{Release Day Review} Consumed (Firefighters #1) by J.R. Ward (@JRWard1 @GalleryBooks)

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the popular Black Dagger Brotherhood series comes a brand-new novel about arson investigator, Ann Ashburn, who is consumed by her troubled past, her family's scorched legacy, and her current case: chasing a deadly killer.

Anne Ashburn is a woman consumed...

By her bitter family legacy, by her scorched career as a firefighter, by her obsession with department bad-boy Danny McGuire, and by a new case that pits her against a fiery killer.

Strong-willed Anne was fearless and loved the thrill of fighting fires, pushing herself to be the best. But when one risky decision at a warehouse fire changes her life forever, Anne must reinvent not only her job, but her whole self.

Shattered and demoralized, Anne finds her new career as an arson investigator a pale substitute for the adrenaline-fueled life she left behind. She doesn't believe she will ever feel that same all-consuming passion for her job again--until she encounters a string of suspicious fires setting her beloved city ablaze.
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Danny McGuire is a premiere fireman, best in the county, but in the midst of a personal meltdown. Danny is taking risks like never before and seems to have a death wish until he teams up with Anne to find the fire starter. But Danny may be more than a distraction, and as Anne narrows in on her target, the arsonist begins to target her.

From the creator of the bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood, get ready for a new band of brothers. And a firestorm…

​Anne Ashburn has never been a damsel in distress.  Being a firefighter with the 499 is all she ever wanted.  Well, that and Daniel Maguire.  
 
He’s been her rock, her friend and her lover.  They’ve rushed into burning buildings and have always managed to somehow beat all the odds.  Until now.
 
In a cruel twist of fate, she’s forced to leave it all behind. If only her heart could heal as fast as her body.

Whenever her guilt got to stinging, she needed to remind herself that Danny was just fine and so was she. And with the passage of all the hours, days, weeks, and months since that warehouse fire, their lives were in different places and that horrible eternity when she’d been trapped in that hot spot was gone. 

You had to keep going. 

Staring over the cleared site, she thought… yup, just as the remnants of the warehouse were gone, so, too, the events of that blaze had been struck out of the timeline of both their lives. 
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So, too, the connection they had once had.

​ “Dannyboy” Maguire doesn’t know what’s heavier – the bone crushing debris that nearly ended his life or his remorse about how it all played out with Anne.
 
The loss that set them on different paths haunts him night and day. So when she reappears months later to pull him out of his own private Hell, it reignites the passion that always burned so hot between them.  And there is nothing that he wouldn’t do to keep her safe from the danger that’s about to close in.  

​“What are you doing, Danny.” She nodded into his trainwreck of a room. “I mean, look at this place.”

There was laundry on the floor—in two piles that she guessed meant one was clean and the other dirty. The bed was a shambles of sheets and blankets with a bald pillow at the headboard. And the window’s curtain had bought the farm, the rod hanging cockeyed, a blanket nailed in place so he didn’t flash the neighbors. 

“I don’t spend a lot of time in there,” he muttered before taking a drag. 

She bent down and picked up a flimsy piece of lace. “At least you’re not alone, though.” 

He shrugged. “I might as well be.”

“Oh, come on.” Anne let the lingerie dangle. “What was wrong with her? Given the cup size here, I’m thinking her anatomy was just fine.” 
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Danny was quiet for a while. Then in a low voice, he said, “She wasn’t you. That was the trouble.”

Consumed starts out with a lethal punch right to the gut and then never lets you take a breath! J.R. Ward introduces yet another impressive collection of characters that reach out from every page. Each one demands that readers FEEL their story – the pain, the desperation and the desire.
 
I was unsure going in, but was completely taken in before the first chapter came to an end.  It’s a fast-paced and yet poignant look at life and love.

​And it’s one hundred percent addictive…

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