Free Fall by Emma Barry and Genevieve Turner (Fly me to the Moon, Book 5)
09/04/2018
79. Free Fall by Emma Barry & G.Tuner. (M/F, HistRom).1-night stand with consequences. Two near strangers, newly married, space race. LOVED this book. She is a vibrant firecracker, with no clue how to be a wife. He is reserved & desperately trying to avoid feelings #bkbrk
— Ana Coqui (@anacoqui) August 25, 2018
One of the best things that can happen to you as a reader is to find a writer whose books just work for you, whose core story is the story you love to read. As a reader I have been very lucky, over the last 5 or 6 years I've found several such writers. Emma Barry is one of those writers. Whether she is writing nerdy accountants, swaggering astronauts or uptight engineers as heroes or workaholic public servants, managing housewives or sultry sorority girls are heroines, I am here for it.
At the start of Free Fall, Vivy is just 19, daddy's little girl, a college girl is majoring in sociology, who loves her sorority sisters and is too loud, too big and much too much for her prim and petite society mother. She is in that middle space, no longer a child but not a full-fledged independent adult yet. One night she accompanies her father, a defense contractor with big contracts with the space agency, to a party at an astronaut's house. After a while she decides to go outside and get some air. Dean Garland, one of the astronauts, follows her out.
"It was unfair, and so like a man, to look that good and that cocky."
Vivy in Barry and Turner's Free Fall
He claims to have been lured out by the bigness of her laugh, which instead of pleasing Vivy, cools everything off
"Settle down, quiet down, sit down, look down: all her life, her mother had tried to wrestle Vivy into a smaller space, a smaller size. But Vivy couldn't be less"
Vivy in Barry and Turner's Free Fall.
But Dean recovers, not letting Vivy slip away back inside offended, frank in his interest and ignorant of who her daddy is. He doesn't flinch away from her sharp teasing, clearing liking it just as much as he likes the look of her. The combination is irresistible and Vivy is soon kissing him in the dark under the moon and then following him to his house down the block for more.
Two months later Dean is called down to his supervisor's office and gets the biggest surprise of his life. Vivy, is Vivian Muller, daughter of Benjy Muller, whose company is responsible for their new EVA suit and Muller is demanding Dean propose because Vivy is pregnant.
An akward proposal and a rushed wedding later, Vivy and Dean are suddenly living together. It is hard enough to learn to live together, let alone love each other with just the barest of knowledge about eachother and they doing it all under the microscope of the space program! They have communication issues everywhere but in bed but they can’t have sex because the head engineer forbid all distractions after a near fatal close call as they approach a big mission deadline. The one thing they know they both enjoy about each other is the one thing they can't do.
I fell in love with Vivy in the first chapter. She is smart, brash & out to seduce her husband into paying attention to her. She won’t let Dean dump her into his empty house and ignore her just because he is getting ready to go to space. I fell for Dean because whatever his difficulty finding words for his feelings, or knowing what Vivy needs for him, he is determined to make sure no one makes Vivy feel like she needs to be less again. I loved the little ways he makes sure she has that, and the little ways Vivy keeps cracking his numb and making him feel. He loves it, wants it, but he hates it because it hurts too.
"Dean didn't remember how to talk like he'd use to, but he wanted to relearn it, For Vivy's sake"
Dean in Barry and Turner's Free Fall
I was so impressed with the way Barry and Turner captured the uncertainty and tentativeness of a new troubled marriage. They don't know how to fight, how to make up, and they know so little of each other expectations. Also the depiction of pregnancy and Vivy's ambivalent feelings about the whole enterprise were so refreshing as was Dean's utter enthusiasm for her pregnant body. There is just so much to unpack on about the the work Barry and Turner to do to set up the conflicts Dean and Vivy face about how they mean to move forward together, and what it means to be married.
I am a huge fan of this series and this book has skyrocketed to a tie with Earthbound (which I beta read) as my favorite. If you haven't read any of the others, don't let that keep you from trying this book, it is completely accessible to a new reader, because Vivy is as new to this world as you are.