Review: Fall Semester

✩✩✩✩

Despite his stunning good looks and his love of Latin American poetry, Malcolm is probably the most detested professor on campus. Divorced and bitter at thirty-four, he hardly cares students are dropping his classes in droves and his colleagues wish he'd disappear.
Some nights, he wishes he could disappear, too.
Until he meets Maren Gardner. The twenty-four-year old grad student is too innocent, too kind, and far too young for him. Plus, she's completely off-limits. But Malcolm can't seem to resist her.
Maren is facing the greatest loss of her life. A forbidden relationship is the last thing she needs. Yet thoughts of a certain green-eyed professor keep invading her mind at the most inconvenient times. And the sweet side he shows only her stirs Maren's heart...
They'd be fools to risk heartbreak and disaster -- all for the love of a lifetime. Absolute fools.

Genre: contemporary romance

Publication date: October 2013

Mature content: yes

Review: I loved reading Fall Semester. I connected with both main characters right from the first pages and it was a book I just couldn't put down.

 

I was actually prepared to rate it with 5 stars, right until the part where Malcom turns all controlling. We know from the start he's a haunted man - to the point of being suicidal. And I did expect him to make a mistake at some point in his relationship with Maren. But to have him turned into a stalker? Well, that I did not expect. Frankly, it freaked me out a bit and I would have run the other way as fast as possible if it had happened to me. Strangely, Maren's family seems to take it in stride, and so does Maren at the end, but I was not fully convinced. 

Overall, it's a beautiful love story (if you overlook the detail above), but after finishing it I still felt I was missing a piece in the puzzle. 

I love Stephanie Fournet's books, though, and I will certainly come back for more. 

 Happy readings!