Review: Consumed

Consumed by J.R. Ward
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

New series by talented Ms. Ward starts off as a slow burn. This tale is action packed yet leaves a reader a bit disengaged. For those who enjoyed the movie, Backdraft, this story may appeal to you.  The story starts off fast paced with a heart pounding fire. Fire fighters Anne Ashburn and Danny McGuire are adrenaline junkies who live to tame fire. Their dare devil attitude and not following standard safety protocol one too many times ends Anne's career as a fire fighter.

I struggled with this story. It is because I didn't like the characters. Anne is a self-centered woman who lack maturity. Her interactions with her older brother and mother are irritating and disappointing. It was hard to feel anything for her as she treated these people who love her so badly. She is a spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum because Daddy didn't love her enough. Her daddy issues carry through the entire book and I cared not a wit to be stuck in her desperate need of therapy. What is sad, is that Anne represents a decent population of females in society and I have no patience for them. Anne makes bad choices not because she doesn't know better, it's because she is doing it to "stick it" to her brother or father. Her father's dead. He could careless - about as much as he did when he was alive.

One of her bad choices is her toxic relationship with Danny. Danny is the kind of guy who wants to be the hero and doesn't understand the concept of teamwork. His reckless attitude shows his lack of maturity and trustworthiness. He is more than just a quintessential bad boy. His behaviour at his age demonstrates his lack of character and ethnics. Doing things he knows is bad or wrong just "because" makes despise him. These characters are not bad. They are flawed, but flawed too much for me to care about them. There is little character growth for them and that makes this story even harder to get through as I keep hoping they will redeem themselves. Interspersed between their drama, a real danger and mystery needs to be solved. If Ms. Ward would have spent more time developing and focusing on the arsons and the suspense part of the story, I would have enjoyed it better. Overall, the story is well written, just with characters I didn't like. This book is recommended to romance readers with a thing for fire fighters.

*provided by Edelweiss