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The Fire Still Burns
Brynn Harlow left town in disgrace, her only sin protecting the man she loved from the ultimate betrayal. Adam Good knew the meaning of heartache. He'd suffered through it for years after Brynn ripped his heart out and left him with only bitter memories and unanswered questions. Now circumstances have brought Brynn home and she's assigned an arson case alongside Adam. The two must overcome their past to work together and find an arsonist who killed Adam's brother. But along with her son, Brynn has brought home a secret so powerful it could destroy both men she loves, and herself.
376 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2008
13 people are currently reading
431 people want to read
About the author
Crystal-Rain Love
43 books138 followersCrystal-Rain Love is a multi-published author of dark, yet laugh-out-loud paranormal romance and urban fantasy featuring a diverse cast of characters.
She also writes contemporary romance and not-so-cozy mysteries as Shylyn Ray, and writes the Elvis Purrsley Mysteries as "C. Love".
She also writes contemporary romance and not-so-cozy mysteries as Shylyn Ray, and writes the Elvis Purrsley Mysteries as "C. Love".
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 26, 2013
When Brynn Harlow returns to her home town to investigate arson and a murder, she didn't expect to be working with Adam Good, the only man she had ever loved and had betrayed. Adam isn't to thrilled to be working with the woman who broke his heart all those years ago and especially as she's trying to investigate the murder of his own brother.
Will they be able to work together and keep their feelings for each other hidden away?
This book had me in tears! To be disgraced by every one for something you never done and to bring up a son for thirteen years alone, makes Brynn my hero. Every body in town thinks she broke Adams heart by sleeping with his best friend and then leaving town with him, but Brynn is the only one who knows the real story but she doesn't try to change their opinions, to protect Adam and her son. When the towns "golden boy" is murdered in a fire, secrets begin to unravel and Adam and Brynn start to get closer again. I really liked Brynn, she was willing to make herself look bad for the sake of someone she loved. She was very selfless in her actions to protect Adam and her son.
Adam is a heartbroken man in many ways, he's lost his brother and he also lost Brynn, at first as expected he isn't very nice to Brynn but then his feelings for her begin to creep up again and when he realises she is not what he thinks things start to develop again.
I rally enjoyed this book, it was funny, heart wrenching! And a genuinely good read 5 stars
Will they be able to work together and keep their feelings for each other hidden away?
This book had me in tears! To be disgraced by every one for something you never done and to bring up a son for thirteen years alone, makes Brynn my hero. Every body in town thinks she broke Adams heart by sleeping with his best friend and then leaving town with him, but Brynn is the only one who knows the real story but she doesn't try to change their opinions, to protect Adam and her son. When the towns "golden boy" is murdered in a fire, secrets begin to unravel and Adam and Brynn start to get closer again. I really liked Brynn, she was willing to make herself look bad for the sake of someone she loved. She was very selfless in her actions to protect Adam and her son.
Adam is a heartbroken man in many ways, he's lost his brother and he also lost Brynn, at first as expected he isn't very nice to Brynn but then his feelings for her begin to creep up again and when he realises she is not what he thinks things start to develop again.
I rally enjoyed this book, it was funny, heart wrenching! And a genuinely good read 5 stars
June 5, 2013
http://ripeforreader.blogspot.ca/2013...
13 Years after being run out of town, circumstances have brought Brynn Harlow home and she's assigned an arson case alongside Adam Good. Adam suffered through years of heartache after Brynn left him with unanswered questions all those years ago. The two have to work together to find an arsonist who killed Adam's brother, but it is not that easy to leave the past behind. And as it turns out, along with her son, Brynn has brought back a secret as devastating to those she loves and herself, as it is revealing.
This was an easy read, no real brain power required, but very entertaining nonetheless.
