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suzysuzy34's review against another edition
3.0
Listened on audible. Okay, found the rockstar element wasn’t necessary in this story.
kelly_reads_books's review against another edition
5.0
Beneath the Burn was an intense read. Charlee is held captive since she was 16 years old by a ruthless man. Roy is very much a sadist and exacts his anger on Charlee repeatedly.
Charlee escapes and is on the run for a few years, hiding and changing her name and locations. She meets Noah, who wants to marry her. But she can't marry him because he is not aware of what she has been through.
She meets Jay before she is captured again and the story unfolds from there.
Pam Godwin writes stories with deep and courageous characters. The stories keep the reader entranced and engaged in the the book.
I highly recommend this story.
Charlee escapes and is on the run for a few years, hiding and changing her name and locations. She meets Noah, who wants to marry her. But she can't marry him because he is not aware of what she has been through.
She meets Jay before she is captured again and the story unfolds from there.
Pam Godwin writes stories with deep and courageous characters. The stories keep the reader entranced and engaged in the the book.
I highly recommend this story.
beckyrendon's review against another edition
4.0
Beneath the Burn is a slow burn. It's not amped up on love but it is about holding onto hope. It's a chance encounter that changes lives. It's highly romantic but not in the flowers, unicorns, and (snicker) rainbows kind of way. The idea/thought that one hour could change your life, convince you of a purpose, and give unconditional hope. It's heartwarming even in the ever darkening world that exists in this book.
Friends, brothers, and love are all words until you show the meaning behind them. Until you experience them in this book, they will be ideas. Once you read this book, you will feel those words.
Friends, brothers, and love are all words until you show the meaning behind them. Until you experience them in this book, they will be ideas. Once you read this book, you will feel those words.
tabithas's review
4.0
This book was a tough read for me, but I am very happy that I stuck with it and finished it. There are some parts that are much darker than I like but they are what made this book good.
gingermomma83's review
1.0
DNF 51%
Not for me. Sex with lots of OP during separation. She walked in on 2 women tied up on his piano and him passed out high.
Ian so grossed out by her basically crawling into bed with him while his buddy released the women on the piano. I dont believe this man can ever stay sober or faithful. Zero. I like my H faithful. I had zero desire to continue.
Not for me. Sex with lots of OP during separation. She walked in on 2 women tied up on his piano and him passed out high.
Ian so grossed out by her basically crawling into bed with him while his buddy released the women on the piano. I dont believe this man can ever stay sober or faithful. Zero. I like my H faithful. I had zero desire to continue.
eslismyjam's review
1.0
Imagine how angry I was when by ten percent into this book I just couldn't stand anything about it. It had so much potential to be a thrilling, dark read and then it just fell on its' face. Our main characters just didn't work for me. Everything felt inconsistent.
My biggest problem was with our hero, Jay, who is supposed to be some big-time rock star with all of these deep seated issues-- which is EXACTLY my thing-- but he didn't work for me. Like at all. I felt like the author was forcing him into a role which he did not fit. Jay was not a rocker, but a troubled man, an introvert with some deep-seated control issues, who would probably avoid the limelight at any cost. But here he is, a world-famous rock star? The scenes where he is speaking honestly and openly with the heroine and interacting with other characters, you just can't as a reader, believe that he is a rock star because he doesn't act like one. You also can't believe that he has addiction issues, except when you are explicitly told that he does, because he is able to function fine in main scenes without them. The drugs and the rock-star trope seem like a plot device, to add interest to the story, but it didn't feel authentic, or work for me.
I liked the premise, that Jay goes into a tattoo shop at a really low point in his life and meets our fair heroine, Charlee who has problems of her own to deal with. He has a horrible scar on his back from being abused as child, which is what is causing all of his major ISSUES. The heroine who understands abuse, connects in a deep and meaningful way over this tattoo. This creates some sort of unshakeable bond between the two of them and carries them over time and space. I liked the idea of that, but I didn't really buy Charlee, later on, sitting in captivity fantasizing about a guy she had given a tattoo to for an hour before getting re-kidnapped, but whatever. Especially when she had a very nice boyfriend at the time of Jay's tattoo, who is killed just before she gets re-captured. Wouldn't she be worrying about HIM? It seems a bit thoughtless on her part to be so fixated on a client and not the guy she'd been seeing for a year (or something). But, I was willing to over look it. The tattoo gets Jay and Charlee through until the next time they meet-- fine ok, I accepted that.
