Ignite by Lily Paradis

Published by Empire Books on August 26th 2014
ARC from Author

Synopsis

After her father’s untimely demise in a mining accident and her mother’s abandonment, Lauren Lindsay is no stranger to loss. She’s used to living life for one person: herself. That is, until another family tragedy thrusts three children into her care and uproots her life in ways she could never imagine.

Lauren's first instinct is to run, until she meets their striking, mysterious neighbor Dean Powell. Their immediate chemistry and his connection with her late father just might be enough to keep her in town long enough to uncover pieces of her past that she never had answers to. Dean’s shady past and her reluctance to trust him could cost her the life she's always been searching for, but will she run back to her old life?

Or will she choose to stay and live the life her father always imagined for her?

Romance aficionados, brace yourselves. Lily Paradis’s Ignite, a story about unexpected responsibilities, hard choices and inevitable love, is something to check out and add to your excessive to-read list. I’ll give you three reasons why…

“Have you ever heard of koi no yokan?” I shook my head.
“It’s Japanese,” he explained as he trailed his fingers lightly down one of my arms. “It doesn’t have an English equivalent. Roughly translated, it’s a term for the feeling that you have when you first meet someone.”
“Like love at first sight?” I asked, tipping my head up toward his.
“No, not quite like that. It’s more like you know that a future love with that person is inevitable, but it doesn’t exist in that moment.

It’s unlike most of the books in its genre/category, which is New Adult. Ignite is the kind of NA book I’ve leaning towards to lately. I’ve finally grown tired of the broken, tragic character stereotypes who do nothing but go around banging each other and then declare love later on. The world needs more clean NA books so people can grow out of the conventionalized idea that all the 20-something characters in such books do nothing but get some sexytime. Ignite definitely has zero banging, more swooning and I adore it for that.

“I don’t really know if mad is the right word. It wasn’t my favorite part of the evening, that’s for sure.”
“What was?”
“What was what?”
“Your favorite part?”
He grinned.
“You,” he said. “In my bed.”

It sneaks up on you and suddenly, you’re falling in love. There’s a very quick attraction between Lauren Lindsay and her love interest, Dean Powell, and I have to admit that I wasn’t that convinced at first. (But okay, now that I think about it, I get why Lauren was getting sort of moony-eyed for Dean.) I was wary of insta-love but that was easily squished by the fact that the romance in Ignite builds up fantastically. There’s a lot of things the couple had to get ahead of first- getting to know each other, becoming better for each other, etc. so things took awhile but it was awesome. I loved that there were a lot of little moments (that made my heart melt) and fun banter and ardent longing for each other and after a long time I’m just like, KISS ALREADY DAMMIT.

“You and your rugged sexuality better scoot over,” I whispered. “Unless you want to be responsible for making me pass out on this plane. I’m not sure that flight attendant knows CPR.”
“It’s okay,” he said, lowering his lips all the way to my ear so they touched my skin when he spoke. “I’m really good at mouth-to-mouth.”
Holy shit.

The characters grow on you. I really didn’t know what to expect from Lauren but I ended up liking and enjoying reading her. She was caring towards her step-siblings (cute little Emma, quiet Chase, and the ever-stubborn Callie) who were left under her care and I really liked seeing them grow closer and becoming a family. Also, she has her own personal struggles to deal with, putting down the walls around her own heart and all that. Dean a.k.a. dreamboat hottie was quite romanticized physically but I liked that he was also as three-dimensional as Lauren. He got off as a little too moody for me initially but seeing him making an effort to show Lauren how special she was for her and how he wanted to be a better man for her, I couldn’t help but love him. I’m so excited that he’s getting his own POV in Arclight, sequel to Ignite.

“You’re it for me. I want you to have everything and I want to make sure I’m good enough for you. You deserve more than who I was.”

To tie my review up, Ignite was a great debut novel and I was really quite enamored! I can’t wait to read more from Lily Paradis!