Fall Line by Tudor Robins

Fall Line by Tudor Robins (Downhill Series #1)

Tudor Robins is mostly known for her horse books–the Island Series in particular–which are immensely good and deserve all the praise. Like many horse book people, I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy a book about skiing, because I have not been known to enjoy “slippery sports,” as I call them. Although then I reminded myself that I have been in love with The Cutting Edge since forever, so I downloaded Fall Line and took a crack at it.

Chris and Tilly have known each other forever. They’re best friends, and of everything they have in common, skiing is the be all and end all. But Tilly is motivated and a hard worker, always showing up at training and giving way more than 100% of herself to the sport, whereas Chris tends to rest on his raw talent. They’re also stumbling face first into hormones. Chris is starting to notice that Tilly is also a girl–a girl he might have more than friendly feelings for. And because he’s a fifteen-year-old wreck of a boy, he had no idea how to handle this.

Because what if they do get together? And then what if they break up? The very thought of this puts Chris into a tailspin, so when Tilly’s word of the year is “forward,” Chris is literally falling behind. Chris will do anything to keep being Tilly’s friend, even if it means ruining his training, ruining his skiing, and driving Tilly so far away that being friends? Yeah, not so much.

Sometimes you want to slap sense into Chris. You want to grab him by his stupid shoulders and shake until he gets it. It’s a testament to the Tudor’s writing that you stick with him and want him to figure it out. Budding teen relationships are hard, and I loved how Tudor tackled the subject of friends trying to take those first steps when they both know what they could lose if they keep going forward, only to discover that they can lose the exact same thing if they never take those steps at all.

So hey, I’m not a skiing person. I’m not even much of a male protagonist person. But I’m on board for the second in the Downhill Series. I can’t wait to see where these characters go next.

Grab your copy on Amazon!