REVIEW: Never Too Hot by Bella Andre

Never Too Hot

(Hot Shots: Men Of Fire #3)

by Bella Andre

3.5 HEARTS

From Goodreads

A TOUCH IGNITES. A FIRE BURNS. AND THE HEAT HAS JUST BEGUN.

Deep in the cool green mountains of the Adirondacks, wounded firefighter Connor MacKenzie has come to rebuild the 100-year-old MacKenzie family cabin—and to be alone. A horrific blaze has left him scarred inside and out and certain of two things: He’ll get back on his Hot Shot crew no matter what it takes, and any woman who ventures too close will not stay long.

Ginger Sinclair has been burned by a different kind of fire. Having just escaped from a bad marriage, she’s retreated to the safety of the lakeside vacation town in upstate New York to start a new life. She’s done with men, with relationships, with the danger of desires that can rage out of control—until she unexpectedly encounters Connor MacKenzie. As a hot summer on the lake grows ever hotter, they find themselves sharing a cabin and a romance that will swiftly engulf them both.

There is just something about firefighters that gets my blood pumping. I thoroughly enjoyed the other two books in this series. Unfortunately, this one didn’t seem to live up to its predecessors. I really adored Connor, I honestly did. But this story was more about recovery than anything else. Yes, there was a very nice relationship between him and Ginger, but it seemed to take a side-burner to the rest.

I’ve wanted Connor’s story since book one. We get to see his traumatic experience firsthand, and I was left wondering what happened to him after that. Now, three books later and here he is in all his brooding scarred glory. He’s home for a while to work on his parent’s cabin for his brother’s wedding, only to find that the one place that can offer him sanctuary from the world is occupied…by a woman. He’s a very shut down man, with all the scars and deformations he suffered drastically changing how not only women see him, but how he sees himself. He’s no longer the carefree and very popular man he used to be. This makes him very serious, angry, and antisocial. Despite this rough exterior he was expressing, I still found myself wanting to get closer to him and learn who he really was.  I honestly he just needed a really big hug. He may be rough outside, but like any man, he’s just a giant teddy bear needing a little squeeze.

Ginger was carefree and living life, now that she had escaped her normal routine by disappearing into the wilderness to this cabin with a beautiful view. Everything is going according to plan until a very angry looking man barges in on her painting. I really liked Ginger because, although she came from a much different lifestyle, she wasn’t the stuck up rich girl type. She just wanted to have a life that was her own with her own decisions. I did feel she was a bit naive at times, almost airheaded. Any normal girl would have done something different or thought of something else when she completely bypassed it. But all together she was a good character to have paired up with the bullheaded Connor.

As I said before, the story was more of a recovery story than relationship. Although Connor and Ginger were focused on for half of the book, yes half, a side story filled the rest of the half. I felt like I was reading two stories---both painful and dramatic and filled to the brim with angst---that it distracted from the couple the story was supposed to be about. Don’t get me wrong, I really wanted Isabel and Andrew to get their happily-ever-after as well, but not to the point that they almost overshadowed Connor and Ginger’s story at times. There was not enough space in this one book for both of their stories and somehow they were shoved together like some bad cookies. I had to actually separate the two of them in my head so I could get the enjoyment I was supposed to out of them.

I like Ms. Andre as an author. I’ve read a handful of her books that I’ve thought were really good. This one was good, but it could have been better. Take out the side story, add a big more development and spicier sex, and it definitely would have ranked with the other two books in this series. Although this one didn’t particularly do it for me, I definitely would recommend the others in this series. Worth checking out at least.

Hotness Rating
3 out of 5