The Summer We Fell

By: Elizabeth O'Roark

Narrated by: Samantha Brentmoor, Teddy Hamilton

An angsty second-chance forbidden romance.

He was my boyfriend’s best friend—and the bane of my existence. I wanted to hate Luke Taylor. I did hate him. I just never hated him enough.

Now, a decade later, tragedy has brought us back to the place where it all happened—my best times and my worst.

Our lives have changed, but that pull between us is just as strong as ever.

Only this time, it’s more dangerous too.

©2023 Elizabeth O'Roark (P)2023 Elizabeth O'Roark

An angsty dual timeline story

I knew nothing about this story AT ALL going into it, except that it was about Juliet, a character I had been introduced to in one of the author's Devil series books. It was major angsty- a forbidden love between Juliet and Luke. Juliet has no family and is living with Danny's family. Danny is her boyfriend, and his father is a pastor. She is basically treated like a servant in the home, but she takes it as she feels guilty for staying there.

The story is told in the present and past. If you've read my reviews at all, I am not a huge fan of this. I like stories told in the here and now. I do understand why the story is like this. We need to find out what happened between Juliet, Danny and Luke in the past to understand the present.

I am giving it four stars because, though I had issues with it, I thought about it when I wasn't listening to it. I wanted to get back to it to see what was going to happen. My issues, though, are that I really didn't see the love between Luke and Juliet in the past. He stood up for her a lot (which her boyfriend, Danny, did NOT seem to do), but I didn't see/feel the emotions. Plus, this is a single POV from Juliet, which doesn't help. Luke's POV would have added so much to the story.

The narration was duet style (love this) with Samantha Brentmoor and Teddy Hamilton. I love Teddy and thought he did an excellent job with what he was given. There wasn't a lot of his narration in the story. The female narrator sounded too old for a teenager and reads very choppy, robot-like. Not a fan. It took me awhile to get adjusted to her narration.

Five stars for the cover, though!

Get ready for the angst!

This was a great listen and my first time reading this author. I’m a sucker for a forbidden romance and this one delivered!
I loved the little plot twist and mystery to it too. Narrators did an amazing job! Definitely worth the credit.

Luke and Juliet

5++ STARS... I couldn't stop listening to this book!!

The Summer We Fell is my first book by Elizabeth and I am so happy I listened to this one.. This story captivated me from the very beginning and kept a hold of my heart through the pages!!

Luke and Juliet are connected in a way that they can't even understand and I loved their story so much!

What a ride...

Told through an interesting perspective, this is the story of the forbidden love between Juliet Cantrell and Luke Taylor. In two different , alternating timelines of NOW and THEN, we follow Juliet's story (as it's told exclusively from her POV in first person) as she is taken by local pastor's family. She's very much a charity case and does everything to "belong", including completely suffocating her own personality, her wants and needs. She feels grateful but completely unseen. It all changes one summer when Danny, the pastor's son and her "intended", brings home a friend who's just as much in need of their help and support. And HE sees HER. 

In the beginning, you think that Luke is this bad boy... trouble... until you start putting the pieces together and you see how loyal, protective and completely in love he is with Juliet. The love triangle is established without Danny knowing, though we can tell he's very jealous of Luke's accomplishments. We know that whatever happened in the past still resonates horribly in the present: Danny is now dead and Luke hates Juliet. She made sure he felt that way because her love for him is equally boundless, loyal and protective. 

Now, thrown together again, the famous pro-surfer and the now singing sensation will have to face each other for the opening of "Danny's House". It's time for all the secrets (and the love) to come  to the surface. 

An angsty second chance romance that will have you turning page after page wanting to know what happened and begging for destiny to finally bring these two where they belong: together. 

Narration: Duet style narration by Samantha Brentmoor and Teddy Hamilton. Since it's in Juliet's solo POV, you get Samantha at her best, showcasing an incredible array of emotions. Teddy is amazing as all male characters. Kudos to the production team at Brickshop Audio for an amazing, seamless experience. 

Juliet and Luke bring all the angst

Elizabeth knows how to write angst! This story is told with single POV from Juliet, our heroine, and delivered in duet style narration with Samantha and Teddy. Sam and Teddy bring to life a story of young love at an inopportune moment in time. Juliet feels very confined to the life she was placed in as a guest in a highly religious family's home - of which she's dating their older son. During a summer vacation he brings his friend home and things start to go downhill.

Single POV doesn't always do it for me unless the author can find other ways to convey the interest or feelings of the other main character. And I honestly didn't feel that from what I read. I gave a lot of grace to Juliet as a 16/17 year old girl with burgeoning feelings for her boyfriend's best friend - but present day Juliet I had a hard time connecting with. And I honestly didn't really even buy how these two fell in love to begin with - let alone that that same love lasted a 7 year separation with absolutely no contact between them.

Overall, Elizabeth tells really nuances stories that have a lot of subtext (here there's purity culture and general religious oppression) and that aspect of her writing is always really well received by me. I would definitely recommend this to my audiobook friends, just with the caveat that they have to do some heavy lifting in the story with the characters.