Reviewer: Rowena
Controlled Burn by Shannon Stacey
Series: Boston Fire #2
Also in this series: Heat Exchange, Controlled Burn, Heat Exchange, Fully Ignited, Fully Ignited, Controlled Burn, Hot Response, Hot Response (Boston Fire, #4), Under Control (Boston Fire, #5), Under Control
Publisher: Carina Press
Publication Date: November 24, 2015
Pages: 384
Add It: Goodreads
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Series Rating:

Rick Gullotti lives the good life. He fights fires, dates beautiful women—though none long enough so they cast wistful glances at jewelry stores—and has great friends. And thanks to helping out the elderly couple who own his building, his rent is low. But when concerns about their health lead him to contact their only son, his life starts getting away from him.

Jessica Broussard has no interest in leaving sunny San Diego or her cushy corner office for Boston, but her father—who happens to be her boss—dispatches her to deal with the grandparents she's never met. She's unprepared for the frigid winter, loving relatives who aren't the monsters she's been led to believe, and the hot, scruffy firefighter who lives upstairs.

At first, Jessica is determined to get back to her comfortable life as quickly as possible. All she has to do is talk her grandparents into selling their monstrosity of a house and moving to a retirement community. But she underestimates Rick's dedication—and his considerable charm. Nobody's taking advantage of his friends on his watch, even if that makes the tempting southern California girl with the long legs his adversary. Unfortunately for them both, the only thing more urgent than the matter at hand is their sizzling chemistry, and it's quickly becoming too strong to resist.

This is the second book in the Boston Fire series by Shannon Stacey and it was a sweet romance. Very cute.

Rick Gulotti is a firefighter that works with Aidan Hunt from the last book and Scotty Kincaid from the next book. Rick is a ladies man who is has a long string of ex-girlfriends. He’s starting to wonder why he’s not the marrying kind since his last girlfriend moved on from him fairly quickly and is getting married. Rick lives a pretty laid back lifestyle. He works as a firefighter and on his off time, he helps his elderly landlords out with whatever they need his help with. He clears the driveway out, he handles all of the handy man work around the house and he takes good care of them.

But he’s not family in the sense that the government acknowledges so when his landlord Joe, takes a nasty spill, the doctors call their estranged son clear across the United States. The son that doesn’t acknowledge them, the son that they haven’t spoken to in so many years, the son that kept a grand-daughter from them.

Enter Jessica Broussard.

Jessica is filling in for her father at work when she receives the phone call that lets her know about her grandfather’s nasty fall. She’s taken aback by the call because she’s never met her grandparents before and every time she tried to talk to her father about them, he closed up. She learned over the years to stop asking about them but with her father missing in action, she decides to fly out to Boston and help them out, hopefully get to know them.

When Jessica gets to Boston and meets both her grandparents and then Rick, the story really took off for me. It wasn’t one of those stories that is filled to the brim with angst and intense chemistry but it was a story that I couldn’t put down. I thought the romance between Rick and Jessica was real and it was interesting. I liked seeing them get to know each other, I loved seeing them circle each other while they try to figure out what the other was up to. I loved that their romance wasn’t rushed. I thought Shannon Stacey did a great job of bringing them together. Seeing Jessica get to know her grandparents and build a relationship with them was another wonderful addition to the story.

I will say that while the entire story slowly unravels (which worked for me), there were a few things that bothered me. First, there were times when I wanted to pull Jessica’s hair and I blamed those things on her upbringing. She was raised by a guy that was just truly unlikable so I tried to keep that in mind whenever Jessica would think or say something that made me want to kick her. Especially when the distance starts to get to the both of them. Jessica really tried my nerves then but all in all, I came around with her.

Another thing that I wasn’t a real fan of was that ending. What in the world?? That’s all we got? I wanted more from that ending and my grade for the book reflects what I thought of that ending. Ending aside, the characters were charming and won me over in this book (yeah, even Jess) and I’m looking forward to Scotty’s book.