Unfortunately, the next time they meet, Jay is supposed to be a big mess and having sex with all these random girls and doing all sorts of drugs all the while being the member of The World's Most Famous Rock Band. (Aren't they always?) Somehow his band mates are well-adjusted and sober (no idea who that works, but again, whatever). Here's where it went totally downhill for me. Jay isn't really attracted to other girls, he struggles complete the "act", yet he is sleeping with them? He doesn't like people to touch him, but he is finding a lot of women to have intercourse with, and just tying them up to avoid contact? And Jay really likes leather pants, skin tight ones (again, what? This has been a sexy idea in some books, but the character has to be pretty alphatastic to rock it and not seem like some weirdo. The King in J.R. Ward's books-- he can rock some leather pants. This dude, not so much.) He is also a rock star that likes to hide in the shadows on-stage? I got that he has issues, but is rocking really the career for someone who ABSOLUTELY HATES attention from the public? He should have been written as an agoraphobic hiding in a cabin in the woods. THAT I would have believed.
Conveniently, this is all good for Charlee, because despite the severe abuse she has also suffered for YEARS and YEARS, nay since her adolsence, she likes to be dominated? She is also remarkably well-adjusted for a woman kept as a slave by a sadistic psycho since the age of 16.
Naturally, Jay can't handle Charlee's needs, because he doesn't want to do anything to hurt her (it's only other human-beings he doesn't give a crap about hurting). He's all possessive and protective of Charlee. He just seemed like a jerk to me.
The whole thing just didn't make sense to me. Once our heroine is back on the scene, we are experiencing Jay's issues firsthand, but Jay snorts coke once and then comes down off his high about five minutes later and somehow has no withdrawal issues to contend with as a long as Charlee is around. That's quite a rehab program!
Once they are reunited and have a bit of privacy (oh wait, they don't seem to care about that either. There is a long sequence of them practically screwing in the car and then again in the public area of the band's private jet. If we clock the time that Charlee and Jay have actually known each other at either of those points, including the tattooing, it is less than a day.) Of course, being madly in lust, Charlee and Jay just want to get it on a lot, but they are struggling because they are both all messed up. (Cue a scene in the airplane bathroom that just creeped me out. Because seriously, who wants to engage is serious acts of prolonged intimacy in an airplane bathroom, gross!).
I just couldn't believe anything about either of them, or their "love" story. Their actions, based on the history we are given, does not work. Additionally, in many of the scenes the writing lacked consistency. The conversations, all of which sparked the conflict that kept the book moving forward, contained dialogue that was conflicting, non-linear and confusing. It left me wondering what Jay and Charlee were talking about and how they got from point a to point b.
I gave up near the end, I just couldn't slog through anymore nonsense. 1 star, what a let down.
My biggest problem was with our hero, Jay, who is supposed to be some big-time rock star with all of these deep seated issues-- which is EXACTLY my thing-- but he didn't work for me. Like at all. I felt like the author was forcing him into a role which he did not fit. Jay was not a rocker, but a troubled man, an introvert with some deep-seated control issues, who would probably avoid the limelight at any cost. But here he is, a world-famous rock star? The scenes where he is speaking honestly and openly with the heroine and interacting with other characters, you just can't as a reader, believe that he is a rock star because he doesn't act like one. You also can't believe that he has addiction issues, except when you are explicitly told that he does, because he is able to function fine in main scenes without them. The drugs and the rock-star trope seem like a plot device, to add interest to the story, but it didn't feel authentic, or work for me.
I liked the premise, that Jay goes into a tattoo shop at a really low point in his life and meets our fair heroine, Charlee who has problems of her own to deal with. He has a horrible scar on his back from being abused as child, which is what is causing all of his major ISSUES. The heroine who understands abuse, connects in a deep and meaningful way over this tattoo. This creates some sort of unshakeable bond between the two of them and carries them over time and space. I liked the idea of that, but I didn't really buy Charlee, later on, sitting in captivity fantasizing about a guy she had given a tattoo to for an hour before getting re-kidnapped, but whatever. Especially when she had a very nice boyfriend at the time of Jay's tattoo, who is killed just before she gets re-captured. Wouldn't she be worrying about HIM? It seems a bit thoughtless on her part to be so fixated on a client and not the guy she'd been seeing for a year (or something). But, I was willing to over look it. The tattoo gets Jay and Charlee through until the next time they meet-- fine ok, I accepted that.
