A short but sweet second-chance romance after 25 years apart with a supernatural mystery setting.
I found the writing to be clunky and dialog to be woA short but sweet second-chance romance after 25 years apart with a supernatural mystery setting.
I found the writing to be clunky and dialog to be wordy and awkward, but that didn’t take away much from how interested I was in seeing the Cace and Lorrie’s story through....more
Thank you to BookSirens and author Halli Starling for providing a free eARC of the book to review.
Content Warnings: sex | |
Thank you to BookSirens and author Halli Starling for providing a free eARC of the book to review.
Content Warnings: sexual content, panic attacks, physical injury, cancer (leukemia; side character) | Minor: past infidelity, past emotional abuse from parent
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Mature communication is everything! While the two love interests spend a good amount of time in their own heads thinking about how the other feels, once they actually start vocalizing their interest in each other, their communication is fantastic. They’re transparent and honest about their needs, open to compromise and willing to lay out their expectations. We love to see it!!
This book doesn’t follow the typical romance pattern of them getting together super quick, having some misunderstanding and breaking up, and then getting back together by the end. Because of that, this may feel like a slow burn to some. And it kind of is with the way they agree to take their time with each other, but to me it fees like a realistic simmer of getting to know someone rather than the more common insta-lust/love. I love the way you can see what they see in each other by their first kiss. That kiss happens just over 40% of the way in, by the way.
An entertaining mystery plot line occurs while our MCs fall for each other. It’s important and is ultimately what sets the romance into motion, but it isn’t the main draw of the book so manage your expectations on that front.
Overall, Ask Me for Fire is a soft and sexy romance read featuring mature, communicative men in their mid-30s. Their romance feels good, makes them feel good, and is just plain satisfying. Nice job, Starling.
I’m looking forward to Raf’s romance in the follow-up A Brighter, Darker Art!...more
You think you know what you’re getting into with these shirtless men book covers..
� but you absolutely don’t. I didn’t come here with pure intentions.You think you know what you’re getting into with these shirtless men book covers..
� but you absolutely don’t. I didn’t come here with pure intentions. I think I bought this on sale? It might have even been free? Either way, long haired the half naked man on the cover told me with his body that this was going to be some medium to fast paced erotic romance.
Um, and that’s not it at all. Yeah, it’s certainly romance, and yeah it’s pleasantly medium paced, but it’s also so sweet, tender, and honestly the lack of white people was astounding.
The main character is a gay first-generation Chinese-American man. His love interest is a deaf native Hawaiian who moved to mainland. And that representation is *awesome*. The author does a great job with handling all of that very respectfully while also delivering a really tender romance.
Bizarre in a good way, written in a not so good one.
I love bizarre fiction, love weird horror. And that’s certainly what this is. I somehow didn’t reaBizarre in a good way, written in a not so good one.
I love bizarre fiction, love weird horror. And that’s certainly what this is. I somehow didn’t realize that going into it but that’s fine.
But um. This is deceptively short. Kindle said it was 28 pages, but over half of the pages are promotions for other books. This would have been better as part of a collection rather than as a standalone. It’s not particularly strong- even ignoring the glaring typo on page two, the main character (who existed for all of 12 page) managed to be so annoying that I was mostly rooting for him to fail come horror time. The story is written in third-person, but occasional thoughts from the MC pop up in the narration and all but one of them (Please let me stay the night.) was annoying.
And the horror bit. lol It was totally bizarre (that’s fine), and I was kind of into it but the lack of detail made it difficult to get into. I found myself rereading sections to get a good mental image, or realizing something had happened several sentences later and going back to confirm that, oh I guess that plainly acknowledged [action] made him [spoiler thing], or something.
Anyway, it was weird and poorly done but I like where the author’s head is at so I’ll try a few of his longer works....more
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