Walking in Fire by Cathryn Cade

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The first book I picked up for August 2022 round of the Romance Takeover Readathon - Light v. Dark is Walking in Fire by Cathryn Cade. This is the first book in her Hawaiian Heroes series and worked to cover the prompts foodie and paranormal. It also helped me by covering the Ripped Bodice Summer Bingo prompt Hawaii and Summer of Swoon board 2 prompt travel/vacation romance. This also fit perfect my Yahtzee Challenge roll this month for Four-of-a-Kind!

Melia is on vacation in Hawaii after breaking up with her boyfriend (they had planned to go together). She runs into a guy who notices she's travelling alone and invites her to join his friends (two other guys and girls) to a bungalow stay in a private cove where there's snorkeling and such. Also on the boat besides one of the bungalow's caretakers is David, also known as Malu. He is accompanying the group because he's secretly investigating a potential drug drop that one of these people might be doing. He feels attracted to Melia and is intrigued by her not being the stereotypical "party girl." When one of the girls ends up being being in the forest, events start happening that threatens them all. As Malu works to figure who is behind the drug running and the beatings, he reveals to Melia that he's not quite fully human; he's the current Guardian of Pele.

Okay, I was super excited for this book and was really intrigued to see what was going to happen. First off, my summary includes the drug running and that wasn't really mentioned in the blurb I had read. Honestly, this doesn't feel like a paranormal book, but a romantic suspense. There was a lot more focus on the drugs and not the powers he gets from Pele. I don't know, it just was really disappointing. Not that I don't like romantic suspense, but it just wasn't what I was expecting. Like when you go to a restaurant and order a burger but receive a chicken sandwich. It stills taste good and fills you up, but you don't quite feel as satisfied. Outside of that, there wasn't much paranormal going on outside of Malu having powers. Even then it wasn't anything too exciting. He heals super quickly and he can call on the earth, so in the big final battle he ends up calling a rock slide. Something else happens, but we end up finding out that it was Pele, not Malu, that caused it. Even the bad guy didn't have any paranormal anything.

I also thought that this was a little too fast for me, even with this being a paranormal. I think if Cathryn Cade had explored the option of it being kind of a fated mates trope, I would've been more on board. Melia knows Malu a grand total of like 3 days and decides to offer her life to Pele to save Malu. Girl, you don't know him that well and a couple hours ago you were still freaking out about him glowing. I just felt so disappointed in a lot of ways. I am leaving my rating at 3-stars though because I was enjoying the story and writing before we got into the romantic suspense. There was some fun banter between them and I also liked the way that Malu treated Melia. This just turned out to be a romantic suspense hiding in a paranormal cover.

I'm not writing off Cathryn Cade at all, but I think if I pick up any more in this series or her other works I'm going to look at reviews and not blurbs. I just hate being done dirty like that and have lost some trust in her. Maybe it's just me, but if you are looking for a paranormal that incorporates Hawaiian mythos, I don't think this will be the book for you.

Have you read Walking in Fire?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Walking in Fire, Cathryn Cade, 3 stars, eBook, 1 day, 292 pages, published in 2017, indie published