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phira603 's review for:
Chasing Fire
by Nora Roberts
I almost DNFed this, except that it had been recommended by a good friend. It was just really, really slow to start, and it took about a third of the way before it started to gain any kind of momentum. And when a book is as long as this one is, that's a lot of pages to get through.
I didn't really care about the nitty-gritty details about smoke jumping. I respect it, and it's clearly been well-researched, but I was more interested in the mystery and every time there was a fire, I was trying to get through it as fast as possible while I scanned it for any possible plot progression. As for the mystery, I had a few theories, including one that ended up being correct, but it didn't feel satisfying (that said, none of my theories felt satisfying--I was really hoping for something else that would make more sense).
The characters also didn't really work for me, nor did the banter. It was too jargon-y, too quippy, too one-dimensional. The only characters I really liked were Marg, L.B., and Lucas. The central romance didn't feel right to me, in particular that Rowan would be so blase about breaking her rule about sleeping with a fellow smoke jumper who was also a rookie whom she'd trained (yikesss).
Finally, I finished the book feeling like there were loose ends that were meant to be red herrings (or were unintentionally red herrings). In particular Neither of these suspicions were entirely supported by the story . But still!
Was this terrible? No, not really. But it was just SO LONG and took much too long for the plot to start up, and then it continued being slow and meandering. The other NR books I've read (The Witness and Hideaway) were also long and a little meandering, but they didn't feel nearly as slow, and I think that made a huge difference.
I didn't really care about the nitty-gritty details about smoke jumping. I respect it, and it's clearly been well-researched, but I was more interested in the mystery and every time there was a fire, I was trying to get through it as fast as possible while I scanned it for any possible plot progression. As for the mystery, I had a few theories, including one that ended up being correct, but it didn't feel satisfying (that said, none of my theories felt satisfying--I was really hoping for something else that would make more sense).
The characters also didn't really work for me, nor did the banter. It was too jargon-y, too quippy, too one-dimensional. The only characters I really liked were Marg, L.B., and Lucas. The central romance didn't feel right to me, in particular that Rowan would be so blase about breaking her rule about sleeping with a fellow smoke jumper who was also a rookie whom she'd trained (yikesss).
Finally, I finished the book feeling like there were loose ends that were meant to be red herrings (or were unintentionally red herrings). In particular
Spoiler
I was really sure that Gull was some kind of investigator, and I suspected that Jim's death wasn't an accident.Spoiler
(It would be really unlikely that an FBI guy would just happen to have all the appropriate experience to work as a smoke jumper; also what would he have been investigating in the first place; and the brief parts of the killer's POV didn't suggest anything about Jim's death being suspicious)Was this terrible? No, not really. But it was just SO LONG and took much too long for the plot to start up, and then it continued being slow and meandering. The other NR books I've read (The Witness and Hideaway) were also long and a little meandering, but they didn't feel nearly as slow, and I think that made a huge difference.