Too Hot!

Giles debuts with a sweet and steamy interracial romance with a splash of mystery. Hunky firefighter Eli Johnson, 28, is a single black man living in the shadow of his heroic late mother. He’s yearning to fall in love, and Charlie Kinnear, the handsome Good Samaritan Eli meets at the scene of a school fire, seems just about perfect. But Charlie has secrets he won’t tell, and when those secrets intersect with the fire department’s investigation into a dangerous serial arsonist, Eli must decide how many red flags he’s willing to ignore to keep his “perfect” guy. In this whirlwind romance, Giles displays a knack for humorous prose and relatable dialogue that carries the story along at a lively pace. The romance suffers from brevity and speed that undercut the emotional conflict between the main characters, rendering it somewhat unbelievable. Nonetheless, this quick, romantic tale is fun and satisfying overall. (Oct.)