I was delighted when Charish Reid offered an advance reader copy of (Trust) Falling for You in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed her previous books The Write Escape and Hearts on Hold. She writes entertaining and heartfelt romances set in academia and centers them around Black women.
In (Trust) Falling for You, the humanities department at a small liberal arts college goes on a week long team building retreat. Yolanda and her nemesis, Samuel, have to bunk together and are matched as team building partners. Yolanda resents that Samuel got the grant she applied for, but thinks he has a nice butt. Samuel doesn’t know why Yolanda doesn’t like him and doesn’t know how to talk to her. They are opposites forced to work together, Yolanda is a Pantser and Samuel is a Plotter. After a few spectacular failures, they start listening to each other and build trust. With the hostility out of the way, their attraction grows.
There are a lot of ways to do the opposites attract, and I really like the way Reid approaches her characters’ differences. Neither is right, neither is wrong, and both are capable of growth. Though they both roll their eyes at the team building exercises, the forced proximity and cooperation spurs the growth of understanding and trust. They move from not understanding why the other was so upset about that small thing, to trusting each other enough to admit insecurities and apologize, and then trolling Yolanda’s matches on Tinder together. Once they start flirting, the sexual tension ramps up.
By the end of the retreat, it feels like they have a solid friendship base to go with their simmering heat in bed. The process of watching them get there, admitting vulnerabilities and making little compromises to give each other room to be themselves was a joy. I’m only sad the bear didn’t get more time. After three books, I am fully on the Charish Reid bandwagon. I enjoy spending time with her characters. (Trust) Falling For You is out February 19.
Well now I’m adding all of her books to my TBR list. I love hate-to-love romances!
Yay! I enjoy her writing very much.
Yay! So glad to hear you liked this, and thanks for the reminder to set up my pre-order because this is definitely going to be my early birthday gift to myself.
MY FIRST QUESTION WAS GOING TO BE ABOUT THE BEAR! that cover is too cute.
“Yolanda resents that Samuel got the grant she applied for, but thinks he has a nice butt.”
Sold.
Awwww cute! This is a very convincing review, adding this and some of her backlist to my TBR!
Sounds like a fun read.
I bought Reid’s two first books in sales over the course of 2020 and will have to add this to my ‘to look out for’ list for 2021. Part of me is jealous of you getting all these ARCs, but you do such an excellent job of reviewing all of them (something I am less than great at, hence my rather dismal review percentage on NetGalley, and the reason I no longer get granted as many books) and I’ve lost count of how many new authors I discovered and books I ended up buying last year specifically because of your reviews.
If they have them, NetGalley should give you a gold star award or equivalent. A positive review from you is pretty much an auto-buy from me now. Maybe I should launch #blameemmalita for 2021?
Ok, first of all, you are making me cry. Secondly, the tag will always be BlameMalin, because you are the original source of instigation. Thirdly, whether you ever return to pre-motherhood levels of reviewing doesn’t really matter, you are a thoughtful reviewer. I have acquired so many books because you liked them. There are a couple of Mia Vincy books on my kindle that I haven’t gotten to, but I bought them because you liked them.
I need to get to Mia Vincy, too! I have two on my Kindle app.
And yes, I’m sorry, Malin, but it will always be #BlameMalin.