Review: A smart and sexy romance
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 10, 2013
Cara DeLuca has never felt that she fits into her large, boisterous, food-centered Italian family.  She's allowed everyone to think she's distant and cold, and she’s never shared her struggles with anorexia with anyone.  Cara has read that “those we love are the most alien to us,” and she believes that “with all her hang-ups, she couldn’t inflict her crazy on any guy.”Shane Doyle is fully of blarney and easy laughter, and he uses his dimples and dorky dance moves to charm everyone he meets.  He's allowed everyone to think he's an easy-going pastry chef, hiding his abusive childhood and issues of abandonment, as well as his search for his half brother, Jack Kilroy, Cara's boss and future brother-in-law.  Uh oh.  ;)While the drunken Las Vegas wedding has been overdone, this book uses that somewhat tired plot vehicle to launch a novel that is much more interesting than a blurb might suggest.  Cara and Shane are both immensely guarded people with hard secrets they feel the need to protect, and yet what they give one another is a safe space to explore who they really are behind the masks they wear.  While "All Fired Up" is a toe-curling romance with lots of swoon-worthy emotional chemistry, it’s also a book with a bit more substance as it explores issues of self-awareness and self-acceptance.Most of the time, the writing style is unobtrusive and serves to move the plot along nicely, but the author also occasionally gives us sentences to linger over: “We fool ourselves into holding onto the pain because the alternative—that we might get too used to days without it—would likely drive us mad with hope,” or “Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.”Kate Meader is an author to watch, a strong and enjoyable new voice in contemporary romance, and this book is both the perfect beach read as well as an intelligent offering in women's fiction.