He’s drowning in rejection. She’s riding the waves. Can a rich boy and a surfer girl find love at the beach? Aidan isn’t used to losing. But when his popular girlfriend dumps him right after he tanks at the end-of-year swim meet, he’s not sure if his golden touch will ever return. Embarrassed and dejected, Aidan heads to the rough end of the beach and meets the surfer girl who’s about to change … who’s about to change his life.
Every passing week gets Harley one step closer to escaping her crappy house and a mother who doesn’t care about her. Charging the rich pretty boy for lessons could be her post-graduation ticket out of town. But her fiercely independent streak starts to fade when her feelings of pity for Aidan evolve into something more.
As Aidan and Harley’s undeniable attraction comes in with the tide, suspicious friends and an interested ex make waves. Can the unlikely pair overcome a culture clash to find love’s perfect break?
Over the Falls is the first book in the Ryder Bay YA sports romance trilogy. If you like beach culture, hot guys, and youthful passions, then you’ll love Jordan Ford’s fun-drenched novel.
Buy Over the Falls to jump into love’s deep end today!
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Over the Falls (Ryder Bay #1) is the first novel in this cutting-edge YA Sports Romance Trilogy. Aiden & Harley are two people from different worlds ‘Lower Class’ poor Southside Vs ‘Elite’ rich Northside who share a passion for the ocean. Harley’s character is extremely passionate, resolute, self-reliant and spunky. Aiden’s character evolves throughout the novel, while maintaining his sweet side. Supporting character’s play an intrical role in this novel and accentuate the narrative when cultures clashes. A highly entertainingly saturated novel involving surfing, beach culture & beach parties. The writing style is exhilarating and captures the ya genre perfectly. A couple of startling twists woven into create a suspenseful sports romance read. I’m piqued to read the next novel in this latest sport romance ya trilogy.
This book was one of my Prime Reading books I borrowed. I hadn’t read anything by this author before, but I had seen books by her that I thought I would like. This book is the first in a series that takes place in a town on the beach. In this story there is a swimmer and a surfer and both are struggling with some family issues and self worth issues.
Aidan is a “rich kid” but is struggling with feeling like he’s letting everyone down. He is searching for himself and some new meaning in his life.
Harley is from the more poor side of town and has found solace in surfing, but still struggles with trust issues and feeling as if she isn’t good enough to keep people around.
One of my favorite characters is actually Jed, Harley’s best friend. He is kind and thoughtful and offers a perspective to both Harley and Aidan at one point or another that they hadn’t considered before.
I found myself drawn in and enjoying every minute of this story and I can’t wait to read more in this series and more by this author.
Two people from the opposite sides of the Bay in more ways than one. He’s a rich boy and she lives on the poorer side of town. The surf is her escape from life and the thing that brings them together. These two characters had a connection that started as friendship and we watch their journey as they grow closer. Be warned you’ll be left hanging as you wait for the next story to see what happens next.
Great story so far, I really enjoyed it…even though I hate cliff hangers lol.
Over the Falls by Jordan Ford is the first book in the Ryder Bay series and once again I found myself completely captivated by her beautifully unique storytelling ability and phenomenal character development. This story was the perfect beginning to another incredible series and I was instantly hooked!
Harley and Aiden are complete opposites and they come from two different worlds, but their undeniable attraction slowly begins to connect them. Harley is a poor girl from the south side of town who loves to surf and she has no plans of falling for Aidan, the pretty rich boy from the north side who just broke up with his girlfriend. She continuously pushes him away, but eventually their connection becomes too real and the wall of her heart slowly breakdown. When their feelings begin to blossom there is no stopping the connection.
This was a highly entertaining story that I absolutely loved. Harley and Aiden’s romance captivated my heart and I adored every part of their story. The cliffhanger was shocking and I have to say that this is a MUST READ and I cannot wait to dive into the next book, The Impact Zone!
I really enjoyed this story!! It pulled me in from beginning to end with the characters and once started, I didn’t want to stop. The story is very well written. This is a clean, young adult romance. We get to see both Harley and Aidan face some of their problems and learn more about who they are. Harley was hurt badly her freshman year and it turned her off relationships completely. She also does not have the best home life or example and so wants nothing to do with them. Aidan just got dumped and hasn’t been doing great at his swim meets like he usually does. He feels like a failure and doesn’t know what to do or how to fix it. Harley and Aidan end up running into each other and Harley ends up offering to teach Aidan how to surf. I loved the way that they developed their relationship. It started with friendship, which is exactly what they both needed at the time. We get to see them grow up some and mature and learn from what’s going on around them. I would have loved to have gotten more of them, (especially together). Hopefully in the rest of the series we will continue to get to see them and I would love to revisit them later on as well! Overall, a fantastic read and I can’t wait for the next one!
