"Burning Embers" by Hannah Fielding ~ Hot & Sultry!

 

SUMMARY :

 

Coral Sinclair is a beautiful but naïve twenty-five-year-old photographer who has just lost her father. She's leaving the life she's known and traveling to Kenya to take ownership of her inheritance--the plantation that was her childhood home--Mpingo. On the voyage from England, Coral meets an enigmatic stranger to whom she has a mystifying attraction. She sees him again days later on the beach near Mpingo, but Coral's childhood nanny tells her the man is not to be trusted. It is rumored that Rafe de Monfort, owner of a neighboring plantation and a nightclub, is a notorious womanizer having an affair with her stepmother, which may have contributed to her father's death.

 

Circumstance confirms Coral's worst suspicions, but when Rafe's life is in danger she is driven to make peace. A tentative romance blossoms amidst a meddling ex-fiancé, a jealous stepmother, a car accident, and the dangerous wilderness of Africa. Is Rafe just toying with a young woman's affections? Is the notorious womanizer only after Coral's inheritance? Or does Rafe's troubled past color his every move, making him more vulnerable than Coral could ever imagine?

Set in 1970, this contemporary historical romance sends the seemingly doomed lovers down a destructive path wrought with greed, betrayal, revenge, passion, and love.

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PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :

 

Published by:  Omnific Publishing

Pages:  282

Genre:  Contemporary Fiction

Author:  Hannah Fielding

Find this book:  Barnes & Noble

More about the Author:  Hannah Fielding

 

 

 

A BIT ABOUT MS FIELDING :

 

 

 

 

 

When I was a child, my governess told me fairy stories. These tales, full of superstition and magic, were my first inspiration, and the warmth and colour they still evoke greatly influence my writing. They were also the experience through which I learned to become a storyteller, as my governess and I had an agreement – whenever she told me a story, I would have to tell her one in return.
As a novelist, I am obsessed by vivid colours, lush landscapes and tales of exotic customs in far-off lands. I can trace much of this back to a dear and long-departed friend of my family Mr Chiumbo Wangai, who fascinated me as a teenager with stories of the witch-doctors and magical ceremonies in his native Kenya. When I visited the country myself, I soon fell in love with its beautiful countryside and unforgettable sunsets.
Though I have been telling stories since I was a child, it was only after my children had grown up and my husband and I had turned our family business into a success that I felt I could devote myself to writing full time. After I dug out the various ideas and sketches I had jotted down over the years, I realised how profoundly my travels throughout Europe, the Mediterranean and particularly Africa had burned themselves into my memory. I felt driven to turn them into a novel.
The mystery, magic, heat and passion of Kenya’s landscapes inspired me to use them as the setting for my first novel. Burning Embers, a passionate love story set against the backdrop of the country in 1970. Burning Embers is available to buy from all leading retailers.



CATHERINE, THE DAME'S REVIEW :

Hot, sultry, breathtakingly beautiful and entirely unpredictable.
 

When discussing a romance novel, it's fair to say that most major characters can be described this way, but when talking about Hannah Fielding's "Burning Embers," the lush coastal jungles of Kenya and its dry savannas are just as significant as the memorable characters of Coral Sinclair and Rafe de Montfort.
 

Coral is a beautiful but naive 25-year-old when her father, who she has not seen since she left Africa as a girl, dies and leaves her his coastal plantation, Mpingo, named after the East African Blackwood tree harvested there. On the ship from England, where she lived with her mother and stepfather, Coral's senses are forever altered by her first encounter with the handsome and enigmatic Rafe, a businessman and friend of her father's who owns the neighboring plantation.

From there, the book follows a torturous path (for readers and lovers alike) to the consummation of this epic love affair.
 

But where the path is agony for the erstwhile lovers, who are constantly misunderstanding each other and falling prey to meddlesome ex-lovers, the torture is exquisite for the reader who knows, this being a romance, that the lovers will eventually kiss and make up — forever.
 

With Fielding's detailed descriptions of African landscape, architecture, history and bush lore — not to mention liberal mention of food and fashion — the electric chemistry and obvious compatibility between Coral and Rafe unfolds exquisitely as they encounter wild animals, a sudden storm, a car crash, a near-death illness and Rafe's shadowy past.
 

That's not to say that "Burning Embers" isn't flush with the superfluous language typical of romance novels ("Rafe's voice was a teasing provocation, and yet it was smoldering, charged with all sorts of sensuous intonations.")
 

Nevertheless, for a reader who has very little familiarity with the romance genre, I think the end analysis of a good read is whether it lingers, and this one certainly did. I wanted to follow Coral and Rafe to their new home in France, where after their wedding they were going to live on Rafe's family estate that has been empty since his grandparents passed away. I wanted to meet their children and read more of a love affair that I can only imagine would age very, very well.

5 stars                   Catherine Fahy/A Bookish Dame