Review: Slow Burn – Anne Marsh

The second in Anne Marsh’s pulse-pounding Smoke Jumpers series ripples with nail-biting suspense and sensuality, giving an inside look at a special brand of hero and the kind of woman it takes to win him.

It’s not every man who’ll risk his life jumping into the flames of a woodland inferno. Then again, Evan Donovan isn’t like other men. No matter how great or how treacherous the challenge, he gets the job done. But when he agrees to look in on a friend’s ex-wife after a suspicious brushfire, Evan learns that some jobs are too hot to handle…

Faye Duncan is a photographer on a mission, shooting fires for a magazine. Her first encounter with a wildfire isn’t nearly as wild as her first night with Evan Donovan. Things really heat up when Evan learns she may have taken a photo of the arsonist setting the fires. Evan is determined to keep Faye safe—but first, he’ll have to open up his heart…

Series: Smoke Jumpers #2
Release Date: March 26, 2013
Publisher: Kensington Brava
Source: NetGalley
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Reviewer’s Thoughts

Slow Burn was a very slow read. The book had a very promising storyline but the characters fell flat. They had no depth, no chemistry, and the descriptions used by the author were so repetitive this reader could rattle them off just as I was reading them for the nth time. The author went on and on describing the main male character, Evan as being huge. It turns out that huge and imposing to the author is 6 feet tall, less than 200 lbs. Considering the average US male is 5’9 and 180 lbs I wouldn’t call Evan huge in anyone’s book. It’s pretty easy to see men that are larger on any given day. It wouldn’t have been so annoying had the author not hitched many of the main heroine’s (Faye) antics and much of the storyline to Evan’s size. For example example many paragraphs included some variation of “”Evan’s size was intimidating, he was so large she shuddered, even his huge size couldn’t frighten her, most would be afraid of Evan because of his large size”” and by the end of the book I was thoroughly tired of hearing about his dimensions.

Faye was dullest heroine I think I’ve ever read about. She bought a Corvette looking for adventure after divorcing her husband and landed in a small town. The book sort of flip-flopped because Evann didn’t want a relationship first and then Faye didn’t want to get involved. They finally came together and the sex would have been steamy except that I couldn’t tell when it was foreplay and when it was actually physical intercourse. One scene described her feeling him inside and totally filling her. As I read a few more paragraphs I realized they were still clothed and it must have been the author describing emotional fulfillment. This happened several times.

The intrigue was supposed to refer to a fireman that set fires to build his reputation and pad his paycheck. That was resolved very neatly in the cheesiest way possible. The man is spotted, realizes they have identified him, and then sets one more fire while sitting around watching and waiting to be apprehended. It was a terrible end.

The book was a yawn with characters that could have been interesting had the author taken the time to develop the characters and storyline more. One section mentioned Evan’s mother beginning an affair with a long time friend. It largely went unexplored and the reader keeps hearing about Evan’s great relationship with his mother but there is not a lot of actual dialogue between the two characters.

It was a waste of my time to read this book, and I really am disappointed that such a great premise was so poorly executed.