Guest Review: Playing With Fyre by Mina Carter

When you play with Fyre, you just might get burned.

Raelyn Borne has a fiery passion to save her home. Unfortunately, lawyer Logan Fyre, is as ruthless an opponent as they come. With him, she can’t bribe or threaten her way out of this one.

When backed into a corner, Raelyn has a tendency to get sassy. And now she’s desperate enough to enter into a dangerous game with Logan.

Does she have the strength to play with Fyre–without getting burned?

Raelyn Borne in lives in a gatehouse. She bought the property that was once part of a larger estate and one she had always dreamed of living in. She’s set up her aromatherapy massage business in the front part of the house and she lives in the back. Unfortunately business is not great and she spent more setting up the business than she’s now bringing in.

Enter Logan Fyre, a property developer that has purchased the mansion that’s associated with the gatehouse and he wants Rae to close up shop and leave. He’s willing to offer her great compensation but she doesn’t want to leave. Logan decides that letters aren’t getting the point across so he goes to see Raelyn in person. Rae mistakes Logan for her next client and talks to him about the massage. Right off the bat Logan assumes that she’s giving “special” massages and pretty much calls Rae a prostitute. Rae is incensed, as she should be, but yet when he makes a move on her and kisses her she’s all in. That was a little confusing but it did show their sexual chemistry was good.Directly after leaving Rae’s business Logan gets in a car accident. Rae comes to his side and actually rides in the ambulance with him. Since no one…no friends, no girlfriends, etc., are coming to be with him and she can find no info in his cell phone for a close contact she stays with him. As much of an ass as he was to her at her place of business she feels bad that he’s alone. When the nurses call her by Mrs. Fyre, assuming she’s the wife, she doesn’t correct them. She plans on leaving before Logan wakes in the morning but falls asleep. After Logan wakes he discovers that he’s lost part of his memories. He knows his name but not much else about his recent life. He certainly doesn’t remember his wife, but he thinks she’s gorgeous so goes with it. Rae decides to seek some revenge on the ass who is trying to kick her out of her home and takes him home with her with the story that they are currently separated and that’s why his stuff isn’t at her house.

Logan is anxious to find out what went wrong in his marriage and wants to fix it. He and Rae spend a nice evening together and then Logan goes to bed. Unfortunately when he wakes up in the night his memories flood back and he remembers most everything, including the fact that Rae isn’t his wife, and decides to play his own game with her.This review is very difficult for me to write. I’ve read one of Ms. Carter’s other novellas before and really enjoyed her writing. It has a nice easy flow to it and she really doesn’t skimp on emotions, sex or difficult issues. That was no different for this book. Although it was only 70 pages I thought she really packed a lot of information in without the reader feeling like there was too much. The problem I had with this book was the characters. While both had moments in there where I saw a glimpse of someone I’d want to know, for the most part I just didn’t like them.

Logan was a complete ass. He was a ruthless, materialistic lawyer who always got what he wanted. He didn’t stay with a woman for longer than 6 months and during that time always played a romantic part. When he would tire of them he just told them to leave. Granted he said that he always told them straight up before they started the relationship but it didn’t show me great hopes for his future. Raelyn, while I liked her at first and thought the little game she was playing was amusing, really took it too far. I thought that she sacrificed her integrity, especially toward the end of the book for this man, and frankly he just wasn’t worth it.

I realized that Raelyn felt that she had fallen in love with Logan, but I felt that she had fallen in love with the Logan that he wanted her to see. He completely admitted that he was acting in order for her to feel that he was a nice guy but he was just seducing her to get what he wanted in the end. Even after Raelyn figured this out and acknowledged to herself that she was in hell she still thought that she was in love with him. He loved the city and the social scene. She loved the country and her little shop. Even after the HEA I just couldn’t believe that they loved each other (I just didn’t feel he was redeemed) and that they were going to come to a mutual agreement…about anything. I truly saw this as being one of his sex month relationships again.

So, in the end this one just didn’t work for me.