Taming the Fire by Sydney Croft: Review

Title: Taming the Fire
Author: Sydney Croft
Series: ACRO, #4
Publisher: Delta
Date Published: April 28, 2009
Genre(s): Erotic Romance (Paranormal, Sci-Fi)
Edition: eBook
Rating:

He came to the underground London club for a night of extreme sex play with the enigmatic “Mistress Rik.” But the special agent known as Trance is really on a search-and-rescue mission to keep her alive. Part predator, Ulrika “Rik” Jaegar possesses feral powers that make her a danger to others—and to herself. That’s why the Agency for Covert Rare Operatives (ACRO) wants to recruit her to their side….To do so, Trance will have to pull off the impossible: capture and control Rik, both woman and beast.

On the run from the deadly agency that changed her into a pleasure-seeking shape-shifter, Rik uses sex to rein in her own raging desires. Operating on pure instinct, she trusts no one…especially the magnificent alpha male with the power to seduce her into submission. An undercover agent with unique hypnotic gifts, Trance is surprised by his instinct to hold Rik and keep her safe—but he has a job to do. And as he hunts her down, as Rik and Trance are thrust into the ultimate game of domination and submission, they’ll enter a place where surrender is their sole hope of survival—and the only thing that can tame the wild beast in both of them…

Review:

Trance is on a mission to hunt down a beast. But this beast resides inside a woman, a woman who has him falling for her hard. But what will she think of him once she realizes he’s betrayed her to the very people she’s been running from for years?

After the last book in this series, I was a bit hesitant to read this. The first two books I loved, but the last book didn’t really do it for me. This one was good, but different from the first three in the series. Although there was sex in this book, it was extremely toned down compared to the previous books. There is some bdsm in this one as well, but it’s really not anything too crazy. The toned down sex can be a good or a bad thing though. It left room for more relationship and character growth, but if you’re looking to read an erotica, it can be disappointing as well.

However, the overall story was more interesting because of it, I thought, and I was really rooting for their relationship, as opposed to eagerly waiting for the next sex scene (which was a good thing). In addition, Dev gets a new love interest after losing Oz in the last book. I loved this part and I look forward to learning more about this new relationship. A third story is also going on about Ryan, the agent who was working undercover at Itor, but then was discovered. He has a bit of a romance going on and also just figuring out what happened after he was discovered by Itor.

Verdict:

Overall, this was good, but I’m still not loving this series as much as I was when I first started it. I did think that this book was stronger in the relationship building and overall story, but I missed the more prominent sex and the series still feels a bit flat to me in general. I am interested in the next book though, which is about Marlena. I’m curious to see how she will be paired up with the curse that she carries.