content warnings: death of a loved one, grief, homophobia, injuries, fire-related life-threatening situations, mentions of child abuse and alcoholism
representation: gay main characters, m/m main relationship, pansexual main character, f/f side relationship

“They did make a good team. Linc flashed back to the weeks of training, building the play set for the kids, and dozens of other memories over the years. They’d always worked well together, an effortless team. Partners. And it was a bond and level of cooperation that went beyond friendship, beyond coworkers. He wasn’t ever going to find this with another soul.”

Annabeth Albert’s previous series, Out of Uniform, is easily my favourite erotica series, so to get something else from her, even if it isn’t (explicitly) part of that world, is amazing. Especially when it’s something as good as this.

Burn Zone is the first book of what at this stage seems to be a trilogy about firefighters and their sexy exploits. This one follows Linc, a firefighter who is still grieving the loss of his best friend on the job, and Jacob, the younger brother of said best friend who is finally achieving his dreams of becoming a firefighter. Jacob also used to have a massive crush on Linc that he definitely doesn’t have anymore and which definitely isn’t reciprocated, nope, not at all.

This combines several tropes I love: age gap (nothing too crazy, and don’t worry, Jacob is very much of age in this), dating-the-best-friends-brother, an element of forbidden romance since Linc promised Jacob’s brother he wouldn’t be with him, and, best of all, ‘we’re definitely just fucking, we absolutely DO NOT have feelings for each other’. And Annabeth Albert writes all of these tropes incredibly well, as I knew she would.

The dynamic between Linc and Jacob is goddamn perfection, especially when they start fucking and decide to keep it a secret for other people. But, honestly, all the dynamics are great: them with the other members of their crew, with Jacob’s family, hell, with Linc’s dogs (who get a good amount of page-time, something which I obviously really appreciated). I don’t think it even has to be mentioned but in case you haven’t read any of my reviews for the Out of Uniform series: the sex scenes are amazing. Albert has not lost her touch at all, they’re still some of the best I’ve ever read.

I’m a giant nerd so I also loved how much research obviously went into this book. Albert talks about it in an authors’ note, but even without her mentioning it it’s obvious. The detail given to various practices to do with firefighting make it clear the passion that went into writing/researching this, something which I really appreciate from a book that doesn’t really need to be anything other than sex.

I’m ridiculously excited for the future of this series. The next book is set to follow Garrick (pansexual protagonist, fuck yeah!) and I’m looking forward to both whatever his romance is as well as seeing Linc and Jacob again. If you want some good m/m smut then you really can’t go wrong here (or if, like me, you need to scratch that 9-1-1 itch because Buck and Eddie just won’t get together and it’s kind of killing you).

I received an ARC of this book for free as part of a blog tour in exchange for an honest review.