Hot Point

June 15, 2015
The sparks are both literal and figurative in Buchman’s fourth Firehawks romantic thriller (after Full Blaze), which continues to pair off the members of the Mount Hood Aviation firefighting team. There’s a clash of egos and a crash of emotions between ace Firehawk pilot Vern Taylor and chief mechanic Denise Conroy after an unexpected mutual attraction brings them together in the bedroom as well as in the field. Their newfound romance is stretched to the limits when a special mission takes them to Central America, where they wind up in the middle of a war, with danger in every direction. As always, Buchman excels at character development and romantic chemistry, his leads sympathetic and compelling. His writing borders on poetic, rich with emotion and depth, and he fleshes out the story with attention to technical details. However, the plot risks becoming formulaic, sharing many structural similarities and story beats with previous installments, and readers may feel déjà vu as the characters enter a relationship, make love in the wilderness, and go home for a short period before the next act begins. Nevertheless, this satisfies as a romance and a thriller.

Starred review from July 1, 2015
Vern Taylor is a helicopter pilot for Mount Hood Aviation, the elite firefighters unit led by former Night Hawks Mark Henderson and Emily Beale. Denise Conroy is the chief mechanic and considered by most of the single guysexcept Vernto be some sort of iron maiden. The story of Vern and Denise coming together as lovers, as she emerges from the shell induced by losing her mother at a very young age, is one of Buchman's (Light Up the Night, 2014) best because of the care with which he portrays and makes the reader love his characters, and also because of his wonderful and very apt endings. In between, the two fly in Honduras during their off-season at home, ostensibly putting out fires but also assisting during a coup attempt under MHA's black ops second contract. As usual, the book has everything one can now call signature Buchman: great characters, a wonderful love story, strong and accomplished women, good action plotting, great technical details, suspense, and some cameo appearances by characters from previous tales. A sure bet for all of his regular fans as well as any deprived military-romance readers who haven't yet found Buchman on their own.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)