Audiobook Review: Fallen in Love (Fallen #3.5)

Author: Lauren Kate

Narrator: Justine Eyre

Audiobook Length: 4 hours 38 minutes

And in a twist of fate, four extraordinary love stories intersect over the course of a romantic Valentine’s Day in medieval England. Miles and Shelby find love where they least expect it. Roland learns a painful lesson about finding and losing love. Arriane pays the price for a love so fierce it burns. And for the first—and last—time, Daniel and Luce spend a night together like none other.

Fallen in Love is a short story collection that features four different tales. The stories include: “Love Where You Least Expect It: The Valentine of Shelby and Miles;” “Love Lessons: The Valentine of Roland;” “Burning Love: The Valentine of Arriane;” and “Endless Love: The Valentine of Daniel and Lucinda.” While this story does not really add anything to the main series, I read it for completeness with the collection. It was also nice to read a little more about some of the side characters although I, unfortunately, did not care much about the Luce and Daniel one.

Love Where You Least Expect It: The Valentine of Shelby and Miles

In this story, Shelby and Miles are stuck in the past where they encounter a reincarnation of Luce and Daniel in the time of knights. Luce is the daughter of a peasant and believes she is not good enough for the knight, Daniel, so Shelby and Miles decide to help unite the two. At the beginning it is clear that Shelby has romantic feelings for Miles, but it is not clear how he feels about her. After reading the other installments, I am not sure where these romantic feelings came from, but I just decided to go with it. Based on this tiny story alone, I enjoyed Shelby and Miles’ story and found them cute together; however, there needed to be a lot more to make this potential romance believable.

Love Lessons: The Valentine of Roland

Roland finds himself in the same timeline as Miles and Shelby where he revisits his past love, Rosaline. This story while heartbreaking needed more for me to connect to the reason why Roland’s choice to leave Rosaline was upsetting and not just a usual break-up.

Burning Love: The Valentine of Arriane

Here Arriane is with Tessriel where the two are together, yet Tess is on the side of Lucifer. The two of them are fated to be apart as they are on different sides. This story was surprisingly more emotional than I thought, and I found myself very invested in this story. While the story is tragic, I loved getting to learn more about Arriane’s character and her past.

Endless Love: The Valentine of Daniel and Lucinda

For this one, the reader sees Luce trying to unite with Daniel. I went into this one expecting something from the two of them getting together, but unfortunately, I was left disappointed as nothing new was added to their story. I like the idea of Daniel and Luce together, but this story was just meh and I wanted more considering this was supposed to be about their only Valentine’s Day together.

The final piece of this collection is a preview for the next novel, Rapture. Since I am the type that wants to finish a series and see it through until the end, I skipped the preview and will instead try the actual novel. Overall, there was a lot of potential in most of these stories where they read nicely on their own. Miles and Shelby sort of came out of nowhere as I did not feel there was enough foundation in the previous stories. Roland and Arriane’s stories had some nice insights into their pasts, and it would be nice to explore them more. Unfortunately, I found the final story pointless as it added nothing new, and I just could not connect to it.