The story plot was good, overall a tad predictable as is often the case in romantic stories, but the suspense part was surprising. It was well written with just a few editing issues that would be fairly easy to clean up. Brynn was likeable enough, although her need to keep secrets 'for the greater good' is something that goes against my nature and that irritated me, since of course it only lead to more confusion and heartache than was necessary. I found Adam to be a bit of a momma's boy.....I mean, what self-respecting thirty-something year old still lives with his mom at home? But in the end he salvages his reputation and steps up to the plate, and the message is a good one I guess.....nobody is perfect. As for heat?.....there was really none......no steam generated in this novel.....oh well.
13 Years after being run out of town, circumstances have brought Brynn Harlow home and she's assigned an arson case alongside Adam Good. Adam suffered through years of heartache after Brynn left him with unanswered questions all those years ago. The two have to work together to find an arsonist who killed Adam's brother, but it is not that easy to leave the past behind. And as it turns out, along with her son, Brynn has brought back a secret as devastating to those she loves and herself, as it is revealing.
This was an easy read, no real brain power required, but very entertaining nonetheless.
The story plot was good, overall a tad predictable as is often the case in romantic stories, but the suspense part was surprising. It was well written with just a few editing issues that would be fairly easy to clean up. Brynn was likeable enough, although her need to keep secrets 'for the greater good' is something that goes against my nature and that irritated me, since of course it only lead to more confusion and heartache than was necessary. I found Adam to be a bit of a momma's boy.....I mean, what self-respecting thirty-something year old still lives with his mom at home? But in the end he salvages his reputation and steps up to the plate, and the message is a good one I guess.....nobody is perfect. As for heat?.....there was really none......no steam generated in this novel.....oh well.
April 29, 2013
This was an Amazon freebie and I had feeble hopes for it. But I was pleasantly surprised. I liked this book though the drama was a bit much. The plot was a dark one and made super uncomfortable often times. I scratched my head at Brynn's naiveté when she was younger. Then again, I didn't grow up in such a small judgmental town. Not sure how this town managed to stay stuck in the dark ages in terms of their mentalities towards women and small-town justice. And it did disturb me that while I liked Adam, he kept inadvertently hurting Brynn physically.
It appalling that Brynn was not properly educated on what constitutes consensual sex. I know it happens, but I guess it was still shocking. At any rate, it was sometimes difficult for me to relate to Brynn's past. I was disgusted at the action's of Adam's brother and the unwillingness of his mother to turn Zeke into the authorities. I'm also not a big fan of books in which a character refuses to tell a major secret, i.e.- your child's parentage. Adam's heartbreak over Brynn, his disillusionment with his seemingly perfect brother, and chasing down his brother's killer, was a page-turner. Ultimately, I couldn't put the book down and finished it in a night. I'd read another book by Crystal-Rain Love for sure.
It appalling that Brynn was not properly educated on what constitutes consensual sex. I know it happens, but I guess it was still shocking. At any rate, it was sometimes difficult for me to relate to Brynn's past. I was disgusted at the action's of Adam's brother and the unwillingness of his mother to turn Zeke into the authorities. I'm also not a big fan of books in which a character refuses to tell a major secret, i.e.- your child's parentage. Adam's heartbreak over Brynn, his disillusionment with his seemingly perfect brother, and chasing down his brother's killer, was a page-turner. Ultimately, I couldn't put the book down and finished it in a night. I'd read another book by Crystal-Rain Love for sure.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 17, 2013
I really enjoyed this story. It was a romance and a mystery all wrapped up in one. Brynn left town as a teenager when she became pregnant (it was a VERY conservative town) and she left her high school sweetheart behind without telling him any of her reasons for leaving. She left him broken. Fast forward 13 years and this small town has an arsonist on the loose. Brynn is an experienced PI and volunteer fire fighter and is brought in to assist the town's only fire investigator, Adam. Adam is the boy she left behind, but he is certainly not a boy anymore. They, obviously, find it hard to work together and it leads to lots of conflict and passion. One of the things that bugged me about the story was her reasons for keeping her secret. As you can figure, it all eventually comes out, but there are just some things that need to be shared, sooner rather than later and I hated that it took so long to come out. I was drawn in by Brynn and Adam, loved the supporting characters as well as the mystery that they worked to solve.
