FALLEN starts as a more straightforward romance than other recent Green books. Emma, an English ex-pat who has left the world of banking for a simpler life in the suburbs, meets local boy Dominic when she rents a run-down house near the beach from him. The two quickly — basically, immediately -- fall in love, and complications ensue with Dominic’s six-year-old son, Jesse.

As one of me least favorite things, in literature AND real life, is adults blaming children for romantic problems, I struggled with this one. A six-year-old not getting on board with your instantly jumping into his dad’s bed for nightly sleepovers doesn’t, “have too much power,” as stated here, instead he’s confused and emotionally upset … All totally normal reactions. And a father putting his child’s best interests and emotional well being ahead of his new girlfriend’s isn’t being, “manipulated,” by his son, he’s being, well, a father. And since the child here is a gonna-be-kindergartener, it’s kind of hard to feel like the women in her mid-30s he just found naked in his dad’s bed is the one being mistreated in this equation. Just because you made him pancakes and adopted a kitten, doesn’t mean the kid can’t be emotionally confused and scared about his dad jumping into a new relationship.