Reviewed by Taylin
TITLE: Burn Patterns
SERIES: First In Line #1
AUTHOR: Declan Rhodes
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 274 pages
RELEASE DATE: February 8, 2025
BLURB:
Some fires can’t be contained. Some obsessions never burn out.
Firefighter Marcus McCabe knows fire. He knows its hunger, its unpredictability, the way it takes without mercy. But nothing has ever felt as dangerous as the man watching him from the flames.
When a series of arsons turns personal, Marcus is forced to work with James Reynolds, a forensic psychologist with sharp instincts and a past he doesn’t talk about. Their chemistry is immediate—raw, undeniable, and completely reckless. James sees patterns where others don’t, and the deeper they dig, the clearer it becomes: the arsonist isn’t just setting fires. He’s leaving messages. For Marcus.
The case should be Marcus’s sole focus, but with his first responder family watching his every move and the weight of his late father’s legacy pressing down on him, his life is already a balancing act of duty and expectation. James isn’t part of the plan—he’s a complication, a risk, and maybe the only person who sees Marcus for who he really is.
As the heat between them intensifies, so does the danger. With the city on edge and a predator closing in, Marcus and James have to decide what they fear more—the monster in the fire, or the one inside themselves.
Burn Patterns is a 66,000-word firefighter romance with romantic suspense and psychological thriller elements. It includes hurt/comfort and opposites attract themes with a guaranteed happily ever after.
REVIEW:
Fires are being set with a message, but what and who is it for? Nevertheless, the target is clear – they’re for Marcus. James is an expert in patterns. He profiles their message and where it leads. But the moment Marcus and James lay eyes on each other, it sparks another journey – one they may not survive.
I picked up this story because who doesn’t love a good firefighter story? Also, Burn Patterns is the first of a psychological thriller series that looks to be individual stories with a first responder theme. My interest was piqued, and while there is much to like about the tale, there were story constructional elements that didn’t gel with my reading mindset. Ultimately, these factors overshadowed my appreciation for the thriller. Hence, my middle-of-the-road review rating.
The story is told in the first person, present tense, from the viewpoints of Marcus and James. As this tale is a psychological thriller, much of the world-building focuses on the mental aspects of the characters within fire-ravaged buildings, investigative developments, and those considered family. The scene setting, plus the mental toll of the crime and its fallout, is superbly written. Showing the reader what’s going on in a person’s head adds a level of engagement with the character and, by extension, the story.
Marcus is a Seattle firefighter and the oldest of four brothers who held his family together after his father’s death. At the ripe old age of thirty-two (to me, that’s a whippersnapper), Marcus followed in his father’s footsteps into the fire service and strives to be the best he can be. Being part of a cohesive family is frequently iterated, selectively adhered to and often ignored.
James specialized in the behavior of fire crime. A specialism born of intimate experience of the crime, which added to his childhood experiences, left him mentally scarred, often retreating to the solace of science. The connection between the big, tough firefighter and the geek was lovely. Via the ping-pong process of being all in vs pulling back, one helps the other, proving there is mental toughness and physical. James has less of an accessible past than the blurb suggests as, at a nudge from Marcus, information flows.
As cited earlier, there were elements omitted from the story that disagreed with my reading tastes. When all is said and done, as well as being a thriller, the chosen subject matter deemed it an official investigation, too, or James wouldn’t be there. Given where clues were left, there would have been CCTV coverage or cordons that no one should cross. These aspects were not mentioned or acknowledged until a significant way through the book. Similarly, secrets were kept, and people avoided, as though the main characters were working alone and not part of an organization that values procedure. Selective isolation and jumping from one situation to the next with no sentence of connection, timeline or explanation may be essential factors in thriller writing. Still, it bugged the bejesus out of me. Other instances of annoyance were when Marcus was to stay with a colleague, and the following paragraph had him opening the door to James from his own apartment. In another place, a man was physically on the floor, then being tackled to the ground again, with nothing but an assumption that he freed himself from two others and stood. Other examples of frustration exist, too. These gaps, with no sentence of justification, dimmed my view of the story. I understand that going off-piste and secrets add an element of adrenaline, but I prefer there to be a smidge of a sentence of reasoning. Maybe everything that was supposed to happen – did (behind the scenes). Nevertheless, having to assume these things made me an unhappy bunny, and this story, not my cup of tea. But I can appreciate others wanting more.
RATING: 
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