August 6, 2013
My actual rating for this one was 3 1/2 Stars
I’ve been on a Freebie kick lately. I’ve picked up a bunch and now I need to start reading some of the ones that I’ve had on my Kindle forever. Well, I guess 5 months isn’t exactly forever considering I have quite a few that have been around a lot longer than that, but I still feel like I’m making progress. Anyway, I’m glad that I picked this one up. It was a little bit different than some of the books that I’ve been reading and different is actually good.
Brynn and Adam were an interesting couple. Brynn left the town that she grew up in for a lot of reasons. Adam thought that he knew what they were, but he really didn’t have a clue. Brynn was a young kid when she left and thought she was doing the right thing. By the time she realized that she might have made a mistake, it was too late.
Adam was a good guy. He hated Brynn for what he thought she had done. Once they faced each other again though it was obvious that they still had feelings for each other. Halfway through this story I couldn’t put it down. My feelings kept going back and forth between the two characters. Sometimes I sympathized with Adam and got frustrated with Brynn, but it went both ways. They were both basically torturing each other and themselves and I really wanted to step in and tell them that they really needed to talk because they both had it wrong. *sigh*
There were a few rough spots. I guess the biggest one for me was that I couldn’t figure out how people didn’t know what was going on right under their noses. It was a small, tight community and being from a small, tight community I know for a fact that not much happens that everyone doesn’t know about. Other than that aspect, I really liked the twists, turns, deceit and revelations that took place. I liked most of the characters and the bad guys were really, really easy to hate. I also like the way that not everything was revealed right away. Readers were caught as off guard (at least this one was) about some of the revelations that the characters were. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. In The Fires Still Burns it worked for me. I’ll definitely be checking out more books by Crystal-Rain Love.
I’ve been on a Freebie kick lately. I’ve picked up a bunch and now I need to start reading some of the ones that I’ve had on my Kindle forever. Well, I guess 5 months isn’t exactly forever considering I have quite a few that have been around a lot longer than that, but I still feel like I’m making progress. Anyway, I’m glad that I picked this one up. It was a little bit different than some of the books that I’ve been reading and different is actually good.
Brynn and Adam were an interesting couple. Brynn left the town that she grew up in for a lot of reasons. Adam thought that he knew what they were, but he really didn’t have a clue. Brynn was a young kid when she left and thought she was doing the right thing. By the time she realized that she might have made a mistake, it was too late.
Adam was a good guy. He hated Brynn for what he thought she had done. Once they faced each other again though it was obvious that they still had feelings for each other. Halfway through this story I couldn’t put it down. My feelings kept going back and forth between the two characters. Sometimes I sympathized with Adam and got frustrated with Brynn, but it went both ways. They were both basically torturing each other and themselves and I really wanted to step in and tell them that they really needed to talk because they both had it wrong. *sigh*
There were a few rough spots. I guess the biggest one for me was that I couldn’t figure out how people didn’t know what was going on right under their noses. It was a small, tight community and being from a small, tight community I know for a fact that not much happens that everyone doesn’t know about. Other than that aspect, I really liked the twists, turns, deceit and revelations that took place. I liked most of the characters and the bad guys were really, really easy to hate. I also like the way that not everything was revealed right away. Readers were caught as off guard (at least this one was) about some of the revelations that the characters were. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. In The Fires Still Burns it worked for me. I’ll definitely be checking out more books by Crystal-Rain Love.
March 24, 2013
Backstory: dreams are dashed (for reasons I won't write because I don't want to give anything away) and a hoped-for path in life is demolished.
Current story: picking up the pieces of those demolished dreams when heroine and hero are forced back together.
A very emotional, heart-wrenching story of redemption that I enjoyed reading (I must have--I stayed up until 3 AM to finish it!). It is a page-turner with strong(ish) main characters. The hero and heroine clearly are smitten with one another and it's fun to see how they work through the trauma of both the past and present to finally be together.
