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Gamble Brothers #1
Into the Fire
Praised by Catherine Coulter for her "wild" and reckless romantic suspense, Jessica Hall once more takes readers close to the edge. A warehouse fire in New Orleans' French Quarter kills a local politician-and ignites intrigue and pent-up passion between former lovers...
304 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 2, 2004
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243 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
April 12, 2023
2.5. Disappointed there were scenes where the guy has sex with a woman that are borderline unconsented.
May 4, 2025
ไฟไหม้เยอะสมชื่อเรื่อง เป็น romantic suspense ที่พาร์ท suspense สนุกใช้ได้ ดำเนินเรื่องเร็ว คดีพลิกไปมา แต่ romance คือบ่าได้เลย พระเอกนางเอกเคยเป็นแฟนกันสมัยมหาลัยแต่โดนแม่พระเอกกีดกัน+เพื่อนพระเอกรุมเหยียด สุดท้ายนางเอกโดนบุลลี่จนทิ้งพระเอกไปอยู่ที่อื่นแบบไม่มีคำอธิบายใดๆ กลับมาเจอกันอีกทีในหลายปีต่อมา พระเอกเป็นตำรวจ มาเจอนางเอกในที่เกิดเหตุเพลิงไหม้ พระเอกโกรธนางเอกที่จู่ๆ ก็ทิ้งกันไปไม่บอกกล่าว แต่ในใจยังรักอยู่เลยตั้งใจจะคืนดีให้ได้
สรุปคือมันเป็น second chance ที่พระเอกนางเอกเลิกกันไปทั้งที่ยังรัก และมีการผิดใจกันเพราะไม่ communicate ตอนต้นเรื่องปู romance มาดีเลย แต่ไปๆ มาๆ เหมือนคนเขียนตั้งใจเขียน suspense มากไปจนไม่รู้จะหาทางลงให้ romance ยังไง จู่ๆ พระเอกนางเอกก็กลับมาคืนดีกันง่ายมากแบบไม่ได้แก้ปัญหาอะไรเลย ไม่มีการปรับความเข้าใจใดๆ รู้ตัวอีกทีรักกันหวานชื่นแล้ว เหมือนเล่าเรื่องว่า ABC แล้วจู่ๆ กระโดดไป Z เลย แม่พระเอกที่ปูมาว่าเกลียดนางเอกอย่างโง้นอย่างงี้ก็เปลี่ยนท่าทีง่ายเว่อ อ่านแล้วงงว่า just like that??? แถมเล่าเรื่องคู่รอง (ที่เป็นพระเอกนางเอกในเล่ม 2) เยอะมาก แต่ก็นั่นแหละ suspense มันก็เพลินๆ ดี เลยพอประคับประคองไปได้จนจบเล่ม
สรุปคือมันเป็น second chance ที่พระเอกนางเอกเลิกกันไปทั้งที่ยังรัก และมีการผิดใจกันเพราะไม่ communicate ตอนต้นเรื่องปู romance มาดีเลย แต่ไปๆ มาๆ เหมือนคนเขียนตั้งใจเขียน suspense มากไปจนไม่รู้จะหาทางลงให้ romance ยังไง จู่ๆ พระเอกนางเอกก็กลับมาคืนดีกันง่ายมากแบบไม่ได้แก้ปัญหาอะไรเลย ไม่มีการปรับความเข้าใจใดๆ รู้ตัวอีกทีรักกันหวานชื่นแล้ว เหมือนเล่าเรื่องว่า ABC แล้วจู่ๆ กระโดดไป Z เลย แม่พระเอกที่ปูมาว่าเกลียดนางเอกอย่างโง้นอย่างงี้ก็เปลี่ยนท่าทีง่ายเว่อ อ่านแล้วงงว่า just like that??? แถมเล่าเรื่องคู่รอง (ที่เป็นพระเอกนางเอกในเล่ม 2) เยอะมาก แต่ก็นั่นแหละ suspense มันก็เพลินๆ ดี เลยพอประคับประคองไปได้จนจบเล่ม
August 16, 2012
Sigh. There is a target audience for this genre. I'm not it. When I see the phrase "romantic suspense" on the back cover, I should know not to be sucked in by the "suspense" part, but to take warning from the "romance". My eyes hurt from all their rolling at the cliche'd dominating male who is sexually irresistible to the plucky female (not one pair but two, with the men being brothers, of course!) The plot itself isn't bad - the villain of the piece was predictable, but not sickeningly so - and the setting (New Orleans and nearby Cajun settlement) was interesting to me because I know nothing about it. Liked the chatter in dialectal French - well-handled, I thought; always sufficiently paraphrased for the non-French-speaking. I hope there aren't really so many devastating fires and vengeful firebugs in New Orleans!
