Review:
Once upon a time, Eden and Owen were childhood sweethearts who planned to spend their whole lives together. Then one day Owen vanished without a word. Ten years later he came back and, despite herself, Eden was drawn to him and they ended up in bed again, only for her to discover that her dad had been dying of a heart attack and trying to call her while she was with Owen.
It's now 6 months later, and Eden's still walking around like an open wound. She works for a law office that's investigating whether the recent fires in the area were an inside job, and the top arson suspect immediately jumps out at her: Owen. He's one of the firefighters who's been battling the fires, and despite the grief, anger, and guilt that Owen's presence churns up, everything in Eden rebels against the idea that he could be the one behind those fires. Still, she has a job to do.
Meanwhile, there's definitely an arsonist running around, and he has his sights set on Owen. If he can't get to the man directly, hurting him indirectly via Eden, the woman he loves, is certainly an option.
The is one of the freebies I got at Book Bonanza 2019 - it's signed by the author and I think was included in everyone's goodie bag. It's the third book in a series and I hadn't read the first two, but that didn't seem to make too much of a difference beyond the moments when it was obvious I was meeting the leads of one of the previous books. Also, I never got an explanation for why a bunch of billionaire brothers were pretending to be regular guys while absolutely no one batted an eyelash over it. Billionaire firefighter, regularly risking his life to fight fires just so, I don't know, he wouldn't have to wallow in billionaire ennui?
Right from the start, this book didn't really appeal to me. Too repetitive and melodramatic, and while I realize that Eden was still grieving for her father, she didn't read like the supposedly strong woman she was supposed to be. Also, it didn't feel at all like she knew how to do her job, and it was mind-boggling how long it took her to admit to her boss that she had an enormous conflict of interest. And after she told her boss...she went and made it worse by having sex with Owen, the guy who was considered the prime arson suspect.
Considering how distracted Eden was by her grief, guilt, and lust for Owen, it should have been easy for the villain and his henchmen to kill her, but they were stupid too. It sounded like this villain has at least been around since the second book and maybe since the beginning of the series, and I have no idea how he's managed to avoid being caught. He's the sort who'd definitely cackle evilly on the sidelines.
I considered DNFing this at one point and probably should have. Well, I finished it, but I don't plan on seeking out any more by this author.
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