Review: Sizzle
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 24, 2012
Despite the cheesy cover, this is a fun summer read.  Melissa, a beatiful television producer with a broken heart and shaken confidence and Brody, a captain in the fire department with a broken marriage and smoldering good looks, are brought together through Melissa's grandmother's machinations at a charity bachelor auction.  In typical romance genre fashion, they fight their instant and powerful attraction. They eventually give up the fight with some fairly explicit couplings.  Of course ltheir happiness is threatened by the sudden and unwelcome appearance of their former love interests.  While Melissa is investigating an important story while attempting to avoid her station's scheming and jealous anchorwoman, Brody is risking his life fighting fires and his heart in pursuit of true love with Melissa.  It is of course, all resolved in the end.This book is nicely written and the two leads are personable and attractive.  The anchorwoman is cartoonish and the exes are uninteresting. There is an air of authenticity about the television set up scenes.  The comedic portions fall flat but the author shows a gift for genuine pathos, particuarly with the granmother's health struggles.  I could have done without the secondary story of the child abuse and Melissa's dad was a waste.  But assuming you can forgive the cover (especially using a beagle instead of a dalmation for the fire dog) this is the type of story that heats up the summer reading list.