Reviewed by Amber
TITLE: Afterburn
AUTHOR: E. Davies
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 244 pages
RELEASE DATE: August 1st, 2016
BLURB:
“I can’t let that part of me win.”
“This guy is boyfriend material.”
Santa Barbara firefighter Liam Knight is in hot water for showing up late after chasing yet another pretty guy into bed. It’s just an accident—Liam’s never let hookups get in the way of work before. He only agrees to therapy to keep the chief happy. When he bumps into a pretty guy working in the craft store below his apartment, Dylan seems like the perfect thing to relieve Liam’s stress… until he catches Liam’s interest and protective instinct, not just his eye.
“I’m not good enough for him.”
The only thing Dylan Waters needs less than the distraction of love is the alternative medicine his mother wants to foist him into. He’s juggling part-time jobs at a therapy office and craft store while attending college to become an art therapist. Worse, he’s about to transfer to a huge campus, but his childhood left him afraid of crowds. When hunky firefighter Liam blusters into his PTSD knitting support group, Dylan spots the familiar signs of a man hiding from his past, but he can’t stop thinking about him.
“It was nothing. I thought I was over it.”
It’s more than fleeting attraction between them, but Dylan’s stubborn fear of help and Liam’s low self-esteem are a deadly combination. When it all goes up in smoke, they only have themselves to blame. Can Liam get to Dylan in time to save him and the one relationship that could make him believe in love?
REVIEW:
Huh. I don’t know about this story. It was definitely not my favorite read, that’s for sure. A lot about this story confused me. It’s pretty boring and dragged a lot. The characters were flat and I never really understood or felt the connection between the two.
Liam Knight is a firefighter. He knows he hops from bed to bed but he never realizes there are some psychological issues involved until his boss forces him into counseling.
Dylan Waters knows what it’s like to struggle with personal demons. Wanting to help other’s he works part time at a therapy clinic while going to school to be a therapist. He also works part time at a craft store where he meets, Liam.
What I was hoping would be hot and steamy, these two take it incredibly slow and while I appreciate stories where the characters don’t hop into bed in the first few pages this story needed that sort of action right away because it was so slow moving that I just lost interest early on. Add that to the confusion in the plot and the unlikeable characters this was just not for me.
I didn’t understand Dylan, at all. I don’t get wanting to be a therapist while being anti-therapy. While I understand his anxiety was a huge issue he was incredibly neurotic about it. It got to the point where it was off-putting as a reader.
Liam was a little bit more likeable and I did appreciate how willing he was to overcome his personal issues even if he started it for the wrong reasons. His growth throughout the story was probably the most memorable thing about this book and that’s really not saying much.
Overall, it wasn’t for me but I have liked other stories by this author.
RATING: 
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