Fall

Hold, Book 3

By: Claire Kent

Narrated by: Kirsten Leigh

As a pilot and a smuggler, Lenna has spent her life flying under the radar in Coalition space—taking care of herself, not relying on anyone. She's always liked it that way.

But now she's stranded without any resources on a stone-age planet, and the only way to survive is to hook up with a bunch of cavemen. She'll do whatever she needs to do in order to survive in their world—even if it means letting one of them take her as a mate.

She doesn't expect to like it. Or like him. Or lose her heart in the process.

©2016 Claire Kent (P)2025 Noelle Adams

I loved it!

We met Lenna back in book 2 when where she was smuggling partners with Hall. In book 2, Lenna finds herself dumped on a primitive planet as a Coalition punishment. With only the clothes on her back and not a city or ship in site she is vastly out of her element. After days of struggling through the environment, she stumbles across a cave man, who instead of playing nice tries to kill her. It just isn’t her week. Luckily for her, she is rescued by another cave man, Rone,

This story is very reminiscent of Transcendence by Shay Savage, which I loved! Lenna has to learn the customs and the language to communicate the Rone and the rest of his people. In the process, she learns to appreciate the slower pace of life and the simple things. She also finds her heart, her home, her Rone.

I am giving Fall: Hold, Book 3, five Boundless Stars, I loved it.

Sci-fi space romance on a prehistoric planet! Caveman romance!

Fall is the 3rd book in Claire Kent’s Hold series and I’ve been having so much fun with this series. I first read Claire Kent last year and fell in love with her post-apocalyptic romance series Kindled. And now this Hold series has me in a bit of a chokehold as well, this is a sci-fi romance series that takes place in space in the future, basically each book in the series has been on a different planet and each is vastly different (ex: a prison planet, a royal planet, and now a prehistoric/cavemen planet). This book especially you could for sure read as a stand-alone, you get a glimpse of the characters of the previous book in this one but not in any way where you’ll feel lost or need their story to understand the concept of this book.

Ok so the way I am obsessed with this book so much!!! 😍 A prehistoric/stone-age, caveman-filled planet! This book was an absolute delight and made my day (well night cause I binged it last night 🤣)! This gave me a similar vibe to other books I love, Ice Planet Barbarians series and Transcendence, and I was here for it. My rating was definitely inflated because I had such a good time with this and had quite a few blah reads lately, so this one just hit perfectly for me at the right time.

Lenna has spent her entire life flying under the radar in Coalition space but now she’s “planet dropped” (how the Coalition handles transgressors is to drop them at random planets with no way off) and stranded without any resources on a prehistoric, stone-age planet! And with dangerous animals around, Lenna realizes the only way to survive is to hookup with a crew of cavemen/cave-people who seem to inhabit the planet. Lenna is willing to do whatever it takes to survive, even if it means letting one of the cavemen think she’s his mate. Rone is the ultimate sweet, caveman hero and the way he adores Lenna was everything! I loved seeing them learn to communicate and how to understand one another. Ugh this was just the sweetest thing and I had the best time with it!

Slightly disappointing...

After I had listened to and really enjoyed the first two books in this series I was looking forward to this one, but it just didn’t measure up. First, the whole caveman thing wasn’t believable at all. In the first two books I could believe the story. No modern space-faring woman would voluntarily have sex with a man that couldn’t do much more than grunt a few unknown words, and that never bathed, shaved, cut or combed his hair! Not happening in my little world. The narration was done well, but I just didn’t feel any connection to the other two books in any way. It’s almost like two different people wrote the first two and book three. Sorry!

Re-read

Wow. This book is amazing. Totally engrossing. Unique premise. I adored the MMC. He was so sweet and in love with the FMC; it was just so wholesome and heartwarming. I hated that the FMC left him to worry about her for a week (because you know he was a frantic, devastated wreck), but I can see how leaving fit the FMC's personality. She needed to make that choice to return to him. I definitely recommend this book. Such a touching love story.

Sweet, even if unbelievable

I like this series for the mix of sci-fi and romance. This book is almost entirely without the sci-fi, stranding Lanna ona world of primitive human tribes. The romance half was instead joined by a generic fiction book about learning to communicate and change one’s cultural perspective. There was a lot of time spent hunting and gathering. Oh, and grooming, lots of grooming.

The romance was heart warming, but for this series I was left starving for dialogue, action and modern conveniences. The sex scenes didn’t cook for me at all, featuring Roan with his two go-to positions and doing it with his tribe sharing the cave. If I’m going to find a caveman sexy, I need some other stimulation, like the humor in Ice Planet Barbarians.

I didn’t buy the resolution either. This was still an entertaining listen and a sweet romance, but when I listen to the series again, I’ll probably skip this one.