Never mess with a woman who carries a blowtorch in her backpack. Welder and artist Veronica “Flash” Redding’s playful sense of evil sometimes gets the better of her. Like when her insanely handsome, wealthy, suited-up boss gave her the most sensuously wicked night of her life…then dumped her. Yep, revenge is a dish best served hot.
Only Ian Asher isn’t quite letting Flash get away quite so easily. He’s not ready to forget the intensity between them. The searing heat when they touch. And the deliciously demanding control Ian wields in the bedroom. Now he has only the holidays to convince Flash that they belong together…and that even the most exquisite, broken things can be welded back together.
Review:
While I loved the first book in this series One Hot December was a so-so read for me. The snark and fireworks I expect from Reisz are here but it’s not a solid story.
The good:
- An own voices bisexual heroine, complete with spiky red hair and kick ass ink. Right on.
- Flash is unapologetically strong and goes after what she wants. As a welder at an all-male construction company she deals with a lot of crap but she gives as good as she gets.
- The mental strain of dealing with prejudice and harassment in the workplace is explicitly covered. Yes, Flash is doing a great job as a welder, but it saps her of the energy she needs to do her own metal art. Changing jobs wouldn’t be giving in or giving up, it would be getting what she wants.
- Feminism for the win.
“He couldn’t date a professional welder when he worked as a teller at a bank. His friends would never let him hear the end of it, he said. He just couldn’t date a woman, no matter how hot – his words, not mine – who came off as more of a man than he did. I said that was fine. I didn’t want to date a guy who was less of a man than I was, either. He called me a couple nice words after that and then he was gone. Good riddance to him and his poor little ego.”
- Everyone is reasonable and talks things out, from our couple to the hero’s father. While there is a misunderstanding it’s legit and not even between the hero and heroine.
- While Christmas is name checked and Hanukkah is a minor plot point it doesn’t feel like a “holiday romance”, which I really appreciate being agnostic myself. And two religions mashed together in one book without feeling religious is pretty awesome.
- Reisz’s snark is here in spades.
The not-so-good:
- Said snark is of the shocking, no-filter variety, which isn’t everybody’s thing.
- Flash and Ian have been lusting for each other since they met 18 months ago so we don’t see their relationship develop very much. ‘I thought you hated me!’ ‘Nope, I love you!’ ‘Oh, good!’ ~sexy times~
- Flash’s best friend is her downstairs neighbor, an elderly Jewish woman. That is neat, but I don’t care for her role in the story. Category romances often have a best friend that provides perspective and advice, but here it feels like allll advice, and of a motherly bent to boot. I wasn’t sold on it.
- There isn’t much of a plot. Hero and heroine state that they’ve actually been in love all this time and… that’s about it. I saw the misunderstanding from a hundred pages away so there was no suspense there, either.
A diverting read, but more enh than anything else.
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