Below is the complete list of Penelope Douglas’ Fall Away books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Fall Away Books
- Adrenaline (2016)
Adrenaline was published in 2016 and is listed as book #6 in the Fall Away series.
About Fall Away
Penelope Douglas’s Fall Away series is an interconnected New Adult romance sequence centered on a close-knit group of friends, rivals, siblings, and eventual partners whose relationships develop from their late teenage years into adulthood. Beginning with Bully, the series established many of the qualities that became associated with Douglas’s fiction: volatile attraction, long-standing grudges, emotionally damaged characters, racing and car culture, family dysfunction, and romances in which love and hostility often occupy uncomfortable territory at the same time.
Bully introduces Tatum “Tate” Brandt and Jared Trent, former childhood best friends whose relationship has deteriorated into years of bullying and resentment. After spending a year abroad, Tate returns determined not to remain Jared’s target. Their confrontation gradually exposes the history behind his behavior and the unresolved attachment connecting them. The novel became the foundation for the wider Fall Away world rather than remaining solely Tate and Jared’s story.
Until You revisits much of the same period from Jared’s perspective. It is not simply another independent romance; its purpose is to reveal experiences, motivations, and emotional damage that Tate could not fully understand in Bully. The alternative viewpoint gives Jared greater context while also extending events beyond what readers originally saw through Tate.
The focus shifts with Rival, which centers on Madoc Caruthers and Fallon Pierce. Their relationship has its own complicated history, including years of attraction, hostility, separation, and family interference. Madoc, already familiar from Tate and Jared’s story, becomes considerably more layered once the narrative moves into his private life. Fallon’s return forces both characters to confront decisions and secrets that shaped their earlier relationship.
Falling Away turns to Jaxon Trent and K.C. Carter. K.C., Tate’s friend, returns home after difficulties at college and finds herself living next door to Jax, Jared’s younger brother. Their story deals heavily with identity and the damaging expectations imposed by their families. Jax’s difficult childhood and K.C.’s struggle to separate her own desires from the life others have planned for her make their romance one of the series’ darker emotional pairings.
Douglas then returns directly to Tate and Jared in Aflame. Rather than leaving the original couple permanently settled after Bully, the novella examines them later, after separation and significant personal change. Their reunion gives the series a chance to show that an intense first love does not remain static simply because a couple once reached an understanding.
Next to Never shifts toward Quinn Caruthers, the younger sister of Jared, Madoc, and Jaxon, and begins looking toward the next generation. Family history is particularly important here, with Quinn learning more about the complicated relationships that preceded her own story while considering what she wants from her future and from Lucas Morrow. The novella also helps bridge the original Fall Away characters with Douglas’s later Hellbent spin-off.
One publication detail can make the series appear larger than it is. The Next Flame contains Aflame and Next to Never together in one volume rather than presenting a separate new story. Adrenaline is likewise supplementary material—a collection of bonus scenes, deleted material, conversations, and other extras rather than another principal novel.
Although individual books emphasize different couples, Fall Away works best as a continuing ensemble story. Characters remain active after their own romances, friendships and family relationships keep developing, and later books assume familiarity with earlier events. That accumulation is what gives the series its identity: not simply several romances sharing a town, but a group of young people whose conflicts, relationships, mistakes, and families continue changing together over time.