I waffled back and forth between a 3 and 4 star rating because the secondary characters are all caricatures of personalities. There's the bible-thumpers, the surly-but-good-hearted sheriff, the golden-boy-who's-not-so-golden, etc. They all have a necessary role in the story but I would have preferred a bit more complexity and depth to their personalities. In particular, the hero comes from a pretty messed-up family but he is so gosh-darn normal. There has to be a reason for that--either he is extraordinarily heroic in overcoming the family background, or there were redeemable aspects to his family.
The Fire Still Burns could have easily been a 5-star book had there been a bit more depth/explanation to the characters' personalities. As is, it's a 3.5 rating.
I will definitely be reading more of this authors work!
Current story: picking up the pieces of those demolished dreams when heroine and hero are forced back together.
A very emotional, heart-wrenching story of redemption that I enjoyed reading (I must have--I stayed up until 3 AM to finish it!). It is a page-turner with strong(ish) main characters. The hero and heroine clearly are smitten with one another and it's fun to see how they work through the trauma of both the past and present to finally be together.
I waffled back and forth between a 3 and 4 star rating because the secondary characters are all caricatures of personalities. There's the bible-thumpers, the surly-but-good-hearted sheriff, the golden-boy-who's-not-so-golden, etc. They all have a necessary role in the story but I would have preferred a bit more complexity and depth to their personalities. In particular, the hero comes from a pretty messed-up family but he is so gosh-darn normal. There has to be a reason for that--either he is extraordinarily heroic in overcoming the family background, or there were redeemable aspects to his family.
The Fire Still Burns could have easily been a 5-star book had there been a bit more depth/explanation to the characters' personalities. As is, it's a 3.5 rating.
I will definitely be reading more of this authors work!
March 25, 2013
Free 3/18/13: 3.5 stars
This was not a bad story and it’s not that I did not like it but I found that it repeated a lot of thoughts by the h & H “I have to hide what happened so I don’t hurt Adam by telling him the truth about “so and so” or “why did you do it Brynn tell me what your hiding”
I personally don’t like the whole “lying for years and keeping secrets” from people that your suppose to love even if it will hurt them they need to know the truth. I like the mystery part of it, it was not edge of your seat and the chance at love again was ok. I really hate Adams mom she is a totally bitch.
I do give points because it reference Gatlinburg TN that was pretty cool (I live 30 minutes away) :)
This was not a bad story and it’s not that I did not like it but I found that it repeated a lot of thoughts by the h & H “I have to hide what happened so I don’t hurt Adam by telling him the truth about “so and so” or “why did you do it Brynn tell me what your hiding”
I personally don’t like the whole “lying for years and keeping secrets” from people that your suppose to love even if it will hurt them they need to know the truth. I like the mystery part of it, it was not edge of your seat and the chance at love again was ok. I really hate Adams mom she is a totally bitch.
I do give points because it reference Gatlinburg TN that was pretty cool (I live 30 minutes away) :)
March 26, 2013
I found this on Amazon for free. Was a pretty good read. The plot was also enough if felt new and exciting, and not as though I were reading another romance novel re-told and worn out familiarity. The author weaved an intriguing tale that left you wondering what was coming next and how things fit together and then tidied up all the loose ends in a satisfying manner by the conclusion of the book.
I especially enjoyed the way the author described the surroundings and her characters.
I especially enjoyed the way the author described the surroundings and her characters.
April 1, 2013
I could not put this book down. Didn't stop until I was at the end and my clock said 6:05 a.m. It had you confused, anxious, and ready to fight all in one. The plot was great and the story line was OMG. I suggest you read it to see what I am talking about.
Want to read
March 18, 2013Amazon freebie 3/18/13
March 22, 2013
Loved this one. There were tragic events but at the same time the love and heartbreak between the H and h seemed very real.
March 24, 2013
A very spell binding plot that drags you in and doesn't let go.
March 28, 2013
I love a good suspense, and this one is right on the top of my favorites! The story was great and the suspense kept me on my toes! Definitely one of my new fav's!!!
April 6, 2013
Very intense
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews