Title: Chasing FireAuthor: Nora Roberts
My rating: 3.5 Stars
Synopsis: As a smokejumper, one of the elite group of firefighters who thrive on danger and adrenaline, Rowan Tripp doesn't usually mix business with pleasure but she's about to make an exception with the new rookie, Gull Curry. Soon their new found romance is threatened when they become the target of a madman bent on vengeance.
Review: Another solid story from Nora Roberts. The characters are engaging and the dialogue and banter is hilarious. The hero is sweet and charming, but the heroine is rather brash and there are one or two scenes in which she is completely unlikeable (she does redeem herself toward the end). The secondary characters could have been better developed and almost become interchangeable.
The smoke jumpers plot is well-researched and gripping but the fire-fighting sections are overly detailed, drawn out and become tedious after a while. It feels as if these descriptions come at the expense of the suspense plot and characterization of the humans in the book.
The story really pulled me in at the outset but as I got past the halfway mark, there was no real suspense or tension either in terms of the romance, which is somewhat lackluster, or the mystery as the identity of the villain is obvious and his motivation, while reasonable and sympathetic, is also quite trite.
While the book is enjoyable and I recommend it for fans of Nora and the romantic suspense genre, it is not one of her best efforts.
Roberts is one of my favorite authors and I always look forward to her books but, frankly, I skimmed a large part of this one. I don't know how many ways you can describe fighting a forest fire, but there aren't many and she used them over and over and over. It was almost like her characters were there just so she could describe the fire fighting. Very disappointing.
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