Fire in His Eyes by MJ Nightingale

At thirty years old Monica is about to discover real passion for the first time in her life. A chance encounter in a Tampa bar brings Victor into her life. Sexy as hell, secretive, and incredible in bed, Monica is overwhelmed in every way by this ex-military man who introduces her to all kinds of new and exciting experiences.

Monica is a school teacher who longs to experience the joy and thrill of passion. She has battled a past filled with trauma, and depression. Finally free of her fears and guilt, she begins to explore. That is when she meets Victor, a man who has his own demons to battle and secrets to keep. When he meets innocent Monica, he wants to experience all he can with her. She is innocent, yet willing; barely touched, but incredibly passionate. Victor's past has scarred him, and despite his feelings he keeps Monica at a distance. Why? Because he fears those secrets will destroy them.

But, Monica and Victor are soul mates. They have the same hot passions. Will they find their happiness with each other? You must read to find that out. But, they most assuredly do find pleasure.

I go into every book I read with an open mind.   They’re all on a level playing field, and I’m open to the different ways in which authors tell a story to the reader, and what that story is about.  I have a lot of respect for authors, as I think it takes a lot of guts to create a story, write it down and let other people read it.  When it’s done well, it can be phenomenal.  When it’s done not well, it can be a struggle for the reader.  This book, unfortunately, was a struggle for me.

Monica is a thirty year old teacher.  She has a traumatic past and has very little experience with men.  Her sister forces her out one night to a club where she meets Victor.  He makes it very clear from the get-go that he wants her, and they embark on a passionate affair.  But Victor has his secrets and keeps Monica at arm’s length.  Will they both be able to get past their baggage to see that they can have something great together other than sex?

Honestly, I felt like I was reading a book written by a 16 year old girl.  There just was no emotional connection for me to the characters in this story. It was just BAM! Out of the gate there’s this woman who’s a rape survivor who has only willingly ever slept with one man in her 30 years and she meets this guy in a club who is WAY over the top and very forward.  That just didn’t work for me.  It didn’t feel authentic and it didn’t seem true to Monica’s character to become involved with a man like Victor.  I mean, I am experienced and I wouldn’t want to become involved with a man like Victor.  He was creepy to me.  Plus, here’s this emotionally insecure woman who has a tortured past and a guy who she sleeps with tells her that he lives with a girl, has money problems and doesn’t want commitment?  Oh, and you’re the first woman in 6 months that he’s wanted to have sex with more than once?  Uhhh, so exactly how many women are we talking about here, Victor?  And before this he tried to talk her into sex with no condom?  At this point in the story I was thinking “Monica, move on down the man buffet, honey”.  Oh my.  Victor did very little to redeem himself to me during the course of the book, nor did he redeem himself in the end for me.

You know how important sex is in a book to me and I have to say that the sexual encounters between Monica and Victor had me simultaneously cringing and laughing out loud. She has serious sex issues, but they just don’t seem to matter.  And the dialogue is beyond cheesy. In one scene, they’re in the shower together and he asks how old she is.  She tells him thirty and he says “You look young, much younger.  You have great skin, you must drink a lot of water.”  WHAT?  Ok, besides the obvious creep factor (“much younger”…ew), why on earth would you say something like that if you’re trying to be sexy?  It just didn’t work for me, at all.  Not to mention, it seemed like every other sentence Victor uttered was punctuated by an exclamation point, and it didn’t need to be.  I found that perplexing!  Very perplexing!

As I said, I think it takes a lot of guts to write a book and put it out there, and I mean no disrespect to the author with this review.  I simply could not get into this book and honestly struggled to finish it.  The plot was predictable, the characters were confusing to me and didn’t act in ways that I think would be authentic given their pasts and the dialogue was not interesting or put together well.  A major miss for me.  2 stars.