Review: Real-life Romance
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 27, 2013
Rena Koontz debut novel Love's Secret Fire is a story of instant compel-and-repel. Like Pride and Prejudice's Darcy and Elizabeth or You've Got Mail's Joe and Kathleen, Adam and Valerie feel attraction to each other, but that won't get in the way of their fighting at every turn. And Valerie does not have a thing for Cowboys (certainly not!), even if she can't stop from trembling every time she gets close enough to smell Adam or admire his muscles.Another unexpected treat: Rena's research in firefighters is evident, and the novel  delivers a sense of what it's like to live together on shifts and work together in dangerous situations.So what are the Benefits of reading Love's Secret Fire?Real-life Romance: While novels frequently create tension and roadblocks for characters-and this novel does, too, with criminals and investigations and undercover work that makes what could have been a smooth courtship into an unavoidable tangle-Koontz does something that I love and which so few romances do... She shows the way that real romance can be unglamorous, very everyday, and still sweet. In one scene, after Valerie has had about a dozen too many because of a personal tragedy, Adam has to care for her in the bathroom, on cold tile, while she gets sick, snores, and drools on his T-shirt. While this doesn't sound much like a typical romance novel, it sounds a lot like romance to me--at least of the lasting kind. What's sexier than a couple who cares for each other for better and for worse? So when Valerie wakes up and puts on his over-sized button-up shirt, its sexy and sweet and not just another badly used cliche. I simply love that this writer was willing to give us a glimpse of what truly keeps love's fire burning.