This is the start of another great series by Jordan Ford. The story has romance, drama and a bit of suspense and gets your attention from the beggining.
Harley lives her life practically alone, having only one friend at school and dividing her time between work and her passion, surfing. But when she finds “Rich Boy” Aidan on her side of the beach, she can’t stop thinking about him and how sad he looked.
When Harley offered to give surfing lessons to Aidan, neither of them expected the feelings between them to grow and the attracttion getting so strong.
While they have to deal with adolescence’s problems, they also have to face the fact that they are from different worlds and even face the rejection of some friends and family, as is the case of Skylar, Aidan’s cousin .
The story is very interesting and the characters are great. I’m anxious to find out what really happened to Skylar.
I highly recommend the reading.
Fun, G-rated, YA sports romance
Harley Quinn moved to Ryder Bay, a quirky, small beach town in Northern California, two years ago, when her single mother inherited a rundown beach house from Harley’s recently deceased grandfather. Harley is a loner with only one friend, an African-American boy the same age as she, who is a loner as well. She is a junior at Ryder Bay High, and her passion is surfing. College is not in the cards for her, since her mother is poor, and she hates her part-time job as a cashier at the local grocery store. But she’s not sure what better job she could find in this town after she graduates from high school that would allow her the same freedom to go surfing every day that she enjoys now.
Aiden De Beer is a competitive swimmer who is a junior at the local elite private school, Walton Academy. For the past five years he and his family have lived in the ritzy part of town on the northern end of Ryder Bay. A few weeks ago he suffered the crushing blow of his beautiful, popular girlfriend dumping him. She is BFF to his cousin Skylar, who is Aiden’s age and is the daughter of his father’s brother. It is because of this uncle that Aiden’s family moved to Ryder Bay, and the two families live next door to each other.
Aiden meets Hadley for the first time while he is hanging out at the beach on the south side of Ryder Bay. He doesn’t normally go there because all the wealthy residents of Ryder Bay tend to stick to the north end of the beach on their side of town. Today, however, he is hiding out from his friends and family, licking his wounds because, on top of his girlfriend woes, he placed fourth at an important swim meet that day, and he sees himself as a failure. Then his miserable day suddenly looks up when a beautiful, blonde surfer girl strikes up a conversation and intrigues him greatly when she challenges him to learn to surf. Aiden impulsively decides to go for it when she offers to give him lessons. He tells himself that if he becomes good at surfing it might help him pull himself out of his slump as a competitive swimmer. And, better yet, surfing might impart enough of a cool factor to his flagging social prestige that his ex might reconsider rejecting him and take him back.
During his surfing lessons, Aiden feels happier than he has in a long time, and he soon realizes that a great deal of that joy is not just how wonderful it is surfing in the ocean and enjoying being in the water again. It is due to being around Hadley, who has a ton of backbone and is filled with passion for her chosen sport, both of which admirable traits he could use a lot more of in his own life.
Hadley and Aiden are likeable protagonists, and their progression from strangers, to friends, to romance is very well done. It is fascinating to vicariously experience Hadley’s love of the ocean and surfing and the way she shares that passion with Aiden. Both of them also have strong growth arcs across the story, and a great deal of their mutual growth comes out of their relationship with each other—which is one of my favorite tropes in a romance novel.
This story is told in classic romance-genre fashion with dual point of view of both the heroine and hero. This is my preferred way to experience a love story because it allows the reader to gain a close connection to the romantic hero.
This is a mostly G-rated young adult contemporary romance in that there is no foul language and the romantic protagonists do no more than kiss. Hadley and Aiden don’t drink themselves, but there are several scenes of underage, party-hardy drinking and multiple examples of blackout level drunkenness and risky, self-demeaning sexual activities on the part of Aidan’s cousin Skylar. However, this unfortunate girl is definitely not presented as an example for anyone to emulate.
All in all, this is an enjoyable YA romantic drama, and I look forward to reading the next two books in this series which offer romances between four significant subcharacters in this novel.
I write this book as follows:
Heroine: 4 stars
Hero: 4 stars
Subcharacters: 4 stars
Romance plot: 4 stars
Surfing plot: 5 stars
Coming of age plots: 4 stars
Setting: 5 stars
Writing: 4 stars
Overall: 4 stars
I’m reading this series out of sequence and I have to say I’m disappointed. Riptide was a pretty clean YA romance, this however has profanity and mild vulgarity in it, which was disappointing because it wasn’t needed for the story line. Aidan has been dumped by his girlfriend and is losing in his swimming meets, so when he meets Harley on the beach and she mentions surfing lessons, he figures why not, it would be a change, and boy is it.
You should also read the prequel “Dear Diary” to see why Harley is so closed off to relationships, that one I recommended.