3/5 stars. Really it would have been higher, but the writing style was confusing at times. Almost as if it was written in talk to text as the author was thinking. A little too much fluff in some instances. I do wish there were more light touches, or affectionate moment between Will and Casey. Little bit more build up. Whole fade to black is fine, this book was done very tastefully, I’ll always wish for the steamy scenes. I’ll be posting a TikTok review with the handle @lacyk2018 and I’ve linked my Goodreads review.

I will leave out my feed back on writing style because it’s my personal take on it. Some people might love it.

Thank you so much for letting this be my first ARC read. It’ll always hold a special place in my heart.

🧡🩵 Fall Into You ARC Review 🩵🧡

Thank you so much to Dylan Morrison and Storm Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this book!

Fall Into You is a standalone contemporary MM romance. Will had a simple plan - return back home after being gone for 15 years to sell his late father’s farm. However, there is one big problem in his way…Casey, the farm’s manager. Can they overcome their problems and learn to work together??

This was an interesting read. I really enjoyed Will as a character and his growth in this story. He’s been through a lot in his life and i liked seeing his strength in this book. Casey was a fun character and a good match for Will in this book. I enjoyed Casey’s story and I would have really liked to have seen some of Casey’s PoV throughout this book.

Overall this was a fun 4 star read. I enjoyed the characters and this story. This book does have some potential triggers, so please check if you’re sensitive. While this book was a romance, the spicy scenes were all closed door, so one flame for spice

If you’re a fan of contemporary romance with a small town, strong characters and found family vibes, then absolutely pick this one up!

I'm afraid I was unable to read Fall Into You by Dylan Morrison as it isn't available to read on my Kobo.

However, as I won't give a poor rating to a book I haven't even read, this feedback is purely for NetGalley.

Thank you NetGalley and Storm Publishing for providing an e-ARC to me in exchange for an honest review!

3.5, and a note at the end about the terrible e-ARC formatting ;)

I had a (mostly) great time reading this book. The writing flowed well, there was a fun cast of side characters, and the romance was cute, especially in the first two thirds of the book, which absolutely flew by. I really liked the setup and the events that happened that forced the two main characters together. Also, this book felt thematically more intentional than some recent romances I've read, which is why I decided to give it four stars here instead of three.

However, my enjoyment was hampered by my dislike of Will, the POV character. I didn't feel that he had adequately redeemed himself by the end: there was some bad behavior that I can't really get into because of spoilers. But honestly my main issue was the narration. Most of the pages are filled with Will's internal monologue, where he spirals about almost every situation. I got the sense (based on the constant ellipses and exclamation points) that this was supposed to be funny, but for me it just wasn't. It also interrupted dialogue in a disruptive way: in the middle of a conversation, Will would start thinking of a memory, which lead to a second memory, which lead to a third. Then finally we would resume the conversation where it had left off, but I the reader had completely lost my place.

I've actually read and loved a lot of miserable main characters before; it's just that their internal monologues had more humor or cleverness to balance out the misery. I think it's important to add some balance in the romcom genre.

That being said, I have very high hopes for this author's future work and will certainly be reading it.

Finally, on the e-ARC formatting: for some reason the letter "f" and the 1-2 surrounding letters were all corrupted. For example, the word "off" would often appear as "#f," and I had to guess the word from context clues. The fact that I even finished the book is a testament to how much I enjoyed the writing.

This seems like a fun book, but unfortunately the formatting is messed up (occurrences of“fi” have been replaced by special characters).

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

Returning home with a twist and spontaneous laughs. Some of the times when a character is musing to himself, the content is designed for humor and absolutely succeeds! It's a tale of academia (Will) vs agribusiness (Casey) with the agony of returning to a place of humiliation by his own family. Well done!
#FallIntoYou by Dylan Morrison @stormbooks_co #netgalley @bookbub #goodreads #bromance #romcom #farmlife #estrangement #HEA #beachread #humor #storygraph #librarything

DYLAN MORRISON – FALL INTO YOU****
For me, this was a slow grower. Found the prose verbose and nearly gave up. Glad I didn’t. This became an immersive experience which is still with me a couple of days after I finished the epilogue.
This is the story of the latest in a long line of Wiliam Roberston’s, of Roberston Family Farms. This one happens to be gay. After a major falling out many years ago, he returns to the farm which has been left to him as the only surviving relative, talking on the phone with Selma, his lawyer friend. The previous William Robertson has died, and Will needs to establish what happens to the family firm in which he’s really not interested.
Catherine Rose is the business-woman enemy, trying to persuade him to sell and turn it into a, for want of a better word, entertainment park, which most locals don’t want.
Running this enterprise is blond-haired efficient Casey, hired by the previous Wiliam Roberston, with whom the present gay Wiliam Roberston fell out years before. This is an enemy to friend love story set against the background of small-town rural America and the apple farm which has been the focus of generations of Robertson’s. It is this unusual background, a sense of place, which holds the story together and gives it its unique charm. Which is why I have awarded it four stars. Yes, it may be verbose, over-written in places, but this is what gives it its edge. I shall look out for this author again.

