1) Burn Zone ★★★★


content warnings: recovering from a spinal injury, fire-related life-threatening situations, mentions of homophobia
representation: pansexual main character with a spinal injury, gay main character, m/m main relationship, gay side characters, non-binary minor character, polyamorous minor characters

“‘You... You’re special, Rain. I hope you know that.’
‘I do now.’ His voice was soft, and he had to hide his face in Garrick’s neck, not wanting to reveal quite how much those words meant to him. Garrick made him want, made him dream, things he’d thought weren’t meant to be his. All the things he’d told himself that he didn’t want, now those dreams came crashing back into him, one after another. It was almost too much, that kind of hope requiring a bravery he wasn’t sure he possessed. And he could tell himself those feelings weren’t real, that it was only good sex and friendship, but right then, all he wanted was to hold Garrick close and pretend if only for a while that this was real, that Garrick was his, and that all those impossible things were within reach.”

This is now the second time in a row that dogs have played a major part in an Annabeth Albert book, and I for one am very here for it. Fingers crossed for there to be a major dog role in book 3.

This is the second book in the Hotshots series following Garrick, a character from the first book who suffered several major injuries at the end of that book. This is set about a year later and he's still in recovery. One day he finds a dog on his porch and Rain, hot grandson of his neighbour, helps him to get her inside. Turns out Rain wants to be a hotshot so he and Garrick strike up a deal: Garrick helps him train and Rain helps him look after the dog. Easy, right? Except for the fact that they're both hopelessly attracted to each other.

This book has the truly wonderful trope of they're super into each other and decide to start having sex pretending that they won't catch feels, and it's written to perfection. Rain is a character who has trouble staying in one place too long so he and Garrick are both pretending that there's an end date to their relationship which provides exactly the sort of angst I want.

Something that I continue to appreciate about Annabeth Albert's books is the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people who aren't just gay men, which is usually as far as M/M erotica goes. In this, we don't just have a pansexual lead with Garrick, we also have mentions of Rain's parents being polyamorous and one of Rain's brother's friends' being non-binary. I don't want to pat someone on the back too much for just including mentions of LGBTQ+ people who aren't gay but I still want to acknowledge its significance.

While I can't personally speak to the disabled representation with Garrick, I appreciated that it was always a consideration and never forgotten even when it wasn't the focus. Basically all the erotica I've ever read/heard of has had only able-bodied leads so I'm glad that Garrick's injuries from the last book weren't just brushed under the rug, and that he wasn't 'fixed' by the end of this one.

I'm so sad that this is set to be just a trilogy because I'm really falling in love with these dumb firefighters. If you liked the dumb firefighters in the first book, then the odds are high you'll like this one, too.

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