The set piece climax (as it were), and probably what those who like this sort of thing will go back and re-read again and again, was an oh-so-extended piece of bondage-and-exhibitionism, in-costume sex on a parade float. Dubious consent (despite interminably insisted-upon arousal) all the way. Yuck. Just yuck. Ditto various other sex and near-sex scenes that always seemed to get muddled up with gun-wielding or threatened violence somehow or other.
Ah well, when you hastily pick up a stack of paperbacks for subway reading at a church booksale (yes, indeed, that's where I got it - hardly surprising...), you're bound to make a couple of poor choices.
The set piece climax (as it were), and probably what those who like this sort of thing will go back and re-read again and again, was an oh-so-extended piece of bondage-and-exhibitionism, in-costume sex on a parade float. Dubious consent (despite interminably insisted-upon arousal) all the way. Yuck. Just yuck. Ditto various other sex and near-sex scenes that always seemed to get muddled up with gun-wielding or threatened violence somehow or other.
Ah well, when you hastily pick up a stack of paperbacks for subway reading at a church booksale (yes, indeed, that's where I got it - hardly surprising...), you're bound to make a couple of poor choices.
March 19, 2023
Zero star is too generous but it's a shame that the option isn't at least available. I just made an account right now to warn anyone who may be thinking about reading this and save them a few precious hours out of their lives. I had to put my sentiments somewhere because otherwise I would be cursing from here to eternity.
Seriously, where to start? [MILDLY SPOILERY THROUGHOUT]
I picked this book up by mistake trying to (also misguidedly) revisit its Gamble brother companion (Heat of the Moment) which I read more than a decade ago as a young adult. Hadn't realized this was a book #1. I clearly had not realized how horrible #2 was back then (and I'm heading over to review it too), but #1 surpasses it by lightyears.
Writing
First is the zigzagging between multiple points of view, as practically every character who's given a name is featured, which just limits the development of the main two characters in the so-called romance. I frankly skimmed through other people's POVs because they often didn't add anything new or useful--they were just frustrating.
The suspense was genuinely there for a sec (partly because of the POVs and partly because the whole thing unfolds in about 3 to 4 days). But due to a villain that is a full psychopath who's being protected by the heroine (go figure), you lose interest quick. I stayed because I couldn't believe it was this bad.
The French is absolutely dégoutant (that is to say, revolting, to pick up of the terrible way French is inserted in the book). No one who came into contact with this book at all levels of its publication understands what being bilingual means. People don't just go around throwing out phrases and then translating them to the non-bilingual in the group. So awkward! But the French itself was a full insult to the language and anyone who so much as cares about grammar. It's like they translated using a dictionary, word by word. Terrible use of pronouns, conjugation, adverbs--everything. No one speak like that. I know people in Louisiana would speak a different French than I given the history, but even in that case it would still make sense and not read like they are just spilling out words.
Again, I was intrigued by the mystery, but only peripherally, as I genuinely thought people and plot would improve as they went and that I'd care more. I hoped that there would be a reckoning for the 'good guys', as well as the bad guys. But nope. My bad for expecting better. You instead [SPOILER] a get a public announcement of a proposal as the hero had hoped with the previous girlfriend, and no reckoning for the fact that a woman amongst them, treated like a flower just five pages before, hired a person to burn her husband's mistress and their months old infant alive. Les bons temps must roll, I guess.
Hero and heroine
The hero is an egotistical rich kid turned cop who was destined for office, but who gave it up for fuzzy broken heart and hero worship reasons. He treats the heroine worse than a cheap prostitute most of the time, when he isn't busy threatening her with physical harm and abusing his power as the football jock on campus (in their past) and as a police lieutenant in charge of a case she's involved with (in their present). He is a basic idiot and I'm surprised he made Lieutenant, but then they seem to live in a la la land where his family name is equal to royalty. All this is painted as love and passion instead of what it is: abusive and controlling. He lacks self reflection and never chooses to heed a no or pure fear from the heroine.
