Fire Storm

2.5 stars

Again I'm left without really ever warming up to Kaely as a character. The crimes make sense but the solutions felt disjointed and the case in Omaha that Kaely and Noah were working on gets dropped and apparently is only a means to get them to the state to be near Darkwater and then to take them out of town for a short time while something happens.

Noah continues to show himself a solid lead male, if a little stodgy, but he spends much of the time off the page, so I'm not even sure if I can consider him much of an MC in this book. Kaely keeps hoping he'll open up to God but while she talks about God and faith she doesn't speak to him of salvation and Jesus, so it's a hazy sort of faith. There's enough that a Christian would interpret it as Christianity but not that someone unfamiliar with the Christian POV about faith would limit it to Christian faith.

The serial arsonist intrigued me because I'm aware that arson is a continually growing issue in the US, especially in the Midwest.

Kaely has many hair-breadth escapes and in the end she puts herself entirely in the killer's hands, gets herself drugged, and barely escapes when backup arrives. This felt like a rehash of the showdown in book 1 and I wasn't honestly worried about her survival because I knew there was a book 3. But she goes out to meet someone and I felt cheated because, up to then, we'd been in her head knowing what she was thinking; but suddenly we discover Kaely knew much more than the reader knew and had already arranged for backup. This felt like a cloak-and-dagger trick at the reader's expense and honestly it robbed me of most of the thrills of the ending because I was just thinking she was incredibly stupid as I read those scenes.

And once again her imaginary friend Georgie took away from the seriousness of her story.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a free reading copy. A favorable review was not required.