Burnt by Lacy Hart is a 2nd chance romance featuring a schoolteacher and a firefighter. Can you imagine waiting fourteen years to re-unite with the love of your life? Well, this is exactly what happened with Sophie and Travis.
Sophie and Travis dated in college and everything was going well until the moment Travis decided he wanted to quit school and pursue his dreams of becoming a firefighter. Unfortunately, his plans differed from the one Sophie’s mom had for. her, which led to their separation. Fourteen years later Sophie is 8th grade teacher at Cannon middle school living a life void of dating and steeped in memories of the man she allowed to get away. Meanwhile, Travis is in the big city and raising his twelve-year-old daughter living his dream until an accident forced him into early retirement. He had no idea what his next move would be, but an unexpected phone call will lead to him returning to his home in Cannon where he reconnects with his past and reunite with the woman he left behind fourteen years ago.
Narrated from alternate POVs the story gave me a bird’s-eye view into the minds of the character. I am not too sure what to make of Sophie. First, she chooses her career over love, and then spent the next fourteen years single and lonely. Then when the opportunity came for her to reclaim what she gave up, she was willing to leave it to chance. I would have expected her to be quick to cease this moment.
I admired Travis’s dedication to raising his daughter. The authenticity of his struggles made it easy to connect with him. Faced with the prospect of changing careers, dealing with work-related injury and single handily raising his daughter could not have been easy but he did so, anyway.
The story took a while for me to get into because of its slow pacing. It was not until around the 65% mark I saw Travis and Sophie rekindle their romance. Regrettably, I did not buy into the romance. Separated for fourteen years with no contact, yet within days after reconnecting they were all over each other. It was as if they were separated for months instead of years.
Narration
I have mixed feelings regarding the narration. Juliana Solo and Daniel James Lewis narrated Burnt. As I am new to the audiobook world, I am not familiar with their work. I had expected Juliana to perform each of the female parts and Daniel the male voices. However, that was not the case. As the story was narrated from both characters POV depending on, which character is, speaking at the time the narrator representing that person will perform all the voices in that scenario be it male or female.
I enjoyed listening to the female character. I thought she did a good job, capturing the voices. She made it easy to distinguish between the voices and she captured their expressions and emotions perfectly. The male narrator did nothing for me. His narration sounded flat and had some difficulty separating his male and female voices. Unlike his female counterpart, he failed to capture the expressions and emotions of the characters.
Conclusion/Recommendation
I was expecting drama angst due to their history, but the story did not deliver on this front. It would have been great if the author had included an epilogue providing details of the main characters’ lives after their reunion. Despite this I found the story to be okay and I would read more from this author.
Nadene's addiction to reading began at an early age, when a family friend gifted her a copy of Wuthering Heights. From that moment she was never without a book.She will read anything as long the material is compelling enough to hold her attention. She gained many experiences through the pages of the books she had the opportunity to read.She created this blog to share her love of books with like minded individuals hopes that in sharing reviews of the books read visitors to the blog will discover their next addictive read. When not reading, Nadene enjoys cooking, listening to music and watching television.
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Yeah that’s how most dual narrations go I believe (at least what I’ve noticed). I can’t handle that and the change of voice chapter to chapter. I would much prefer how you thought it would have been.
The fourteen years and back together in days would throw me, too. I’ve not listened to those narrators before. Most dual narration is just like you got though I know there are actually audio dramas where they only speak for a certain character.
Fourteen years of separation and picking up their relationship in a matter of days did not ring true for me. A bit unrealistic for my taste.
It sounds like the dual pov was dealth with pretty normally in regards to the narration. I have only listened to one book that had the male do all of the male voice and the female doing the female and I must say I loved it. Sorry this one wasn’t a bit better for you.
new to me author Nadene but hard to get into is a pretty big turn off for me. Thanks for the review
A bit too bad there but I can understand. THis author is a new one to me
Most of the time the person with the pov does both voices, although sometimes the audio is done like you mentioned with the female narrator doing female voices and the male handling the male..although I only know of one personally.
Interesting, as I am new to the audio book world I wasn’t aware. Thanks for enlightening me.
I wouldn’t even know where to start in the audio world either and I know a good narration really matters so I can see why you were a bit torn about this one. Sorry it wasn’t a bit better.