Ren's Little Corner

Chasing Fire might be not the best of Nora Roberts, but I still enjoy it. I love how Nora writing her heroines. All are though and in this one, the heroine's job as smoke jumper is unique. I never hear about smoke jumper before and assume they are just a usual firefighter. So, of course I need to check into Google (the answer for almost all of our questions) and know that they're used to fight the fire on the forest or mountain or remote area. Heh, I don't know the right term for this, lol!.

Rowan Tripp is one of Missoula's smoke jumper and in the last season as a smoke jumper, her partner Jim Braynes killed when they're on mission. His death still haunt her dreams, but with the new season and new rookies, Rowan must get ready. She meet Gulliver Curry, one of the rookies, a sexy and overconfident Irishmen (is it new with Roberts's books? Nope) with feet as fast as his charming smile. They begin flirt to each other, despite Rowan's rules to not date her co-worker. Then, some nasty events happen. Rowan's childhood nemesis, Dolly accuse her for let Jim died. She is doing vandalism for her and the rest of the Zulies (Rowan's smoke jumper unit). One day, Rowan found Dolly burnt to dead. While she's most likely to be a suspect, Rowan realize that someone is targeting her and want her dead. Is it because of Jim's death or more than that? Rowan must be careful since maybe this time she will go into the flames. But not comeback to live and burn for forever.

Chasing Fire is full of Nora Roberts's cliche. A heroine with unusual job? Yep. A sexy Irish hero? Of course! A suspense? Most likely. And shower sex scenes? Yum! What I like from Chasing Fire is her writing style still as good as before. But then, I just read some of her books despite I devour all of J.D.Robb books. Her writing is vivid, beautiful (especially when she describe the fire in the forest) and easy to read. She is still maintain to put family themes in all her novels, include this one. We can see how close Rowan and her dad. And not just a family theme, but friendship as well. We can see from how solid Zulies team can be and how their time together can be funny and also heart-warming.

As for the characters, I just find the development of Rowan and Gull's characterization is interesting in the first but become a little dull near the end. But I like how they are become close, even no "love" words yet, their relationship seems natural. Rowan is though even have some bad temper and sometimes can be childish. Especially when she know her dad have date, maybe because in the past she have mummy issues. Rowan also confident with her sexuality and usually act as a man since she live in men world. But that don't mean she lost her feminine charm.

Gulliver aka Gull, most like another perfect hero that Nora created/ Almost perfect but I still love reading about him. Since he fallin in love with Rowan first and never shy to show his interest to her. Even I see him as beta hero, he's alpha to the core and definitely enjoy his job as a smoke jumper.

I don't know why many reviewers said they already know the culprit from the beginning. I just know it when I hit the middle of the book. I see the suspense is not good as her Robb's book. There's a secondary plot from Rowan's dad, Lucas Tripp with his ladylove Ella. I like how Nora write about 50-60 age's love life. LOL, I know for some people it's will gross when see characters with same age as their parents have sex. But, ehm, love know no boundaries and in this one, no age limit.

I would love to recommend this to any Roberts's fans and readers who like their heroine as though as nails and have unusual job. Also with suspense, family drama, friendship and well... if you have things for firefighter, maybe you'll like this one.

Note : Thanks for Riverina Romantics that give me this book from their giveaway!