Fire with Fire

In this sequel to Burn for Burn, Mary is not satisfied that Reeve, the bully that forced her to leave the island, has truly gotten what he deserves.  True, his scholarship chances are gone, but he still has that cocky attitude and shows no remorse to Mary.  With the help of Kat, and Lillia, another plan is hatched to make Reeve pay, but this one will come back to hurt Lillia as she can't separate her feelings from her assignment and could cost Rennie, the evil queen bee, dearly.  This massive tale of revenge soars leaving readers breathless, confused, and begging for the final installment.

I was able to score a digital ARC from Edelweiss and I'm very happy I did.  Burn for Burn was a typical revenge novel with a paranormal twist at the end.  So little is said about that ending in the second book that the characters, and the reader, start to think it was all just imagination, but no, Mary really does have a secret that even she does not understand.  I can only say that I started to figure it out toward the very end, but the logistics of this secret will have readers scratching their heads, in a good way.  This final book is going to have a lot of explaining to do.

I said this was a massive revenge tale, weighing in over 500 pages, but it fills those pages nicely.  Readers get to burrow into the minds of Lillia, Kat, and Mary even more, learn more about their histories and conflicted feelings about the characters around them.  All except Mary who is fully consumed with Reeve, Reeve, and only Reeve.

Since this is an honestly written book with true to life dialogue, there is some bad language.  Kat, the rebel, knows her way around the F word.  Even Lillia is known to drop a choice four-letter beauty.  To me, it wasn't gratuitous, rather it was well placed and true to life.  And really, if you are reading a book about three girls exacting the ultimate revenge on their enemies, shouldn't you expect some salty language?  If you don't approve of their language, you definitely won't approve of what they do.

But, it's a good fantasy.  I bet we would all like to take our turn as karma, maybe not by drugging people and humiliating them in front of the whole school, but just a little prank to let them know you think they suck.  Like stuffing someone's locker full of shredded paper so it's just an inconvenient mess.

Not that I've ever done something like that.

Yet.

Speaking of pranks, who watches New Girl and loves that Winston is terrible at pranking?  It takes a strange and beautiful mind to think of releasing a badger at someone's wedding.

Back to topic!  I haven't been putting books to the sequel slump or expiration date test lately.  This sequel does not slump, in fact it amps up the action and drama so much, that I honestly liked it more.  But this does have a pretty hard and fast expiration date.  I'd say if you've graduated college, don't read it.  Unless you are a YA junkie like me and enjoy revenge fantasies.

That said, if you need a quick escapist read this summer, read Burn for Burn.  Then sit tight until September when you too can read Fire with Fire.  Then start theorizing how the series will end for the next year until the final installment, Ashes to Ashes, is released.

Happy Reading!