The heroine is a wet blanket with not much personality who is just very pretty, pale, redheaded, and desperately in love. She is poor and comes from the bayou. She is understandably intimidated and terrorized most of the time since someone tried to burn her alive (to the great lack of sympathy from anyone!), when she isn't busy being aroused by a simple touch from the hero and forgetting that he is a brute who abused of his power way back then, led to his rich friends turning her life into shambles, and who is still doing so now.
Romance
They have a history, but while the immaturity of their young love is almost understandable, the fact that his friends bullied her (and one sexually assaulted her) doesn't seem to matter in the end. She neither tells him this, ten years on, when he's acting like he was the victim in all of it; it literally never comes up once he finds out from his current girlfriend (whom he may or may not be cheating on with the heroine since he only breaks up afterwads) who was part of it, and instead is out for revenge for her leaving him. Of course, he is under the impression that she was the villain and that she, by herself, antagonized his multiple dear, cowardly friends (who BTW were motivated by his classist, cruel mother). That he is still friends with them doesn't come up when he decides for her that she is now his. He explicitly thinks SHE is the one who wronged HIM and his poor friends and can't see past this. And she never confronts him even once even though we're treated to flashbacks all book long. And she thinks about all the time and her family knows.
He also has a horrible family, with the most self centered entitled mother ever, yet the author wants us to believe that he is different because his dad is a chill dude. With a brother who is also in a position of power and who treats his love interest like dog poop under his shoe, these mysogynistic apples clearly fell close to the mother tree. They are entitled upper class men who are angry at a world that ironically unfolds at their feet. The family and everyone else all seem to live in a Marxist nightmare where Cajun people are to be treated like scum until proven otherwise. The social commentary just loses its bite when none of these stuck-up people (who can't let go of pre-revolution past) even seem to question the world they inhabit with their debutantes, balls, gowns, and traditional parties. Their father is supposedly great, but he is married to an elitist Karen and one cannot fathom how if he is not an ignoramus too. To return to the mother: she is just plain catastrophic, purely convinced everyone is after her poor boy(s) and even goes on television to declare the heroine a con artist and scum. There is a lot of references to Gone with the Wind so you get the picture.
Not a single person apologizes to the heroine for treatment she suffered under them. Not the police, the media which literally sent her to the hospital while hounding her, the hero (of course) and the mother who is suddenly her biggest fan--out of nowhere-- yet only cares about class and pedigree. The one person who does is quickly forgiven by the martyr heroine because she seemed uncomfortable with things at the time (being one of the infamous group of friends). Poor her, right? Never felt the urge to confess even when her friend was suffering though. Instead she dated all his brothers and then him eventually?
Anyway, there is also never a conversation about how the hero uses sex to control the heroine and how he is friends with the kind of rich socialites who, in senior year of college (we're not talking middle school here!), verbally and physically terrorized a girl so badly she lost university scholarship for trying to defend herself. I have read simple romance novels with upper class people set in the Victorian past with more conscience than this filth. Pre-ghosts scrooge would love these people! And I haven't talked about the sex yet.
The hero just forces himself on her in freaking public, while she is physically retrained, in a manner that would constitute very reasonable grounds for a rape charge (but it's ok because she was aroused and makes him call it making love, after saying no so many times!). This is after first forcefully kissing her while she was in police holding and another time right after she is publicly sexually harassed by another man. The hero just feels jealousy instead. The hero literally threatens her with a beating while she's under supposed police custody, and after not having talked to her in 10 years, and holds her by the throat in front of his partner (who does squat) during interrogation! (The heroine supposedly can't have a lawyer present because she's just a witness and had not been charged of anything. She is also not treated for her wounds which are so bad that when she finally goes to hospital the doctor thinks the hero who bought her is a domestic abuser.). Most disappointing of all is that once he opens his pants, the heroine is immediately pleasantly/appropriately submissive, melts, and thus turns him on more while she proceed to throw her remaining braincells out the window.
tl.dr: Save yourself the time unless you are seeking novels that's have wacky mysteries, abusive/controlling/violent/jealous men disguised as loving who never reflect in it, heroines whose only trait is passivity, and disturbing non-consensual sex scenes disguised as love. I'm not a prude and enjoy a colourful, explicit romance thriller with a side of dom/sub thrown in. This ain't it. A judge should be drafting warrants for most of the characters ASAP. It's an insult to masculinity, femininity, family, the Cajun, ther creole, the French language, New Orleans, history, thrillers, suspense, love, sex, and activism. We already know that ACAB so at least that is confirmed here.
