Review: Blue Smoke

Author: Nora Roberts

Series: Standalone

Released: July 7th 2015

Publisher: Berkley

Length: 464 pages

Source: Publisher for review

Buy: Amazon

Reena Hale’s destiny was shaped in the destructive—yet fascinatingly beautiful—fire that leveled her family’s pizzeria when she was young. Now an arson investigator, she finds her strength and wits constantly tested, although sometimes the job seems like a snap compared to her love life. But she can’t always blame the men. After all, a soot-caked woman barking orders and smelling of smoke isn’t the biggest turn-on in the world. Then she meets Bo Goodnight, who seems different. He’s been trying to find Reena for years, and now that she’s close enough to touch, he has no intention of letting go.

Nor does the man who has begun to haunt Reena’s life—with taunting phone calls and a string of horrifying crimes. And as Reena tries desperately to trace the origins—of the calls, the fires, the hatred aimed in her direction—she will step into the worst inferno she has ever faced… 

Nora’s books are one of my most reliable cures at times when my brain begs for a much needed rest. All of us readers have this amazing capacity to shut down and unplug, and for me, the best way to achieve this state of complete detachment from my everyday troubles is through one of Nora’s books. While I don’t much care for her paranormal work (PNR is just not my genre), no one writes romantic suspense better than she.

Blue Smoke is an old one, first released more than ten years ago, but aside from the years on each chapter, nothing about it seems outdated. It begins as Nora’s story so often do, with our heroine’s childhood and the traumatic event that will determine the course of her life. From the very beginning, Catarina Hale stands out among her brothers and sisters. She is intelligent, inquisitive and systematic, a child that is never really a child. When a fire takes away her family’s livelihood, Reena knows exactly what she wants to be when she grows up. Everything from that point on is just another step toward her desired career as a fire investigator.

We follow Reena through various stages of her life, from one traumatic event to the next. While her career is on an accelerated path, her love life is miserable from the start. Somehow Reena’s love interests, no matter how superficial, always end up dead, and their death always involves fire. It takes a while for Reena to connect the dots, but not so long to make us doubt her intelligence.

As usual, Nora gives us a strong, independent heroine. She doesn’t need a man to save her, and even when the right one comes along, she doesn’t just hand over the reins. If anything, Reena is reluctant to share her life, but Bo Goodnight is just a bit too hard to resist. As we follow Reena through her education and the beginnings of her career, Bo is always in the background, dreaming about the mysterious girl he’s never had a chance to meet. Even though he’s just a touch too perfect, as Nora’s heroes tend to be, he is precisely what our Reena needs. I adored these two together and I appreciated how much time Nora took to develop a true relationship between them.

Even when her books are not perfect, I never hesitate to recommend Nora – not that she needs my recommendation. The woman is simply magical. Sinking into her story is one of my favorite feelings in the world.

A copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher for review purposes. No considerations, monetary or otherwise, have influenced the opinions expressed in this review.