GRR Reviews Burn by Shey Stahl

Burn is basically a "fated mates" novel with a lot of sex. It is also VERY long at almost 500 pages. The evil douchebags prefer blackmail as their weapon (thus despicable), and the almost deus ex machina ending was not that believable. That left me rather ambivalent. If the pace was edited somewhat and the climax explained better I'd give it a better rating. But I like the setup well enough to give it above average.

Milena Wellington, GM of Wellington Plaza Hotel, grew up with money, but she worked hard for her own success, having worked through almost every position in the hotel (including dishwasher, laundry, and more) before taking over as GM only in her twenties. However, after catching her BF doing another woman, her BF kicked HER out (she paid the rent, but it's his lease) so she's couch-surfing at her friends. Her colleagues at work saw her as young tyke not worthy of being GM. With no home per se, and refused to take a room at the hotel as her own, she's technically homeless, which cuts down on her love life, except that hot one-night stand with the scorchingly handsome firefighter... // Caleb Ryan was destined to be a firefighter, and he did so, serving with his brothers. His own love life is lousy... The one girl he thought he could get serious with turned out to be a stripper (and his ladder mates won't ever let him live that down). Except this one girl Mila he had a one-night stand with... he can't get her out of his head... // Does this couple actually have a chance with each other, when Caleb got a jealous colleague determined to get a promotion by any means he could, and Milena has an admirer who can't seem to take no for an answer?

The threat to relationship is mainly self-loathing. The two careers didn't collide until the end, and I hate to say, the bad guy's ability to sabotage the floor was TOTALLY unexplained. And his flipping from admirer to stalker was unexplained as well. Why would hotel office be high up? It's the rest of the details that made the story interesting. The other nemesis was not handled well either. The two nemesis just came across as crazy douchebags.

Category: Contemporary

Primary Plot: Can a firefighter fall for a one-night stand, who turned out to be a hotel heiress and now hotel GM?

Tropes: family pressure, different worlds, firefighter, stalker, jilted fling to a thing

Overall Rating:  4/5