I haven't read a characters as relatable as Will Robertson in a bit.

When Will was 18yrs old he left his family's apple farm with plans to never return. Now in his thirties he's forced back to the small town and the farm he grew up on due to being left the farm by his now dead father. Here is where he first meets Casey, the handsome manager of the farm who is also living in his family home. The two do not get off on the right foot, Casey loves the farm and Will wants to sell and never think about the place again.

Will's train of thought and process of trying to make decisions felt very real to me as a person with a lot of anxiety.

This story is a lovely enemies to lovers. The whole story burns incredibly slowly, not just the romance, but the peek into Will's past. When the bridge out of town collapses and I knew those two are going to have to spend time together I was wringing my hands gleefully. Will and Casey slowly being to realize they have a lot more in common than they thought and may just be perfect for each other. When the slow burn finally burns it feels earned.

The town is full of interesting characters, it was nice to see Will has more friends then he thought. His lawyer best friend is also a hoot. The evil corporation looming over the town felt a bit like a tacked on side plot to move some of the action along. Yes this was a cute romcom but it also had some good character, laugh out loud moments, growth and emotional moments. Really sweet summer read that will leave your heart feeling warm.

Thank you NegGalley and Storm Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a difficult one, because there were some things I really liked and some things I didn't.

First off, the style of writing felt a little fanfic to me, but that could be because I know the author as a previous fanfiction writer, so it could've been in my head. It felt very conversational and run-on and I actually found it to be a little too introspective for me - sometimes there would be paragraphs just stuck in our MC's head, with little to no new information.

I also didn't really like Will, and found him kind of rude. The way he kept ignoring the calls from the closer I thought was immature, especially when he'd literally run away from her. There's even a point where she says that she wouldn't have minded the answer so much if he'd given her it sooner, and I thought that was valid. Having said that, she did suffer from the same issue that Will and Casey did, which is that she didn't feel a real person - she was a very two dimensional villain.

I also thought Will was rude to Selma - she's supposedly his best friend but he ignores her calls and doesn't speak to her for the majority of the book, then almost immediately just asks her for a favour. I found him a difficult person to like, despite being in his head, because I didn't enjoy the way he treats other people and his friends (like Meredith).

I also didn't really get on with the insta-love - Will and Casey see each other, and we immediately get pages of Will thinking about his attraction to Casey. Everything is very on the page, with no mystery - the little mystery that's attempted is very predictable and things are drawn with broad strokes.

Having said that, I loved being in the town and I loved meeting the side characters. The town felt almost real to me, and I liked the way people treated Will and were aware of his past. The kids working at the farm, his friends, the other townspeople, they were all very fun and I enjoyed spending time with them. There's very little conflict or tension and this is a very comfortable read - it's a nice palate cleanser between books that may be darker or more difficult.

Thank you to Storm publishing and NetGalley for this eARC.

Fall Into You by Dylan Morrison
Publication Date June 18/25

This is a charming, humorous and heartwarming queer romance that also offers deeper emotional layers, exploring the journey of returning to your roots to confront unresolved childhood trauma.

William fled his family’s apple farm at 18, escaping the weight of unrelenting pressure, disappointment and his fathers intense anger. Now a successful scientist, he is reluctantly drawn back to his hometown following his father’s death. His life is upended when he meets Casey, a handsome and capable man who has transformed the struggling orchard into something beyond William’s imagination. As William plans to sell the farm, Casey forces him to reconsider everything he thought he wanted.

This is a beautifully written love story about the power of connection - about finding someone who truly sees you, understands your pain, and who lifts you up so that you believe happiness is within reach. The novels exploration of complicated grief, estrangement, and healing adds emotional depth and complexity to the story making it a compelling read.

While I loved the writing and the well developed characters, the story would have benefited from tighter editing to trim some sections and improve pacing. Still this is a wonderful, feel-good read that is perfect for your summer reading list.

Thanks to Dylan Morrison, Storm Publishing, and NetGalley for the ARC! My review is my own.

This book was delightful and I absolutely tore through it. It's got more angst in it than I would ordinarily expect from something billed as a rom-com, but that angst is well-portrayed and thoughtfully handled.

<b><i>"Will can almost feel the man that he was supposed to be hovering behind him, breath harsh against the back of his neck, waiting with dwindling patience for Will to turn around and face him."</b></i>

Will spent the first 18 years of his life being constantly reminded that he's a disappointing failure to live up to the manly family legacy and take over the family farm. He walks away vowing never to return... but he <i>has</i> to, when it turns out that his father never changed his will and Will has inherited the farm. He goes back to his hometown to sell the farm to a developer. There he meets Casey, the farm manager, who is everything Will was supposed to have been but isn't: tall, burly, sociable, a business success, and beloved by the entire town - including Will's late father. Casey's living in Will's childhood home and running his family's business. Instant animosity ensues. When a natural disaster strands Will at the farm, he's forced to come to terms with his past, his present life, and his growing feelings for Casey.