Unfortunately, the next time they meet, Jay is supposed to be a big mess and having sex with all these random girls and doing all sorts of drugs all the while being the member of The World's Most Famous Rock Band. (Aren't they always?) Somehow his band mates are well-adjusted and sober (no idea who that works, but again, whatever). Here's where it went totally downhill for me. Jay isn't really attracted to other girls, he struggles complete the "act", yet he is sleeping with them? He doesn't like people to touch him, but he is finding a lot of women to have intercourse with, and just tying them up to avoid contact? And Jay really likes leather pants, skin tight ones (again, what? This has been a sexy idea in some books, but the character has to be pretty alphatastic to rock it and not seem like some weirdo. The King in J.R. Ward's books-- he can rock some leather pants. This dude, not so much.) He is also a rock star that likes to hide in the shadows on-stage? I got that he has issues, but is rocking really the career for someone who ABSOLUTELY HATES attention from the public? He should have been written as an agoraphobic hiding in a cabin in the woods. THAT I would have believed.
Conveniently, this is all good for Charlee, because despite the severe abuse she has also suffered for YEARS and YEARS, nay since her adolsence, she likes to be dominated? She is also remarkably well-adjusted for a woman kept as a slave by a sadistic psycho since the age of 16.
Naturally, Jay can't handle Charlee's needs, because he doesn't want to do anything to hurt her (it's only other human-beings he doesn't give a crap about hurting). He's all possessive and protective of Charlee. He just seemed like a jerk to me.
The whole thing just didn't make sense to me. Once our heroine is back on the scene, we are experiencing Jay's issues firsthand, but Jay snorts coke once and then comes down off his high about five minutes later and somehow has no withdrawal issues to contend with as a long as Charlee is around. That's quite a rehab program!
Once they are reunited and have a bit of privacy (oh wait, they don't seem to care about that either. There is a long sequence of them practically screwing in the car and then again in the public area of the band's private jet. If we clock the time that Charlee and Jay have actually known each other at either of those points, including the tattooing, it is less than a day.) Of course, being madly in lust, Charlee and Jay just want to get it on a lot, but they are struggling because they are both all messed up. (Cue a scene in the airplane bathroom that just creeped me out. Because seriously, who wants to engage is serious acts of prolonged intimacy in an airplane bathroom, gross!).
I just couldn't believe anything about either of them, or their "love" story. Their actions, based on the history we are given, does not work. Additionally, in many of the scenes the writing lacked consistency. The conversations, all of which sparked the conflict that kept the book moving forward, contained dialogue that was conflicting, non-linear and confusing. It left me wondering what Jay and Charlee were talking about and how they got from point a to point b.
I gave up near the end, I just couldn't slog through anymore nonsense. 1 star, what a let down.
jessica_barton's review
4.0
4 Burning Stars!
The book was kind of long. I thought it could have been shorter, and still got the point across. I really wasn't expecting it to be that "dark" I went in to the novel blind, didn't even read the synopsis. WOW! So happy I did it that way.
Mild Spoilers ahead... read at your own risk.
So Charlee was traded by her father when she was 16 to a man that is a complete crazy ass sadist.
Jay had a tragic accident in his past that leaves him hating the touch of another human being on his skin. I just love a good, fucked up man.
So Jay decided to get a tattoo one night out of the blue, and guess who does that tattoo? Yep, you guessed it... Charlee.
So this is the only time they have met and he falls in love with her, but leaves town.
I don't want to say anything else, because I don't want to give any of the story away.
The book was kind of long. I thought it could have been shorter, and still got the point across. I really wasn't expecting it to be that "dark" I went in to the novel blind, didn't even read the synopsis. WOW! So happy I did it that way.
Mild Spoilers ahead... read at your own risk.
So Charlee was traded by her father when she was 16 to a man that is a complete crazy ass sadist.
Jay had a tragic accident in his past that leaves him hating the touch of another human being on his skin. I just love a good, fucked up man.
So Jay decided to get a tattoo one night out of the blue, and guess who does that tattoo? Yep, you guessed it... Charlee.
So this is the only time they have met and he falls in love with her, but leaves town.
I don't want to say anything else, because I don't want to give any of the story away.
pattymac61's review against another edition
5.0
Loved this book...I could not put it down. Liked the story and Jay and Charlee are just such a great couple. They helped each other and came full circle I think. Charlee was such a tough chick and Jay was an alpha male with some real emotional problems, well they both had some really intense issues to get through...so worth the read.
kodom251999's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this book! The characters are damaged and you felt every bit of it!