Seriously, where to start? [MILDLY SPOILERY THROUGHOUT]
I picked this book up by mistake trying to (also misguidedly) revisit its Gamble brother companion (Heat of the Moment) which I read more than a decade ago as a young adult. Hadn't realized this was a book #1. I clearly had not realized how horrible #2 was back then (and I'm heading over to review it too), but #1 surpasses it by lightyears.
Writing
First is the zigzagging between multiple points of view, as practically every character who's given a name is featured, which just limits the development of the main two characters in the so-called romance. I frankly skimmed through other people's POVs because they often didn't add anything new or useful--they were just frustrating.
The suspense was genuinely there for a sec (partly because of the POVs and partly because the whole thing unfolds in about 3 to 4 days). But due to a villain that is a full psychopath who's being protected by the heroine (go figure), you lose interest quick. I stayed because I couldn't believe it was this bad.
The French is absolutely dégoutant (that is to say, revolting, to pick up of the terrible way French is inserted in the book). No one who came into contact with this book at all levels of its publication understands what being bilingual means. People don't just go around throwing out phrases and then translating them to the non-bilingual in the group. So awkward! But the French itself was a full insult to the language and anyone who so much as cares about grammar. It's like they translated using a dictionary, word by word. Terrible use of pronouns, conjugation, adverbs--everything. No one speak like that. I know people in Louisiana would speak a different French than I given the history, but even in that case it would still make sense and not read like they are just spilling out words.
Again, I was intrigued by the mystery, but only peripherally, as I genuinely thought people and plot would improve as they went and that I'd care more. I hoped that there would be a reckoning for the 'good guys', as well as the bad guys. But nope. My bad for expecting better. You instead [SPOILER] a get a public announcement of a proposal as the hero had hoped with the previous girlfriend, and no reckoning for the fact that a woman amongst them, treated like a flower just five pages before, hired a person to burn her husband's mistress and their months old infant alive. Les bons temps must roll, I guess.
Hero and heroine
The hero is an egotistical rich kid turned cop who was destined for office, but who gave it up for fuzzy broken heart and hero worship reasons. He treats the heroine worse than a cheap prostitute most of the time, when he isn't busy threatening her with physical harm and abusing his power as the football jock on campus (in their past) and as a police lieutenant in charge of a case she's involved with (in their present). He is a basic idiot and I'm surprised he made Lieutenant, but then they seem to live in a la la land where his family name is equal to royalty. All this is painted as love and passion instead of what it is: abusive and controlling. He lacks self reflection and never chooses to heed a no or pure fear from the heroine.
The heroine is a wet blanket with not much personality who is just very pretty, pale, redheaded, and desperately in love. She is poor and comes from the bayou. She is understandably intimidated and terrorized most of the time since someone tried to burn her alive (to the great lack of sympathy from anyone!), when she isn't busy being aroused by a simple touch from the hero and forgetting that he is a brute who abused of his power way back then, led to his rich friends turning her life into shambles, and who is still doing so now.
Romance
They have a history, but while the immaturity of their young love is almost understandable, the fact that his friends bullied her (and one sexually assaulted her) doesn't seem to matter in the end. She neither tells him this, ten years on, when he's acting like he was the victim in all of it; it literally never comes up once he finds out from his current girlfriend (whom he may or may not be cheating on with the heroine since he only breaks up afterwads) who was part of it, and instead is out for revenge for her leaving him. Of course, he is under the impression that she was the villain and that she, by herself, antagonized his multiple dear, cowardly friends (who BTW were motivated by his classist, cruel mother). That he is still friends with them doesn't come up when he decides for her that she is now his. He explicitly thinks SHE is the one who wronged HIM and his poor friends and can't see past this. And she never confronts him even once even though we're treated to flashbacks all book long. And she thinks about all the time and her family knows.