Grade: 3.5 out of 5

Reviewer: Rowena
Heat Exchange by Shannon Stacey
Series: Boston Fire #1
Also in this series: Heat Exchange, Controlled Burn, Controlled Burn, Fully Ignited, Fully Ignited, Controlled Burn, Hot Response, Hot Response (Boston Fire, #4), Under Control (Boston Fire, #5), Under Control
Publisher: Carina Press
Publication Date: August 25, 2015
Pages: 336
Add It: Goodreads
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Series Rating:

Lydia Kincaid's shipping back to Boston, but she's not happy about it. She left to get away from the firefighting community—her father was a firefighter, her brother's a firefighter and, more important, her ex is a firefighter. But family is number one, and her father needs her help running the pub he bought when he retired. Soon, Lydia finds it hard to resist the familiar comfort and routine, and even harder to resist her brother's handsome friend Aidan.

Aidan Hunt is a firefighter because of the Kincaid family. He's had the hots for Lydia for years, but if ever a woman was off-limits to him, it's her. Aside from being his mentor's daughter, she's his best friend's sister. The ex-wife of a fellow firefighter. But his plan to play it cool until she leaves town again fails, and soon he and Lydia have crossed a line they can't uncross.

As Aidan and Lydia's flirtation turns into something more serious, Lydia knows she should be planning her escape. Being a firefighter's wife was the hardest thing she's ever done, and she doesn't know if she has the strength to do it again. Aidan can't imagine walking away from Boston Fire—even for Lydia. The job and the brotherhood are his life; but if he wants Lydia in it, he'll have to decide who's first in his heart.

I haven’t read too many books by Shannon Stacey but the couple that I have read, were solid reads. I was mighty interested in reading this series because I love firefighters and this series featured three of them. Count me in!

So Heat Exchange is the first book in the Boston Fire series and it follows Lydia Kincaid and Aidan Hunt as they fall in love. Lydia Kincaid is no stranger to the Firefighters wives club. She grew up with a firefighter father then later on, a firefighter brother and then she married and divorced a firefighter. Right about now? She’s all firefighter’d out. After divorcing her cheating, no good ex-husband, she moves away from Boston and starts fresh in a new town, with new neighbors and a new job. Gone are the days of her working in her father’s bar but when her sister needs her to fill in for her at the bar, Lydia finds herself back home, tending bar at her father’s pub and sliding right back into her old life.

The only thing different this time around is Aidan Hunt, her brother’s best friend and another freaking firefighter. Aidan is all grown up and is looking good…really good and Lydia notices. Aidan notices that Lydia notices and like a moth to a flame, burned by the fire, their love is blind and everyone can see their desire cause that’s the way love goes. LOL.

Aidan has always had a crush on Lydia but hasn’t ever tried going down that road because a) she wasn’t interested in him and 2) it goes against the firefighter brotherhood and best friend code. You don’t bang your brother’s sister, mother, ex, etc…and he fully intended to stay away from Lydia but then she looked at him. Like, really looked at him and he was gone. All intentions he had of staying away went up in smoke.

Lydia was done with firefighters. She was done with the all of the worrying so she has no idea what she’s doing with Aidan. She’s not planning on sticking around and the more time she spends with Aidan, the harder it’s getting for her to go back home.

Because Lydia is the daughter of the firefighter that Aidan thinks of as a father and the sister of his best friend, instead of coming clean about their relationship from the jump, Aidan and Lydia start a secret romance like they were in freaking high school and to be honest, I wasn’t a fan of that. At all.

Their whole secret romance left me scratching my head because that is the kind of shit you do in high school because your parents still have a say in what you can do. It would have been one thing if they were just being discreet but they lied and kept up lies, all in the name of having sex with each other. I thought Aidan’s lies to Scott were dumb and I thought Scott’s reaction to Aidan and Lydia’s relationship was ridiculous too.

I’m a total West Coast girl. Born and raised in Southern California so I know nothing about cold and the snow and don’t really care to. I love my California sunshine and I love the laid back lifestyle that California is known for. While I was reading this book, my California laid back lifestyle didn’t really connect with the Boston intensity that these characters showed. I did enjoy the family mentality that these guys had but all of the other crap with the secret romance, the don’t tell Scott what we’re doing, the lies…didn’t work for me.

I did enjoy the secondary romance between Ashley and Dan. I liked seeing their love for each other being tested and the show down between these two was great. Oh man, I loved Dan and understood where Ashley was coming from and thought that Stacey did a great job of writing their romance. I just wish that they had gotten a full length novel.

So while I had issues with the main romance, there was still enough of everything else for me to enjoy. I’m looking forward to reading the next book because I’m mighty curious about Rick Giulotti and hell, I’m even planning on reading Scott’s book. I’m curious to see who he ends up with.

Grade: 3 out of 5