Review: Firestorm by Radclyffe

Firestorm (A First Responders Novel)
by Radclyffe
Published July 2011 by Bold Strokes Books
Ebook received for review from publisher via Netgalley
Read July 2011

Note: This is a romance novel and I can’t write about it without mentioning the sex scenes.

I don’t often read romance novels. I do, however, have a history with them: I used to sneak my aunt’s Harlequin novels when I was in middle school, and in high school I was really into the Helen Fielding/Jane Green/Jennifer Weiner school of romance–but once I got to college and was all “Oh, right, gay,” I stopped reading romance out of pure necessity.

Lesbian romance novels seemed to follow a singular, frustrating pattern: girl meets girl; girls share soft, loving kisses and fall in love; some jerk-off attacks them in a homophobic rage; girls break up; girls get back together after much hand-wringing over the difficulties of being ho-mo-sexuals. This isn’t to say that all lesbian romance novels are like this, because I definitely didn’t read widely within the genre (after two or three cringe-inducing books, I gave them up entirely) but the ones I read definitely didn’t inspire me to read further.

So what made me read Firestorm, a lesbian romance by one of the most prolific authors of the genre? I was suddenly, after like 10 years, in the mood to read ROMANCE*. I may or may not have downloaded and read a Harlequin novel on my nook (ahem) and I may or may not have also downloaded and read a  Jennifer Crusie** novel (ahem), both of which may have been entertaining (the Crusie novel much more so) but ultimately they didn’t make me feel all romancey***, because while I might want to meet a handsome cowboy and ride off into the sunset, he’d be a tiny bit different from the one I found in that Harlequin book. So, when I came across Firestorm as I was browsing Netgalley’s Gay & Lesbian section, I decided to give it a go.

So basically, Mallory is the head smokejumper, which is like a SUPER firefighter, ie lots of DANGER. This is her first year as commander of the SUPER FIREFIGHTER crew and she is very nervous about it because last year her jumping partner died during a rescue mission and Mallory blames herself. She has 30 days to make sure the new recruits are prepared to be awesome SUPER FIREFIGHTERS (and not die). She hand picked her team, but then Jac Russo shows up and makes her angry but not too angry because Jac is really hot. Obviously.

I am pleased to report that Firestorm veered away from what I will call the Classic Lesbian Romance Plot (CLRP) enough to be quite enjoyable. The sex scenes did suffer from the Simultatious Orgasm issue that is also a problem with Harlequin etc romance novels, but they are otherwise well-written. There is a subplot involving Jac’s father who is an Ultra-Conservative politician running for president, ie not friendly to the gays, but it’s handled well and doesn’t become over the top. I also didn’t mind it because it gave Jac an excuse to put her Army dress blues on, and I am very okay with that.

Would it be in bad form to swoon during a review? I kind of want to swoon.

I’d recommend this to anyone looking for an enjoyable, well-written lady romance.

Grade: B

*I blame Sarah Wendell and her awesome speech at the Book Blogger convention.

**I blame the ever-so-convincing Linda Holmes.

***I don’t mean this in a gross way.