He also has a horrible family, with the most self centered entitled mother ever, yet the author wants us to believe that he is different because his dad is a chill dude. With a brother who is also in a position of power and who treats his love interest like dog poop under his shoe, these mysogynistic apples clearly fell close to the mother tree. They are entitled upper class men who are angry at a world that ironically unfolds at their feet. The family and everyone else all seem to live in a Marxist nightmare where Cajun people are to be treated like scum until proven otherwise. The social commentary just loses its bite when none of these stuck-up people (who can't let go of pre-revolution past) even seem to question the world they inhabit with their debutantes, balls, gowns, and traditional parties. Their father is supposedly great, but he is married to an elitist Karen and one cannot fathom how if he is not an ignoramus too. To return to the mother: she is just plain catastrophic, purely convinced everyone is after her poor boy(s) and even goes on television to declare the heroine a con artist and scum. There is a lot of references to Gone with the Wind so you get the picture.
Not a single person apologizes to the heroine for treatment she suffered under them. Not the police, the media which literally sent her to the hospital while hounding her, the hero (of course) and the mother who is suddenly her biggest fan--out of nowhere-- yet only cares about class and pedigree. The one person who does is quickly forgiven by the martyr heroine because she seemed uncomfortable with things at the time (being one of the infamous group of friends). Poor her, right? Never felt the urge to confess even when her friend was suffering though. Instead she dated all his brothers and then him eventually?
Anyway, there is also never a conversation about how the hero uses sex to control the heroine and how he is friends with the kind of rich socialites who, in senior year of college (we're not talking middle school here!), verbally and physically terrorized a girl so badly she lost university scholarship for trying to defend herself. I have read simple romance novels with upper class people set in the Victorian past with more conscience than this filth. Pre-ghosts scrooge would love these people! And I haven't talked about the sex yet.
The hero just forces himself on her in freaking public, while she is physically retrained, in a manner that would constitute very reasonable grounds for a rape charge (but it's ok because she was aroused and makes him call it making love, after saying no so many times!). This is after first forcefully kissing her while she was in police holding and another time right after she is publicly sexually harassed by another man. The hero just feels jealousy instead. The hero literally threatens her with a beating while she's under supposed police custody, and after not having talked to her in 10 years, and holds her by the throat in front of his partner (who does squat) during interrogation! (The heroine supposedly can't have a lawyer present because she's just a witness and had not been charged of anything. She is also not treated for her wounds which are so bad that when she finally goes to hospital the doctor thinks the hero who bought her is a domestic abuser.). Most disappointing of all is that once he opens his pants, the heroine is immediately pleasantly/appropriately submissive, melts, and thus turns him on more while she proceed to throw her remaining braincells out the window.
tl.dr: Save yourself the time unless you are seeking novels that's have wacky mysteries, abusive/controlling/violent/jealous men disguised as loving who never reflect in it, heroines whose only trait is passivity, and disturbing non-consensual sex scenes disguised as love. I'm not a prude and enjoy a colourful, explicit romance thriller with a side of dom/sub thrown in. This ain't it. A judge should be drafting warrants for most of the characters ASAP. It's an insult to masculinity, femininity, family, the Cajun, ther creole, the French language, New Orleans, history, thrillers, suspense, love, sex, and activism. We already know that ACAB so at least that is confirmed here.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 30, 2012
I like Lynn Viehl's dark PNRs (Darkyn series and related spin offs), so when I heard she had written earlier romantic suspense books under a different name I gave this one a try. I was glad I did--I really enjoyed this book. Good mix of mystery, suspense and romance. Although I had some nits, I liked it enough to order the next book. These are older so you can get them cheap used.
