FIRE RAISER

Author: Melanie Rawn ISBN: 9780765315335 4/2009 CONTEMPORARY/PARANORMAL Publisher: TOR

Holly McClure and Evan Lachlan have survived the fiery beginning of their romance and left Manhattan for Holly’s ancestral home to raise their children. Evan’s the county Sheriff; Holly is still a trouble-making Spellbinder trying to manipulate her family as if they were characters in one of her novels. But something’s not right in Pocahontas County. Churches are being burned down in mysterious arsons with a taint of magic on them. Sheriff Lachlan suspects that they have something to do with the new owners of the old Westmoreland plantation, now a very upscale Inn, but even if he could find proof, it’s going to be hard to bring a case of Black Magic before a Judge—even in Pocahontas County, where witchcraft is the family business of all the oldest clans.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

FIRE RAISER is a decent read, but definitely has a slower pace. No, I am not making a reference to down South, where it takes place. I simply mean that it is a character-driven read that moseys through each scene, really making sure everything is in place.

While I enjoy the interaction between the host of related characters, I do wish some of their history was segued into the story a bit better. At times, it comes together quite messily, and the dialogue can be hard to decipher. I am not good at bits and pieces of conversations, and since the main mystery of the story takes it time in getting good, I think there is plenty of opportunity for the characters to give me complete, coherent sentences. There are also places in the story worth reading twice, since it's unclear just what is going on. So, perhaps it's not just the dialogue that doesn't quite shape up the way I need it to.

Regardless of some of my aforementioned negatives, I do enjoy this group of Southerners (and New Yorker Evan), so I won't mind visiting them again. Let's just hope their next adventure isn't quite so slow going.

Shannon Johnson