Love Burns
Series: Caged Love #2
Genre: Erotic, Contemporary Romance
Author: Mandi Beck
Release Date: September 21, 2015
Love.
It’s my name. It’s what I fight for. It’s Frankie.
I’m a fighter. Trained to always keep my cover. To anticipate, see the next hit coming. I never expected her past to come at us swinging like it has.
I’m about to take on two of the most important fights of my life. My girl and the belt. I know that I can handle it. That I’ll never stop fighting. But, what do you do when your life, your love is threatened and you can’t take the hits – she has to? You shut your eyes and fucking pray like hell that she’s strong enough, fierce enough to come out on top.
I went to war for her. Now it’s her turn.
****THIS BOOK CONCLUDES DEACON’S STORY. THERE WILL BE MORE TO COME IN THE SERIES, BUT LOVE BURNS WILL COMPLETE DEACON AND FRANKIE’S JOURNEY****
I went to war for her. Now it’s her turn
I fell hard for Deacon “The Hitman” Love when I first met him in Love Hurts while Frankie took me a bit of warming up to. In Love Burns, the tables turn and I found myself struggling with some of Deacon’s decisions while I loved seeing Frankie come into her own and find her inner strength and voice.
One thing that soured my enjoyment was this (I’ll spoiler tag even though it is something that’s revealed in the first chapter just in case you want to go in completely blind)(HIGHLIGHT TO VIEW SPOILER) [While separated from Frankie, Deacon sleeps with two models while on a drunken bender and doesn’t remember anything when he wakes up. The whole time before he’s pinning for Frankie and the whole time after he’s jealous of any man that looks her way and professes his undying love and declares that he’ll fight for her. Now I don’t have a problem with the hero sleeping around….if it fist the story. Here, while it may or may not have fit, I found that it cheapened his feelings for her. All this talk of love this and love that, and then his internal thought is “if I can’t remember, it’s like it didn’t happen, right?” Don’t get me wrong, he acknowledges that what he did is wrong, but it still left a sour taste in my mouth](END SPOILER)
The majority of the book is spent with Deacon and Frankie continuing to deal with the threat on her life from her ex fiance and the mystery surrounding the case he has that led to all the trouble. All the while they’re working through their issues. I hate to say that I found parts of the book to be slightly cliche and dragging, to a point where I found myself skimming the sex scenes. Deacon simply wasn’t as endearing to me as he was in the first book, but he was no less intense.
There was something that happened at the end that should have garnered some emotion from me, and yet I found myself questioning the shock factor of it and why it needed to happen. On the one hand, it drove the plot somewhat….on the other hand, it almost felt like it wasn’t needed. I also absolutely hated the way that Deacon dealt with it in respect to Frankie. After everything they’ve already went through, I wanted something more from him. Frankie was beyond understanding, and I found her to be too understanding with this considering the circumstances.
My issues aside, it was still an enjoyable read. I suppose in my months of waiting after the crazy cliffhanger in book 1, I may have built my hopes up too high. As you can clearly see, most people really enjoyed this one. Perhaps I’m too critical and just wasn’t in the right mood for it? Perhaps my issue was that I forgot a few details from the first book in the wait and maybe that would have helped me connect more? Whatever the case may be, while this book wasn’t a total winner for me, I’m still a fan of this author and would gladly read any of her books in the future.
Don’t miss book 1!
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