Fire Me Up
Author: Kimberly Kincaid
Series: #4 in the Pine Mountain Series
Review Copy Provided by Publisher
Description:
Teagan O’Malley can handle a crisis. She’s a paramedic, it’s her job. But she never expected to land in the kitchen of her father’s pub, with no notice, no cash, and no room for error. The kitchen is not her favorite place. Lucky for her, she just scraped a bad-boy chef off the pavement after a motorcycle accident—and something about him says he can turn up the heat in more ways than one.
Adrian Holt has had a rough few years, and he’s not eager to get tangled up in anything more complicated than a good risotto. But with a broken arm and a head full of bad memories, he needs a challenge to keep him sane. Teagan’s dare-me attitude and smoldering mess of a bar are just what the doctor ordered. And the two of them together might cook up some even better medicine…
Review:
I love finding authors who have a good backlist so that I can glom on their books (and yes, glom is a legit word, at least in my world). Prior to reading the Pine Mountain series (where I read all 4 books in the space of about 2 weeks), my only other experience with Ms Kincaid’s writing was in an anthology with a prequel story to pine mountain – and while I remember enjoying it – I remember one of the other stories more vividly (I mean, who can forgot anatomically correct cookies…). But that being said, I had the pleasure of meeting Ms Kincaid at an author/reader luncheon that was held in DC a few months ago and after that I experience, I knew I was going to be in for a ride with her books. But i’m not going to rave about the previous books in the series (all of which were solid 3.5 to 4 star reads for me), but about the most recent one that is officially due out in the next week or so (and I tell you, having read it a month ago, I’ve been on pins and needles waiting until I could recommend it to people).
But back to Fire Me Up – if you have read the previous 3 books in the series, you will be familiar with Adrian – he has made an appearance in all of the books so far – from the Turn Up The Heat (book 1), where he mentored/coached Bellamy into a career that she loved cooking; and the 2nd book (Gimme Some Sugar) where he is the stoic Sous Chef for the former Celebrity Chef, Carly. But in Fire Me Up, he finally gets his turn and it didn’t disappoint. I love it when an author takes a character out of their element (in Adrian’s case, the kitchen) and tries to make them cope and how sometimes that works, but for the most part it doesn’t. I kind of had an idea about what Adrian’s rought few years entailed, but seeing how it all played out, it felt believable and not to manufactured (as sometimes dark pasts can be).
I’ll admit that I was a bit conflicted about Teagan at first – mostly because I didn’t quite buy the, oh my family is having issues, I need a leave of absence from work part of the story (or that is roughly how it played out). Maybe it can be done, but I don’t know – it just kind of hit me wrong. But as a character, I liked her, she did have a few dumb moments where I wanted to slap her – but not to the extent that I have wanted to do to other characters in different books. I really liked how she was able to calm/deal with Adrian without infantalizing him, which seems to be a common issue in romance novels when the hero has an issue.
I was glad to revisit Pine Mountain, but i’m going to be sad to see the series end in the next year (because I think there is only like 1 full-length novel and maybe a novella remaining). I would recommend Fire Me Up for people who like sweet/sassy contemporary romance with mostly normal people; and those who like romance novels with a small-town feel (although, personally, I’m coining the Pine Mountain series, Resort Romance). I gave Fire Me Up 4 stars and look forward to reading even more by Ms. Kincaid in the future.
Designed for Love
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