Teased by Fire by Molly O'Hare

⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

After reading Magic Triumphs, I knew I needed to change pace a little bit to avoid a book hangover. I decided to pick up a contemporary that would help cover my remaining prompts for the 2nd board of Winter's Kiss. I ended up reading Teased by Fire by Molly O'Hare. This is the first book in her Teased by Love series. I used it to cover the Winter's Kiss prompt cursive and print lettering on the cover.

Olive is a romance author that is also an introvert. When her childhood friend and roommate suddenly moves out after getting a job across the country, she sets up Olive with a new roommate. He's her older brother Hank, and the person that has teased Olive relentlessly throughout the years. Hank has been teasing Olive mostly because he has a crush on her and is taking this chance to finally push for more. As Hank and Olive juggle becoming roommates while being attracted to each other, things quickly heat up. When Hank proposes sleeping together for "research" for Olive's books, they both realize that it might just mean more.

I really enjoyed this. Olive was so relatable. I don't mind the teasing trope, but sometimes I do think that the person doing the teasing takes it too far and isn't always made aware of how their teasing is coming across. This is quickly addressed when Hank takes it a step too far. I also really liked that Hank had been pining for Olive since they basically both hit puberty, but didn't know absolutely everything about her. When he realized that she was a writer he immediately bought all of her books and read them right away. He had gotten through their backlist before Olive even knew that Hank knew. I just really liked that it didn't fall into any of the expected tropes or "twists."

There is a big car crash after they have a fight and Olive is very badly hurt. Of course Hank's crew (he's a firefighter) is called to the scene and he ends up going to the hospital with her. It's bad, like really bad. Olive needs to be resuscitated on the way to the hospital and we are told flatlines several times while in surgery. With how much she was injured, I was expecting some sort of amnesia or memory loss on top of her injuries but we didn't go that route. I loved how everything turned out and just really enjoyed the story overall. The only thing is Olive is a little too quirky at times, but I do have to admit that she stays at the same level of quirky all the way through. There's now fading in or out or something silly. The only reason it didn't quite hit the 5-stars for me is I wanted to see more of them falling in love when not in the physical situations. Oh, and I can't believe I forgot to mention one of the best characters, Dog. Dog is a Maine Coon kitty rescued and was the fire house mascot. She was such a fun addition!

I really enjoyed trying another new author and will definitely be looking into Molly's backlist. There are hints here about a future book between Hank's sister and his best friend, so I'm looking forward to that. It hasn't been published yet from what I could tell, but color me intrigued! The comedy hit me well and it was just a sweet and cute contemporary with decent steam. I'm looking forward to more of Molly's works!

Have you read Teased by Fire?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Teased by Fire, Molly O'Hare, 4.5-stars, 0 days, eBook, 214 pages, published in 2018, indie published