Review: Hidden Fire
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 17, 2012
Jenna and Garreth have been in love with each other for two years, but never acted on it due to a promise that Jenna and her twin brother had. After horrible lies were told about the twins when they were high school by Jenna's then best friend, Jenna and Jackson made a vow to never date each others friends. For years they held to this until Jackson fell for Rachel, Jenna's best friend, while Jenna fell for Garreth, who is friends with Jackson.The first novella in the series, Winter Fire, was Jackson refusing to be with Rachel to honor the promise. Garreth is there, sees what's happening and what Rachel and Jackson are trying to avoid, and he, uh...puts himself in the middle. He sleeps with Rachel, Jackson sees red and finally stops hiding his feelings for Rachel. We're left with a very happy couple in Jackson and Rachel, but then there's Garreth, who's completely in love with Jenna and is tired of not having a chance with her.Hidden Fire opens with Jenna and Jackson talking about their promise to not date each other friends and Jackson coming clean about being with Rachel. With the promise forgotten, Jenna runs to Garreth only to have reality slammed in her face when she learns that he slept with her best friend that same weekend. I'm not really into a guy sleeping with the friend of the woman he loves the same weekend he's finally declaring his love for said woman. For as much as I enjoyed Winter Fire, I had to put that storyline aside and just concentrate on Garreth and Jenna and their time together.Jenna has some issues in her past that have caused her to put up emotional walls and Garreth just starts breaking them down. She's been afraid to be her real self and she can't be anything but real with Garreth. He forces it out of her and they spend a highly emotional, very sexy night together that was two years in the making. I ended up not caring much for the plot outside the bedroom, frankly the ease with which Jenna was able to accept that Garreth slept with her friend Rachel was really out there and I didn't believe it, but the part of the story that kept my attention was when it was all about Garreth and Jenna and two years of attraction and love that they're finally able to experience.While this novella can be read as a stand-alone, reading both Winter Fire & Hidden Fire together would be the way to go. The bulk of both stories take place over about a week's time and they would read well back-to-back. There's only so much that can be packed into a novella, and this one falls very heavily on the sex between Jenna and Garreth and doesn't go deep into their relationship outside what we're told - they've been in love for years. When I picked up this novella I was looking for a quick, sexy read and got it, but the story outside the bedroom falls a little short.Blog Rating: 2.5/5