April 7, 2022
ชวนให้ติดตามอยู่ แต่ไม่ถึงขนาดวางไม่ลง ปมของเรื่องก็คลายง่ายเกิ๊น
December 3, 2014
synopsis:
sabel is a girl from the bayoux, who once fell in love with a cajun elite man. his mother didn't approve, and while she never came out and said so, encouraged jd's friends to be mean to sable and discourage her from being in jd's life. the night of a major dance, jd is delayed, and his friends and social equals head over to sabel's dorm to discourage her. they throw mud, taunt her, tell her that she will never be good enough. by the time jd gets there, all he understands is that sabel has attacked his friends without reason, and he blames her. sabel runs away, and has nothing to do with jd after that. several years later, sabel is involved in a fire that kills a well known figure. she manages to escape the building, but as jd is now a detective on the police force, is put on his radar once again.
what i liked: i liked the way the relationship built between sabel and jd. even though they were both hurt by the other, they couldn't deny the attraction or the love that had been and was still between them. i liked the fact that jd didn't believe anything bad about sabel, even though he hadn't found out what his friends had done to her. i also liked that sabel wasn't the one to tell him; that he found out inadvertently through someone who had been there.
what i didn't like: i understand that the bullying had been building up to the point where everyone ran her down, but sabel's reaction seemed extreme. why wouldn't she listen to jd or explain? if she hadn't been involved with the fire, they would have never met up again? was it really worth throwing away their love of a lifetime?
sabel is a girl from the bayoux, who once fell in love with a cajun elite man. his mother didn't approve, and while she never came out and said so, encouraged jd's friends to be mean to sable and discourage her from being in jd's life. the night of a major dance, jd is delayed, and his friends and social equals head over to sabel's dorm to discourage her. they throw mud, taunt her, tell her that she will never be good enough. by the time jd gets there, all he understands is that sabel has attacked his friends without reason, and he blames her. sabel runs away, and has nothing to do with jd after that. several years later, sabel is involved in a fire that kills a well known figure. she manages to escape the building, but as jd is now a detective on the police force, is put on his radar once again.
what i liked: i liked the way the relationship built between sabel and jd. even though they were both hurt by the other, they couldn't deny the attraction or the love that had been and was still between them. i liked the fact that jd didn't believe anything bad about sabel, even though he hadn't found out what his friends had done to her. i also liked that sabel wasn't the one to tell him; that he found out inadvertently through someone who had been there.
what i didn't like: i understand that the bullying had been building up to the point where everyone ran her down, but sabel's reaction seemed extreme. why wouldn't she listen to jd or explain? if she hadn't been involved with the fire, they would have never met up again? was it really worth throwing away their love of a lifetime?
February 1, 2010
Overall, this was a decent book. The float scene was a little unexpected. My main problem with the book was all the French! I couldn't understand it and sometimes it was translated and sometimes it wasn't.
August 2, 2012
อ่านจากเล่มแปล "เพลิงร้ายไฟรัก"
อ่านได้เพลิน ๆ
ฮีอต ๆ ดีค่ะ
แต่มั่นใจว่าตัดทอนแน่นอน
อ่านแล้วไม่ค่อยเนียนเท่าไหร่
แต่เนื้อเรื่อง พล็อต การดำเนินเรื่อง ตัวละคร
ค่อนข้างประทับใจเลยทีเดียว
ให้ 3.5 ดาว
อ่านได้เพลิน ๆ
ฮีอต ๆ ดีค่ะ
แต่มั่นใจว่าตัดทอนแน่นอน
อ่านแล้วไม่ค่อยเนียนเท่าไหร่
แต่เนื้อเรื่อง พล็อต การดำเนินเรื่อง ตัวละคร
ค่อนข้างประทับใจเลยทีเดียว
ให้ 3.5 ดาว
August 22, 2019
Die Geschichte hatte Potenzial, wurde allerdings durch einen Schreibstil der mir nicht gefallen hat, und starke Konzentration auf die „Erotik“ zerstört. So schnell bin ich lange kein Buch mehr losgeworden. Zu Ende gelesen habe ich es allerdings und es konnte mich dennoch nicht überzeugen.
October 10, 2011
3.5 stars
July 15, 2010
Contemporary romantic suspense from Viehl writing as Jessica Hall. Well paced. Interesting characters.
September 2, 2010
Amazing story-line and memorable characters. I could keep reading this book many times and it still feels like the first time. Love it!
July 21, 2012
it would have been better if she had left out the porn
2012
April 20, 20154.8*
February 24, 2020
Лека книжка, романтичен трилър е "В огъня" на Джесика Хол. Чете се общо взето спокойно, краят ми беше неочакван. Има убийства, преследвания, любов - типичен сюжет за такъв жанр.
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