Thanks for this explanation. Yup, works for me! I’m buying this. :)