Fire Dancer by Colleen Coble
Written: Jul 27 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: excellent writing; engaging, edge-of-your-seat story; great attention to detail
Cons: (This space intentionally left blank.)
The Bottom Line: Run, don't walk, to your local bookseller and pre-order this one--it's AMAZING.
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| CindyJean's Full Review: Fire Dancer |
Yippeee!!!
I was so excited when I opened up a recent envelope from WestBow Press. I knew that Colleen Coble had a new novel coming out–the start of a new series–and I’ve been waiting anxiously to get it.
When “Fire Dancer,” the first novel in Colleen Coble’s new ‘Smoke Jumpers’ series arrived I was ecstatic. She’s easily one of my favorite authors, her work is always top-notch and her stories are engaging. Plus, it is because of Colleen Coble that I started getting on publisher’s lists for advance review copies of upcoming releases.
Fire Dancer by Colleen Coble
Brief Synopsis
Tess Masterson became a smokejumper (firefighters who parachute into remote areas to battle blazes) to make up for the lives she failed to save as a teen. Her parents and an uncle died in a barn fire set by an arsonist who’d been wreaking havoc on the region. When the local sheriff decides to reopen the case because of a recent rash of arson fires Tess is pulled back home. She’s got to face her fears and go back to where it all happened. If she can find out who caused the fire, maybe it will assuage her guilt over getting her horse out of the barn but not being able to get her parents out. Then it all starts happening again–the fighting, the stress and the fires. And now it seems that whoever is starting the fires is after Tess.
Every time I get a new book from Colleen Coble I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I have loved every single book of hers that I’ve read thus far, she’s quite easily my favorite author. Every time I get a new book I keep waiting to see if it’s going to the ‘the one’–the stinker that blows my interest in a given author. After her full ‘Rock Harbor Series’ and the first two books of her ‘Aloha Reef Series’ I figured she was coming due for one to be less than great, less than engaging, but at this point I’m still waiting.
Colleen Coble has an amazing ability to craft a great mystery/suspense/thriller novel without getting graphic or ‘icky.’ I like to limit myself to Christian fiction for the simple lack of the immorality that prevails in most secular novels. A lot of people think that if you extract the immorality there’s no room left to create a good story, but time after time Colleen Coble proves that to be untrue. She uses all the elements of excited, danger and drama that a reader could want and still keeps her books clean enough that you wouldn’t mind letting your teenager read them.
As a general rule, when I read mystery/suspense/thriller-type books I try to figure out who the ‘bad guy’ is before the end. I think nearly everybody does. With Colleen Coble’s books, I’ve yet to be able to do what I can normally do quite easily. I believe that “Fire Dancer” is my sixth full-length novel by Colleen Coble and I have yet to determine the bad guy before she is ready to reveal the mystery. With “Fire Dancer” I thought I was going to get it. At least, I had my suspicions narrowed down to two suspects, both of whom resided on or near the ranch and appeared to be close to the family. You know what? I missed on both guesses! I’m going to keep trying, of course, but I think part of the fun of trying is that I keep failing. How weird is that?
One facet of “Fire Dancer” that I really enjoyed is that it dealt with Smokejumpers. I’ve never actually done ‘that’ job, but I did spend a summer as a firefighter of sorts, working with the Oregon Department of Forestry. It’s a hard job, and the people who do this job are a very unique bunch. It really is the way Colleen Coble depicts it in the book–more like a family than a group of co-workers.
Naturally, being the first book in a series–‘Smoke Jumpers Series’–“Fire Dancer” leaves quite a few loose ends. There will be closure to all the plot points, I am quite sure, by the time the series is finished. If all the loose ends were tied up in the first book, it would sure make for a boring series.
Conclusion
As you can tell quite easily, I am a huge fan of every novel of Colleen Coble’s that I’ve read. She is amazing, talented, and can craft a story like few others I’ve ever read. “Fire Dancers” is an excellent, entertaining, engaging story that will keep you guessing and leave you begging for the next book to be released.
Don’t wait until you see “Fire Dancers” in the bookstore to pick it up, go to your favorite bookstore (either online or ‘brick & mortar’) and pre-order a copy. It’s great, great, great!
Recommended:
Yes
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CindyJean
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