Burn For Me by Ilona Andrews

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Title: Burn for Me
Author: Ilona Andrews
Series: Hidden Legacy #1
Published by: Avon, HarperAudio
Release Date: October 28, 2014
Format: Audiobook, ebook
Narrator: Renée Raudman
Pages: 406
Length: 12 hours and 46 minutes
Genres: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy
Source: Libby, Overdrive
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ Libro.FM ✩ Chirp
My rating:

Blurb:

Number-one New York Times best-selling author Ilona Andrews launches a brand-new Hidden Legacy series, in which one woman must place her trust in a seductive, dangerous man who sets off an even more dangerous desire.

Nevada Baylor is faced with the most challenging case of her detective career - a suicide mission to bring in a suspect in a volatile situation. Nevada isn't sure she has the chops. Her quarry is a Prime, the highest rank of magic user, who can set anyone and anything on fire.

Then she's kidnapped by Connor "Mad" Rogan - a darkly tempting billionaire with equally devastating powers. Torn between wanting to run and wanting to surrender to their overwhelming attraction, Nevada must join forces with Rogan to stay alive.

Rogan's after the same target, so he needs Nevada. But she's getting under his skin, making him care about someone other than himself for a change. And, as Rogan has learned, love can be as perilous as death, especially in the magic world.

My Review:

3.5 stars — While the plot of this one was very fast and engaging, the romance aspect actually detracted for me.  But to be fair, this is just a huge mismatch personal taste-wise as far as that aspect goes.

I started listening to this one on audio since my library didn’t have the ebook.  And while there isn’t anything particularly objectionable to Ms. Raudman’s narration, there was an affectation to her speech, which might have been an accent choice, that just didn’t work for me.  It wasn’t super obvious most of the time, but it was enough that I just wasn’t picking up my audiobook to keep going as much as I might otherwise.  She did have good pacing, consistent voices, and I enjoyed the humour with Nevada’s personality, but I definitely made much faster progress 0nce my library got the ebook and I was able to read for myself.

Nevada was honestly pretty fun and easy to like.  She has a large and very quirky family, and you can tell how much they mean to her.  I loved how protective she was of them, how sassy she could be, how confident at times, but realistic at others.  It was a good situation of underdog stuck in a huge situation and seeing how they made out.  I definitely enjoyed the hints at what the reader will probably continue to learn about her particular magic if I were to continue with the series.

This book was entirely from Nevada’s POV (except for the epilogue), and that definitely didn’t help me to like our hero and love interest more.  From what we could see of him through his interactions with her, he was only a small step above the villain as far as sociopathy goes.  Nevada literally talks about his psychotic tendencies when trying to calm down her lust.  And that’s really all I saw in this particular book — a lot of lust.  And maybe this is my demi working against me, but that made it kind of hard to understand why she was drawn to him.  We really didn’t see a lot of redeeming qualities.  Sure, he was often on the right side, but not from a moral compass standpoint.  To be fair, I can’t read MC books either, so take my opinion with a huge grain of salt.  I just kind of have to like the hero for more than their looks and sex appeal.

As far as romance?  There wasn’t any.  There was some steam, but definitely not what I would call connection on an emotional level.  And honestly?  Some of the tactile stuff bordered on dub con for me.  Like, just because she liked it, doesn’t really negate the fact that she told him no.  *shrugs*

So yeah.  The funny thing is, if there hadn’t been a “romance” element, I think I might have enjoyed it a bit more.  Enough to invest time in the trilogy?  I honestly don’t know.  I’m intrigued by the magic world.  But I really don’t easily invest in characters that don’t even show a glimmer of humanity in the first book.  I get that they’ll probably be changed by love, blah blah blah, but I guess I’d rather give my time to books that give me glimpses earlier.  Too bad, because Nevada and the Baylor family were pretty fun.

Oh well, they can’t all be a match…Lenore just has to go on being a hipster.