Note #1: There is definitely some handwaving that you have to overlook here. Our setting is a delightfully atypical tiny Ohio town where, apparently, the only homophobic residents were Will's now-deceased parents and the town is economically thriving with new businesses on Main Street and lots of young people. Also, Will's improbable trajectory from "leaving home with nothing" to "becoming a successful academic researcher" is glossed over as something that was hard for a few years but manageable. But if you're willing to let fantasy be fantasy, this is a lovely book.

Note #2: Spicy as apple juice. Thoroughly closed-door.

Interesting little story about returning to the place you ran away from and being forced to face things you thought you could avoid forever.

A unique and unusual story that still captures all the things we love to read about: enemies to lovers, romance, fear, secrets and all the people we have to deal with. Told entirely from Will’s POV which is a treat in itself: he is not boring!

I received an advance copy of Fall Into You from Storm Publishing. I enjoyed it and you will, too. I voluntarily leave this review; all opinions are my own.

I enjoyed the heck out of this (even though the NG Kindle download had some kind of glitch that turned every "fi" into "!" and was hence unreadable, and the version on the NG app was formatted in infinitesimal font—none of which matters to anyone but me, but wow was it frustrating). I loved the style, which was sort of an elevated version of contemporary romance/rom-com, if that makes any sense? Like, the subject matter and language and internality at some times felt like literary fiction, except without being impenetrable or dull. (I must say, though: Step away from the semicolons, author! And anyone who knows me knows how I love my semicolons.)

I saw one review describing this as YA. Um, NOPE. The MCs are in their late twenties/mid-thirties, and the story is fully mature (though there's no graphic sex on the page).

The one thread that I felt was kind of dropped was the one about early-onset dementia. That's a horrific illness, and the specter of it was raised but then never discussed. Perhaps it couldn't have been covered in any satisfactory way, but... it did niggle at me a bit.

On the whole, though, I thought this was a delight, and I'll eagerly look forward to more from this author.

My thanks to the publisher/NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

I enjoyed this story. Will has built a life for himself far from the family apple farm where he could never please his father no matter how hard he tried. After his father dies, he returns to the farm to possibly sell it ... but he runs into Casey, who's been living there helping Will's father. Will is the most awkward character! He has these constant internal conversations with himself that are sometimes hilarious. He has to learn to trust his feelings and how to overcome his difficult childhood. A fun read, watching Will and Casey's relationship develop after a bumpy start!
Thanks to Netgalley, Storm Publishing, and Dylan Morrison for the free ARC. All opinions are my own.

This is an extremely unique & utterly adorable story about finding love in unlikely places—about being loved despite your trauma, and learning to accept yourself.

I enjoyed every second of it.

It’s perfect for anyone who is a fan of small towns, queer romance, and family dramas.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

I'll admit it, I was totally addicted - I ended up staying up into the small hours just to finish because I couldn't put it down. This is sweet and light and comforting like an apple pie, with an emotional core that had me starting to tear up at times.

The plot is an almost stereotypical made-for-tv small-town romcom plot, with Will coming back to his small town after years away, but we're never here for the plot complexity, we're here for the emotional beats, and this had them in spades. It's much more about Will overcoming his trauma growing up and feeling like he never was able to meet anyone's expectations and having to escape that than it is about his romance with Casey, but Casey is still a big player in that overcoming-trauma piece.

I wish we'd had a little more of Will and Casey stuck in the house together while the bridge got fixed and learning each other to shift those first impressions (partly because I was yelling the entire time that it was clear they both had different interactions and impressions of Bill and needed to talk that out, and that seemed like the perfect "Will can't run away" setup to me, so to have it just skipped over felt odd to me).

Overall, extremely heartwarming and perfect fall small-town vibes.

A charming exploration of psychology, small town living, and the beginnings of a beautiful relationship.

I enjoyed this book. Whole book is written from Will's POV which gives the reader a great insight of how he thinks, and it's quite erratic at times. Will holds himself to a really high standard, and has a lot of anxiety from it. He doesn't always handle social situations well, which comes off as rambling speeches- but he is also well aware of this.
I would've loved to read even a one chapter from Casey's POV since while he came through as a great person, with his own history and battles, he was still sort of an enigma.
The story was fun, and sweet. I loved that there was a lot of things happening, so the book flowed fast.

Honestly just very average
I had high hopes from the first few pages but the pacing was so off, and there are lots of little things that seem to be skimmed over—e.g. how was the MC able to just go off to the farm and never come back? considering he loved botany so much I was expecting more of an internal war with deciding whether to stay or go back to his old life. I think it was a little difficult also to connect to Will too. It was ok but nothing amazing. I think fans of these typical light romances will like this a lot but for me it was just not my style at all

An emotive and dramatic book tenderly written. Thanks to Storm Publishing and NetGalley for the chance to ARC this book.