Review – Fire On the Island by J.K. Hogan

New Orleans native Jeremiah Rousseau has spent his life studying the paranormal. When more information about the obscure bruixi witches shows up at the same time his publisher insists he take a vacation, he takes it as a sign and heads for a small Scottish island where local legend tells of a witch that matches the bruixi description. Once there, he finds more than he bargained for with his immediate attraction to Isla Macallan.

All Isla wants is acceptance. After her mother tried to kill her when the signa on her neck showed up when she was 8 years old, she was placed in an orphanage. When she moved to the island of Arran, she thought she’d found that acceptance until a neighbor saw that same signa and suspicion and paranoia turned her into a pariah in her new home. Ten years later, she’s still there, silent owner of an outdoors excursions business and holding tight to the small family she has created for herself with her few friends. Sure, strange things happen around her, like a wolf following her when wolves have been extinct in Scotland for years, but she’s content and doesn’t want anything to shake her little world.

Isla and Jeremiah’s first meeting is steamy but Isla has no intention of hooking up with a tourist. Too bad fate has a different plan. Jeremiah’s entrance in her life was the trigger her powers needed to come online. With the help of the wolf, who is really her guide and protector that poofs into a naked young man on occasion, Isla and Jeremiah must learn how to harness her power as a bruixi witch and it must be done by Samhain, when the veil between worlds is thin enough to allow a demon through that will destroy humankind.

Fire On The Island has a different take on witches than other paranormal romances I’ve read and the world building gives it almost a fantasy feel. Isla is easy to relate to with believable reactions to the crazy her life has become. Her inner strength is put to the test and really shines, which had me pulling for her from the beginning. The secondary characters are really fleshed out and had me invested in the battle they all agreed to fight.  And Jeremiah is just smokin hot. My love of the geeky hero is well-known and he is a history and science geek. A geek that kicks ass. He owned me 😀 Unfortunately, my only complaint about this book is Jeremiah. We talk about TSTL (too stupid to live) heroines a lot in romance but in this book, our hero has a big TSTL moment toward the end. I don’t want to give spoilers but what he did didn’t make any sense and was so different than everything I’d already learned about him that I felt like I was reading about a totally different character for that chapter and it was like I had reading whiplash. I still don’t understand it.

Unique, with lots of action, a strong heroine, and a sexy hero, Fire On the Island is a recommended read. I will be picking up book 2 when it comes out in May. Hogan has created a world that I want to revisit frequently and I have high hopes for this series!

4.5 stars

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Release Date: August 2nd, 2012
Format: Print and digital

Order:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

Author website:

jkhogan.com