Guest Review: Firelight – Kristen Callahan

Once the flames are ignited . . .

Miranda Ellis is a woman tormented. Plagued since birth by a strange and powerful gift, she has spent her entire life struggling to control her exceptional abilities. Yet one innocent but irreversible mistake has left her family’s fortune decimated and forced her to wed London’s most nefarious nobleman.

They will burn for eternity . . .

Lord Benjamin Archer is no ordinary man. Doomed to hide his disfigured face behind masks, Archer knows it’s selfish to take Miranda as his bride. Yet he can’t help being drawn to the flame-haired beauty whose touch sparks a passion he hasn’t felt in a lifetime. When Archer is accused of a series of gruesome murders, he gives in to the beastly nature he has fought so hard to hide from the world. But the curse that haunts him cannot be denied. Now, to save his soul, Miranda will enter a world of dark magic and darker intrigue. For only she can see the man hiding behind the mask.

Series:  Darkest London #1
Release Date:  January 31, 2012
Publisher:  Forever
Source:  NetGalley
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Reviewer’s Thoughts:

Kristen Callihan takes  Victorian London and mixes with a touch of the paranormal in her novel Firelight. Miranda the 3rd daughter of an unscrupulous father finds herself being married off to “The Dread Lord Archer” who hides secrets behind a mask on his face, but Miranda has secrets of her own. Can two such well guarded hearts find a way to reach each other?

Lord Archer met Miranda once in an alley, three years before, when she was being accosted by two local thugs. Archer is smitten right away however he is obsessed with finding a cure for his affliction and is gone far longer than he planned.

A warehouse fire, accidentally started by Miranda, starts the financial ruin of family. After her father loses the rest in a shipping disaster, he starts selling off the family heirlooms as well as Dais, Miranda’s older sister. When Lord Archer requests her hand in marriage, it is a way out for Miranda. No more being hungry, and no more being forced to steal by her father, in order to get by.

Can Archer find out who is killing his old friends before Criminal Investigation Department arrests him as the main suspect? Can Miranda figure out what the West Moon Club is and how it ties in to the murders? Will they ever let down the walls around their hearts and let the other in?

I enjoyed this book quite a bit, it was a good mix of romance, mystery and the paranormal. It keeps you guessing and don’t drag like some mystery novels can. It has unconditional love, in a beauty and the beast sort of way. There is enough spicy scenes and foul language that it is for the 16 and over crowd but it is not erotic by any means.  I think that Ms. Callihan does a great job mixing two very diverse genres. It would be easy for the paranormal to seem very out of place in 1878 London however it is pulled off with ease in this novel.

If you like your heroines strong and feisty, your heroes handsome and mysterious and your villains to be a tad gruesome, all the while keeping you changing your mind about who the villain must be, then you will enjoy this book.

I give it 4 out of 5 cocktails

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