The Fall That Saved Us by Tamara Jerée
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Romantic Fantasy
Representation: Black sapphic MCs, secondary Hispanic character
PoV: 1st-person present-tense
ISBN: 9798987884720
Goodreads

Cassiel has given up the family tradition of demon hunting, leaving behind her sacred angelic duty and fated sword. What she can’t leave behind are the scars. To cope, she spends her days immersed in work, pouring all her attention into New Haven Books, her small bookstore and anchor in the new world she’s carved for herself.

But the past hasn’t let go of Cassiel yet. When a succubus named Avitue arrives to claim her angel-touched soul, Cassiel’s old hunter instincts flare, forcing her to choose between old knowledge and her truth. What should be a fatal seduction becomes a bargain neither woman expects. As they grow closer, Avitue is surprised to find her own pain reflected in Cassiel, a nephilim deemed fallen by her own family’s standards.

By choosing trust, they reveal the lies that bind them. Falling for each other begins a path towards healing. But exorcising the effects of trauma is harder than naming it, and to explore the unfettered possibility Avitue represents, Cassiel must find a way to reclaim and redefine her angelic heritage.

Highlights

~wish-fulfilment bookshop!
~fuck fundamentalists
~unique take on angels+nephilim
~the best bestie
~it takes strength to be soft

The Fall That Saved Us managed to take so many things I usually can’t stand – from first-person present-tense narration to worldbuilding that leaves no room for non-Abrahamic religions – and make me fall in love with all of it.

There’s an element of cosy escapism here – as Jerée says in the author’s note, that’s why they gave Cassiel a bookshop to run – but this is a book of many things, multiple disparate themes braided together expertly. To the point that I have to wonder, is this really Jerée’s debut novel?! Because when I say expertly, I mean expertly – I’m aware they have plenty of short stories under their belt, but that requires a different skillset than writing a novel, and nothing about The Fall That Saved Us reads like these novel-writing skills are brand new! The Fall That Saved Us is a polished, decadent gem of a book, one that crowns Jerée as an author to watch.

I think the best part of self-publishing is how it gives space for books that traditional publishers might struggle to stick into a neat little box. The Fall That Saved Us blurs the lines between Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance, and brings the best of both – as well as a deft exploration of themes neither genre usually delves too deeply into – to an elegantly simple, but beautiful and unique take on the myth of the Nephilim.

If you don’t know, Nephilim are the descendants of angels and humans, depicted as dangerous giants in the Torah, but cast as angel-venerating demon hunters in Jerée’s debut. I really can’t emphasise enough how much I love the worldbuilding here; Jerée doesn’t drown us in lore, keeps things quite simple, but it’s a gorgeous kind of simple, with ideas I’ve never seen before. For example, Nephilim are named after individual angels – because they belong to that angel, are kind of a part of them, and when the Nephilim dies, they become one with said angel, merge with it. That’s such a cool concept, with so many ramifications for Nephilim culture, and their views on identity and personhood!

Identity is definitely something poor Cassiel, our main character, struggles with; even several years after leaving the family compound, and a life of demon-hunting, she’s not sure who she is, who she’s supposed to be, and definitely doesn’t seem comfortable in her own skin. She’s self-aware enough to know this about herself, though, and is struggling against it; trying to undo the programming and trauma she’s endured – mostly from her own family – all by herself. (Which, you can’t exactly blame her – it’s hard enough to find good therapists; how do you find a good one who also knows about the supernatural? Of course she’s gotta try and do this by herself.) That uncertainty, the battle between who she was raised to be and who she wants to be, is a big part of why, and how, she and the succubus Avitue don’t immediately kill each other. Although it definitely wasn’t her original intention, Avitue ends up offering Cassiel – not a way out, exactly, but a path to wholeness, a twisty hidden way that Cassiel would never have found on her own.

(Which is not to say that Cassiel could never have become whole on her own. But it wouldn’t have been by this path.)

Anyone who was raised in a fundamentalist household – anyone AFAB who was taught that sex is dirty and wrong – is going to identify hard with Cassiel. She was taught that pleasure of all kinds is off-limits, and that emotions are to be suppressed, not expressed; that she is supposed to be a weapon, not a person. And Jerée absolutely nails how that feels, what it’s like to be inside a mind that’s been trained that way; to the point that it was occasionally difficult for me to read. Cassiel struggles to take care of her body, to accept its needs and desires as natural and acceptable; and when she does manage to do that, there’s an instant response of shame and guilt and self-disgust. Avitue is an immense help in Cassiel’s healing and growth about this, but the biggest motivator is Cassiel’s growing sense of defiance – an increasingly passionate fuck you to her upbringing, a determination that she won’t be what her mother made her, no matter how hard it is to rework yourself past your trauma. A lot of abuse survivors are going to see themselves and their journeys in Cassiel, and speaking as one of those survivors, I thought Jerée handled every aspect of the topic perfectly, with enormous empathy and understanding, delicately and respectfully balancing all the internal conflict and contradictions that comes with this kind of baggage.

Even readers who’ve never been abused won’t be able to help cheering for Cassiel’s arc over the course of this book; it’s empowering and beautiful and triumphant, and I can’t express how much I loved it. Talk about growth!

This is not, however, an incredibly angsty, misery-porn book. AT ALL. It’s deeply emotional, both in regards to the feelings that gradually develop between Cassiel and Avitue, and also in the changing relationship between Cassiel and the Cassiel, the actual angel Cassiel. As our Cassiel learns that she doesn’t have to be what she was made, she also discovers that the dynamic and relationship between Nephilim and Angel are not, or don’t have to be, what she was taught they were. There’s a huge amount of, not just validation, but celebration to all of this that made me so happy, both because I was rooting for Cassiel and because I loved the reveals about the worldbuilding. This is, ultimately, a story of love and triumph, a celebration of sensuality and hedonism over coldness and brutality – one that’s as deliciously decadent as the demonic truffles Avitue gifts to Cassiel.

Strongly recommended!

Trigger Warnings: View Spoiler »self-harm, some mentions of misgendering, discussion/flashbacks of abusive childhood, fundamentalist parent « Hide Spoiler

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