"The Way It Felt to Be Falling" was included in Edwards's collection, The Secrets of a Fire King, which was published in 1997. This collection received excellent reviews overall. In her review of the book for the New York Times, Nina Sonenberg notes that it is an "accomplished first collection," and calls Edwards's stories "confident." Sonenberg also notes that the book captures "an impressive swath of the world in the book as a whole." Other reviewers also comment on the diversity of locations and cultures in the book. The Publishers Weekly reviewer claims that the stories are "noteworthy for the range of their settings—America, Europe, Asia—and for the scope of the author's impressive imagination." Likewise, Tom Wilhelmus notes in his review for the Hudson Review that the book is "the work of a thoughtful writer with an elegant style and a similarly wide...