Review: On Fire by Drew Zachary

This book is a bit of a golden oldie in terms of m/m publishing as it's now nearly 4 years old.  I read it a few months ago and was intending to review it then, but other things pushed it down the pile and it got forgotten about - which is a great shame, to be honest, cos it's a really good book.

Like all Drew Zachary books, this one is set in Canada and as the book opens we meet Sam who is wandering aimlessly around a Canada Day parade/street celebration.  He's not been overly impressed with the parade, until he sees something that really gets his attention.  I love this paragraph so I shall quote it to you:

It really was a perfect day in Sam's world, and he sauntered a little closer, looking for a bench to sit on. The fire department had the pumper trucks out, and the ladders were up, the entire rig set to spray downward. A charity car wash, which was nice, but the very best part was that the firemen were in uniform. Black uniforms with badges and patches, and Sam was sure that there was nothing on earth finer than fireman butt in those uniforms.

One of these firemen is Rob and after Sam manages to engineer it so that they bump into each other, they hit it off pretty much straight away and head off to Sam's student flat for lots and lots of sex.  After that, it takes a couple of months before Rob plucks up enough courage to phone up Sam and ask him on a date but once they get together they are pretty inseparable.  Life is not easy for the pair though as they have to cope with the age gap and the opinions of others.

There were a number of things I really liked about On Fire.  Firstly is the character of Sam.  He often likens himself to a kitten and that's just exactly what he is like.  He has boundless energy and can't keep still for a moment - whether it's bouncing, or wiggling, or drumming his fingers, or talking non-stop.  He's also quite shameless when it comes to sex and openly tells Rob that he loves sex as well as not being afraid to ask for what he wants in bed.  His open personality means that the reader gets to find out lots about Sam and we follow his developing feelings for Rob from thinking of him as a good lay, to realising that he may be having serious feelings for Rob and wanting to be exclusive, to the eventual road to love.  Sam makes it easy for the reader because he is so willing to share his thoughts with us, which again endeared me to him.  Rob is almost the opposite of Sam in that he's sensible and steady, but he also has a sense of adventure which matches Sam.  He is as bewildered as Sam is by their growing love for each other but instead of  panicking or backing away from those feelings he takes life as it comes and chooses to accept that love.  This made Rob a little different from some of the macho alphas heroes out there and went a long way towards me liking him as a character too - maybe not as much as I liked Sam, but nearly as much.

Another thing I really liked about this book is that it's predominately about a relationship between two men.  There's nothing like a mystery or paranormal aspects to cause tension or detract from the romance, nor are there any overly-dramatic moments or big misunderstandings.  In fact the only barriers to their relationship are those which many relationships have to overcome - such as meeting friends, the pressure of work or study, meeting and getting along with the in-laws.  In this book there's the added barrier of the age difference, but that is something both of the men acknowledge from the start, and is even used humourously during sex when Sam freely admits that, due to his age, he does come rather quickly compared to Rob.  It was a nice change just to follow a relationship from start to their HEA and the fact that both characters are sensible, talk through any problems and are incredibly likeable, made this a great read from start to finish.

If I have any niggles about the book it's that there's a lot of sex in the book and I was starting to get a bit bored of the endless sex by the end.  Having said that, many of the sex scenes are used to show character development and so I didn't mind the sex as much as I have done in some books which have contained lots of sex scenes.

Overall, if you are looking for a light, sexy read with a wonderful twinky character and a buff fireman, you can't go wrong with this book.  I enjoyed reading it a great deal and even now, as I skimmed through the book again to familiarise myself with the finer points of the plot and characters, I remember how much I'd liked this book when I first read it a few months ago.  I highly recommend On Fire with a grade of 'Excellent' for those of you who want to read a lovely romance about two guys making their way through the ups and downs on the way to love.

Buy this book HERE.