BOOK REVIEW: Birthday Blaze by Kacey Shea

~Synopsis~

Brennan O’Shea might be every woman’s dream. 
Gorgeous. 
Single. 
Built like a tank and inked to perfection.
A fireman. Really, what else is there?
Yeah, he’s a fantasy brought to life if only it weren’t for one little problem. Okay, it’s a big one. He can’t talk to women. The more attractive the lady, the more words fail him. And his beautiful, friendly neighbor Jenny has Brennan lusting for more than chatty banter. Will a birthday wish give him a shot with the woman he wants? Or will his hopes go up in flames?

GOODREADS

~Review~

1 Star

Brennan O’Shea is dreading turning thirty. He’s still single, but he’d rather be settled down with his spunky neighbor next door, Jenny.  But things might turn around if he can have a dirty thirty with his big crush.

Told via Brennan’s sole point of view, the premise sounded cute. But it turned out to have two major issues that made the story a dud.

First, there is way too much OW drama for all the longer this short story is. I liked Jenny right off the bat when she was depicted as a no manwhore kind of girl. And Brennan is no manwhore so I have no idea why the story is loaded with so many details about his annoying ex.  

“All those weeks with Amber were worth something if I learned how to rock Jenny’s world.” 

That’s what Brennan is thinking when he’s going down on Jenny! Ugh, yuck—who needs those type of details?  If all the references to sex with Amber was meant to show that the guy is still talented in the sack despite being challenged in the conversation department then that could have easily been illustrated by showing the reader via the loves scenes between him and Jenny. But that doesn’t happen, which leads into my second issue with the story...

It ends abruptly just as Brennan and Jenny are about to do the deed!  So what the reader basically get is too many pages devoted to references to dating Amber and how she still makes him hard and very little in the way of relationship development between Brennan and Jenny other than some insta lust. The story stops at 50% with a HFN, and the rest of the pages are excerpts from other stories. I one-clicked this title as a freebie from Amazon; otherwise, I’d feel like it was a rip-off. 

All in all, even as a short story, this is completely underdeveloped. The characters had some potential, but there's not enough development there either, and the OW drama overshadows the hints at romance. 

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