The Fire by May Archer _ Book Review

Title: The Fire
Author: May Archer
Length: 87k
Series: ​Love in O’Leary, book 4
Genre: MM contemporary

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BLURB

Jamie Parker Hoffstraeder is gorgeous, cocky, and totally irrational. He also broke my heart when he left town eleven years, four months, and twenty-eight days ago.

Not that I’m counting.

I don’t mind admitting it: I was young. I got burned. I learned my lesson.

But the guy swaggers back into O’Leary like he owns the damn place and suddenly I’m expected to welcome him to my town — to my life — like nothing’s changed?

Yeah, that I mind.

It’s only a matter of time until he’s gone again. And there’s no way I’ll give him a chance to take another piece of me when he goes.

PARKER

Jameson Burke is the most arrogant, infuriating human on the planet. He’s also taller, broader, and impossibly hotter than he was before I left town.

But, whatever. It’s fine. I can handle it.

Coming back to O’Leary was supposed to be like coming home. I hadn’t realized that there’s no statute of limitations on how long your first love and former best friend is allowed to hate your guts, or how much bad luck can befall a person in a short time.

But, I can handle that, too… or at least pretend to.

When Jamie and I are thrown together in a blizzard, though, everything changes in the space of one single, scorching night. Suddenly, I’m dreaming of a future I can’t have, and he’s stuck in a past he can’t let go. It feels like we’re playing with fire…

And this time I’m the one who’s gonna burn.

[I received a digital arc for an honest review]

“The past was the fire that forged you, that strengthened and weakened you, that molded and shaped you.”

If you haven’t read May Archer’s Love in O’Leary series, I am not sure what you’re waiting for because you’re missing out. The Fire is the 4th book in the series and it feels like us fans have been waiting for Parker and Jamie’s story forever! It had all the emotions and intensity that I expected it to have and I couldn’t be more happy about their story.

“Jamie and I were like sodium and water – two perfectly ordinary, stable beings on our own that exploded into brilliant fire when we were together.”

Jamie and Parker were best friends and so much more when they were younger. After Jamie breaks Parker’s heart, and he leaves the small town and returns a decade later. Parker has hope that they can somehow manage to be friends again but all Jamie has for him is anger and hate over him leaving all those years ago, even though he was the one who pushed him away to begin with. After a fire destroys Parker’s business, he has no place to live, and has made no progress in mending things with Jamie, he decides to time to say goodbye to O’Leary for once and for all. On his way out of town he gets stuck in a blizzard and is rescued by Jamie. Forced into each others company they realize feelings they thought were gone are as strong as ever. They are given a second chance but it won’t succeed if they don’t learn to communicate with each other and be honest with their hopes and fears.

“He made me insane, and he made me angry, but Jesus God, no one had ever, ever made me feel like I was flying outside my body the way Jamie did.”

Jamie and Parker’s relationship suffered from assumptions, making decisions for the other, and overall bad communication. They didn’t lack any compatibility in the bedroom. They definitely loved to push each others buttons and it increased the sexual tension between them. They were passionate and playful, always making things fun in someway. When Jamie and Parker finally start opening up and confronting what went wrong in the past, it was emotional and heartbreaking. Yet even when they acknowledge the past they still struggled when it came to their future.

“Every joke, every fight, every second I f*cking breathed around him increased the chances that I was gonna want him.”

May Archer has delivered an emotional story about two people who love each other but took the long way of getting to their happy.  The Fire is a second chance romance that will both hurt your heart and put a smile on your face.

“Sometimes you needed a fire to burn away what was to make room for whatever would come next.“