Slow Burner (Blue Smoke - Nora Roberts)

Member Name: hollywoodmum

Product:	Blue Smoke - Nora Roberts
Date:	04/10/07 (72 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Characters

Disadvantages: Predictable, a bit boring in places

I got this in a book sale for £1.99. I usually read a book in a couple of days but it took me well over a week to read this, it wasn't really compelling. here is my review.

The Story
In Blue Smoke we meet Reena Hale (Caterina), when we fist meet her she is 11 years old and has just witnessed her family's restaurant , Sirico's, burning down after an arson attack. Reena is drawn to the fire but also drawn to finding out about how the fire was started and why people start fires, from that moment she decides she wants to become and arson investigator. She then spends all her teens studying, joins the police force and trains with the fire department. while her families lives have moved on Sirico's is rebuilt her sister's get married and have kids, Reena's love life is a disaster, having sexual encounters is fine but whenever she tries a relationship disaster strikes 2 boyfriends end up dead and one turns out to be a control freak. Then she starts receiving strange phone calls and the past comes back to haunt her big time.
Meanwhile Bowen (Bo) Goodnight (crazy name) spotted Reena at a college party and for him it was love at first sight but every time he sees her she's gone again.

The Blurb
Reena Hale grew up with an intimate knowledge of the destructive power of fire. When she was a child her family's restaurant was burnt to the ground, and the man responsible was sent to jail. The Hale family banded together to rebuild and Reena found her life's calling.. She trained as a fire fighter and then as a cop, always with the end goal insight: to become an arson investigator.
Now a valued member of the Arson unit, Reena loves her job and things are going well. She's even bought a house and her hunky new neighbour is certainly providing a sexy distraction. But she is called in on a series of suspicious fires that seem to be connected, not just to each other but to her. As danger ignites all around her, Reena must rely on experience and instinct to catch a dangerous madman who will not stop until everything she loves is up in smoke.

The Structure
The book is split into 3 parts, which all relate to fire.
Point Of Origin (The specific location at which a fire was ignited.) - Is the first part of the book, this includes the Prologue and covers Reena's childhood from the age of 11 until she has just joined the police force and completed her fire training.
Chain Reaction (A series of events so closely linked to each other that one initiates the next) - 2nd part of book, this picks up the story from when Reena has finally become a fully fledged member of the Arson unit and solves her first case, in this part she and Bo finally meet and the strange phone calls and dangerous events begin to happen.
Flashover (the final stage in the process of fire growth) I can't say what happens here as I don't wish to add any spoilers but it's the most exciting part of the book and obviously this is where it ends, this part of the book also contains the Epilogue.
The most part of this book is narrated except when the arsonist is at work, every time we read what the arsonist is doing it's told from his point of view.

The Author
Nora Roberts's first book was published in 1981. Since then she has written over 150 novels. Under the pen name of J. D Robb , she is the author of the New York Times bestselling futuristic series which features Lieutenant Eve Dallas. There are more than 260 Million of her book in print and had more than 100 bestsellers.
Other Titles:
Homeport
The Reef
River's End
Carolina Moon
The Villa
Midnight Bayou
Three Fates
Birthright
Northern Lights
The Chesapeake Bay Quartet
The Key Trilogy
In The Garden Trilogy
High noon (her latest release)

Overall
After reading the blurb I was really excited about reading this but unfortunately it didn't live up to expectations. The characters and relationships are all well written and the dialogue between them is great and truly believable but Reena is so feisty and smart it's just to hard to believe that it would take her so long to figure out that the deaths of her fellas weren't linked. Also there are just loads of unnecessary stuff in there, I like attention to detail but this novel felt as if it had been padded out just make the word count higher or the book longer. I also found it completely predictable. As far as action or excitement are concerned it's a bit of a slow burner (excuse the pun), it doesn't really start getting exciting until the end of the second part of the novel, it's then you'll want to keep reading but unfortunately the ending is disappointing and predictable.
Maybe it's because after writing so many books the quality of her work as been effected by the fact Roberts just keeps knocking novels out, although as I've never read anything by her before I can't really compare, maybe they're all like this.

Price
I got it for £1.99 from a book sale but it's usually £6.99

Published in 2005

www.noraroberts.com

Summary: OK novel