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A review by mynameisprerna
Light My Fire by E.M. Lindsey
2.5
Wow, the first book in this series was quite good - emotional story, developed characters, well-written… and then this one… well, it stunk.
There were too many mistakes to be excused - typos, missing words, inconsistencies, etc. I think some of this may have been because this was a rewritten form of a previously published book, but if someone is going to go through the trouble of rewriting and adapting a former work, I think they should pay attention to the details they wanted changed.
Another major issue I had with this book is that Savannah is repeatedly described and characterized as a small town. That also happened in the first book, but to a milder degree, and in a charming way. It felt like it was conveying that the business owners on this street knew each other well. But this book truly did describe it as a tiny town with only 2 realtors and 3 people on night shift at the fire department. In actuality, Savannah is a city of about 150,000 people! That’s comparable to Pasadena, CA or Syracuse, NY. Those are moderately sized cities! Definitely not a place where everyone knows everyone and they’re all in each other’s business.
As for the romance, I liked the premise of the small town community leader having beef with the city slicker who’s come in to ruin the town. But Antoine didn’t really do anything to make Fitz hate him, and his job was more about town revitalization than anything insidious. Fitz’s hatred made no sense!
Then there were some plot points I truly hated -It was really irresponsible for Fitz to not take Antoine to the hospital after smoke inhalation. Even worse, it then felt like a violation to have sex with him after Antoine just said he felt drunk from the adrenaline crash.
Antoine’s boss’s reaction to Antoine resigning was so over the top and came out of nowhere. Why was he acting like that?!
Owen’s assault was actually a central part of the book because Fitz was worried about Owen’s behavior throughout the story, and the way he lashed out at the lake was so consequential… to reveal in a few throw away sentences that he had been assaulted and then the man was fired and left town was so… not just bizarre, but also an inappropriate way to handle such a sensitive and important topic!
Overall, I don’t know what went wrong for the author with this book, but it was a total dud. Because I enjoyed the first one and because I really like that they include so much disability rep, I’m going to keep reading, and I hope it gets better!
Stars: ⭐️⭐️💫 2.5: Not quite what I’d call good. Some redeeming qualities, but still bad or meh.
There were too many mistakes to be excused - typos, missing words, inconsistencies, etc. I think some of this may have been because this was a rewritten form of a previously published book, but if someone is going to go through the trouble of rewriting and adapting a former work, I think they should pay attention to the details they wanted changed.
Another major issue I had with this book is that Savannah is repeatedly described and characterized as a small town. That also happened in the first book, but to a milder degree, and in a charming way. It felt like it was conveying that the business owners on this street knew each other well. But this book truly did describe it as a tiny town with only 2 realtors and 3 people on night shift at the fire department. In actuality, Savannah is a city of about 150,000 people! That’s comparable to Pasadena, CA or Syracuse, NY. Those are moderately sized cities! Definitely not a place where everyone knows everyone and they’re all in each other’s business.
As for the romance, I liked the premise of the small town community leader having beef with the city slicker who’s come in to ruin the town. But Antoine didn’t really do anything to make Fitz hate him, and his job was more about town revitalization than anything insidious. Fitz’s hatred made no sense!
Then there were some plot points I truly hated -
Antoine’s boss’s reaction to Antoine resigning was so over the top and came out of nowhere. Why was he acting like that?!
Owen’s assault was actually a central part of the book because Fitz was worried about Owen’s behavior throughout the story, and the way he lashed out at the lake was so consequential… to reveal in a few throw away sentences that he had been assaulted and then the man was fired and left town was so… not just bizarre, but also an inappropriate way to handle such a sensitive and important topic!
Overall, I don’t know what went wrong for the author with this book, but it was a total dud. Because I enjoyed the first one and because I really like that they include so much disability rep, I’m going to keep reading, and I hope it gets better!
Stars: ⭐️⭐️💫 2.5: Not quite what I’d call good. Some redeeming qualities, but still bad or meh.
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ 4: Brown Girl Spicy
Multiple descriptive and detailed open door scenes; smut is very prominent but it does not overtake plot
Perspective: third
Tense: past
POV: dual
Source: Library: Libby