Review: Consumed (Firefighters Series Book 1) by J R Ward

Consumed by J.R. Ward
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really Good Firefighter Romance

This book was about the relationship between two firefighters, and the relationships that surround them. Anne is the daughter and sister of a firefighter. Her father died in the line of duty when she was a teenager and her brother is in charge of all the firefighters in the city. Anne couldn’t imagine ever being anything else.

Danny has no family left, both his parents and his twin brother are deceased. His brother was also killed in the line of duty as a firefighter.

Anne and Danny have worked together for several years and had a one night stand at a friend’s wedding, but they have never discussed it since. Then, during a big fire, they are both injured very badly, both blaming themselves for the other’s injuries and they avoid each other for months.

Anne is unable to return to the job she loves, so she retrains as a Fire Investigator. This leads Anne into a big investigation that uncovers a lot of connections with big names in the city, which brings danger calling.

I really enjoyed this book. There was a lot of really interesting content about the life of firefighters and especially the physical and mental toll it can take on both them and their loved ones. There is a lot about Anne’s relationship with her mother and her brother, neither relationship is particularly positive and there is lot about why that is.

Anne is a really independent and strong woman. I like that she has emotional issues, and though she’s not really had any professional support she has worked her way through a lot of them by herself.

Danny was a bit of a mess emotionally. He drank too much, smoked and slept around. Through it all, he cared about Anne and was unhappy they weren’t together. He didn’t have any family left, so he made the guys at his station his family. He was also still good friends with guys from college. He was flawed, but he was a good guy and he supported Anne in her chosen job(s). He has a temper, but he’s not an alpha male who is always in full on ‘protect his woman’ mode.

I liked that though this was a romance, it was only a part of the book. There was a big chunk of the book about how they felt about themselves as well as each other. There was also the content about the investigation.

I felt that the investigation was the one area that let the book down. There were several leaps of intuition that could sort of be explained logically, but not fully. The investigation also seemed to fizzle out towards the end, and did not get completely resolved to my satisfaction. It may be that this is the first in a series, which, given the (Firefighters) tag in the name of the book, is probable. If this is the case then maybe future books deal with the ramifications of this element of the investigation.

I really hope there are other books in the series, because so many of the supporting characters are really interesting, and I would really enjoy reading about them as main characters.

All in all this was a well thought out and entertaining read, that makes you think a bit, but not too much.

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