Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Nothing But Smoke
SERIES: Fire and Rain #3
AUTHOR: Daisy Harris
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing
LENGTH: 214 pages
BLURB:
Sometimes good boys do bad things.
Michael Larson considers himself one of the good guys. He recycles, eats mostly vegan, and volunteers. But one night, while on a jog through a Seattle park, he encounters a sexy man on a motorcycle he wants to be bad with.
Firefighter Nicky O’Brian barely has time to even think about a sex life. Between his job and caring for his critically ill mother, his only pleasures involve a few racy videos and occasional nighttime forays to find men willing to help him forget his troubles.
It was supposed to be a one-time, anonymous hookup—until fate intervenes and their mutual attraction blossoms into a furtive affair. Michael doesn’t date closeted guys, but for the haunted, lonely Nicky he makes an exception.
When Nicky’s mother takes a turn for the worse, Michael is forced to make a choice between idealism and compassion. And as Nicky’s needs spiral out of control, Michael realizes that a new set of ideals could be exactly what he needs to keep love in his life—for good.
REVIEW:
Michael knows that falling for guys in closets is a good way to get your heart broken. He learned that lesson rather well from his ex. So now he is rather adamant that all dates should be closet free. Not that that stops him from sucking off guys in parks, regardless of their closet-status–but blowjobs in wooded areas, does not a date make, so he figures it is better than the alternative: celibacy.
With everything going on with his life, Nicky just doesn’t have the time for the truth. Hell, he barely has time for a blowjob–what with his shifts at the fire department, and taking care of his terminally ill mother–but a man just needs a little relief now and again. And having something–even something a little sketchy–that doesn’t involve death, or pain, or responsibility is probably the only thing keeping him sane.
Michael will compromise his rules for no one–until he finds a man who blows him out of the water. Nicky will stay safe in his closet–until he finds someone who’d hold him when the doors come crashing down. But can either of them handle the pressure of lies, illness, and half-steps, when they have only just found each other?
I really liked this book, the third in Harris’s Fire and Rain series. In fact, I think I might have liked it more than either of the first two books. Nicky, and his mother, totally broke my heart, and despite the fact that I have never really liked Michael before, he really does shine in this book.
Michael comes across as a bit militant–in regards to what he considers the right way to be gay–in the previous books, but I think this book takes the time to show just why he acts that way. And after having dealt with the shit that his ex threw at him, I guess I get why he would never want to get involved with a dude with closet issues. There were times where I felt he might have been pushing a little too hard on Nicky–I mean the dude is having to deal with some heavy shit, he does not need you on his case right now–but I think his insistence did help Nicky see that the truth sometimes is a lot easier to handle than all the lies.
I didn’t know what to expect from Nicky, but this big firefighter was a bit of a shocker. Well, maybe not so much shock as pleasantly surprised. I’ve never been one to demand my MCs stick to ‘traditional’ roles (Big=Toppy; Small=Total Bottom), but still…there is something rather sexy about Nicky just letting go and letting Michael take care of him. I don’t think he could handle taking care of anyone else, at this point in his life. I have no doubts they will equalize more after they get past all this stuff going on during the book, but for now Nicky needs someone who will not try to take what little is left of his energy. And Michael doesn’t take–he shares. He helps Nicky, and while Nicky’s closet is something that Michael hates, he also starts to see why it is not quite as easy as renting a plane and sky-writing his sexuality all over the Seattle skyline.
I guess my only complaint is that the book kinda climaxed rather abruptly. The quick jump of time between several of the breaks, meant that I didn’t really get to see the relationship grow as much as I would have liked. They went from tentative truce to basically moving in with each other, and I wish I had got a chance to see them take that road, instead of this jumping straight to point B. It also didn’t help that the book ends at like 90% of the book content length on my kindle. I think I was just expecting there to be more, and when it ended I kept wanting to shake my kindle to find the missing chapter.
But this book did have me in tears, and both Nicky and Michael were great characters, as much as this was a great story. There wasn’t much of the fire-fighting aspect in this book, so if you are looking for something that is a little heavier on the actual work aspect, you should be aware of that. But this is a quick, good, book, and I highly recommend you pick this one up–even if you haven’t read the two other books in the series.
RATING: 
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