Review – Fire in You by Jennifer Armentrout

“Love is like friendship caught on fire. In the beginning, a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but only still light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.”~Bruce Lee

Has a story every stolen your soul and hit your heart hard with a force you didn’t see coming? Fire in You by Jennifer Armentrout stole my soul, striking it with a match where it burned bright. I gave my heart to Fire in You where I knew it would remain long after this story ended. I KNEW that Fire in You would be the fire that melted me…burned me…broke me…and that it did. Fire in You is a roller coaster of a second-chance romance, one where I felt every twist and turn of my heart as it traveled on a riveting ride of hope, heartbreak, and happiness.

There is something special about second-chance love that speaks to the soul. Two soul mates broken apart whose love has never died are granted a do-over…that coveted second chance. Their hearts, once sliced in half, find their way back to each other and become whole again. Second-chance love stories are my heart…my soul…my obsession; Fire in You was MY KRYPTONITE.

I fell in INSTANT LOVE with Fire in You that wrapped itself around my heart…owning it…OWNING ME. My feelings were free-falling fast and hard. I WAS ALL IN! I could not help but devour the pages with a voracious hunger, drowning in them like my last breath. This book with its incredible detail and conversational style that struck all of my senses…WORDS…rendered me so full of FEELS where I felt every word penetrate me with passion and possibility.

From the minute Brock Mitchell entered Jillian Mitchell’s life when she was eight and he was fourteen, she knew she’d found both a friend and soul mate. Inseparable and best friends through their teen years, Jillian soon fell in love with the broken boy who only she could fix. The boy who later broke her heart on the same fateful night where a gunshot almost killed her. While she almost died that tragic night, it was Brock who killed her.

“Brock and I…we used to be inseparable despite the age difference. It was always us…until that night. Until I realized it had always been me wanting him and him wanting everyone but me.”

Brock ‘The Beast’ Mitchell was an UFC super star, heavyweight champion, who trained under Jillian’s mix martial arts expert of a father. Brock with his dark hair, dark eyes, endless muscles and ink, and tall frame is a beast in and out of the ring. An all-alpha. Pure perfection.

“If you look up ‘flirt’ on the Internet, I’m sure it had a picture of him grinning the panties right off some chick.”

The broken boy who was given a second chance at life from Jillian’s family. The broken boy who should have claimed the angel, Jillian, who healed him. I wanted to hate him…but I loved him.

“When it came to Brock, I dove in headfirst and didn’t come up for air.”

My heart broke…shattered…for Jillian. This beautiful, dark-haired, and dark-eyed angel doesn’t realize her beauty that shines bright from inside out. The beautiful girl who loved a broken boy who didn’t even love her back.

“I gave my heart so completely, so fully to someone else, that when my heart was broken, those pieces I’d freely given away weren’t mine any longer. My heart wasn’t complete.”

Little does Jillian know that Brock the man, now retired from fighting at thirty-two-years-old, wishes he had claimed the girl…now woman…who, deep down, he knew was always his. Little does Jillian know that she would be reunited with the only man she’s ever loved, Brock, who she’s been hiding from these past six years. Little does Brock know that Jillian is not that same, vulnerable girl. She is a strong woman; one who has survived hell and is finally living her life for her.

“I know the old Jillian…but this Jillian? I don’t know her, but I want to. I see a woman—a beautiful woman.”

Brock is determined to right the biggest wrong of his life, letting the girl, now woman, who has always held his heart like she does his, get away. Like an opponent in the ring, Brock is going to fight for that second chance.

“Brock had fire in him. He always had.”

Both Jillian and Brock have fire in them…strength in spades. These soul mates are survivors, warriors who have been to war in a way, and are still fighting for love. That second chance.

“I really want this to work for us, Jillian. It’s a second chance for us.”

What begins as a friendship turns into chemistry sparked by flames, a fire that ignites with passion between them. This passion is born of soul mates, one fueled fate that may be hard to fight.

“Then Brock kissed me. Really kissed me. His mouth came down against mine like he was committing the feel of them to memory. Hot. Hard. Wet. His tongue slipped over mine, and he didn’t so much kiss me as he did devour me. Now that was a kiss.”

Those kisses melted from the pages, penetrating that passion right to me as I felt it too. Those lifetime kisses of soul mates that you know will lock you to love for life. Oh how was I rooting for love! I wanted…no needed…this second chance love story to succeed. I wanted this broken boy to reunite with his angel girl, soul mates whose hearts needed to be whole.

“Did you miss me this whole time?”

“I missed you. Missed you every f**king day, Jillian, with every ounce of who I am.”

This broken boy and amazing man made me sweat and swoon. His sexy, seductive, and soul-filled words sent me on a ship to Swoon Land where I sank under his spell. I LOVED Brock! I was OWNED by Brock. I was owned by Fire in You. DONE!

“What terrified me was the knowledge that if I fell for him again, I would fall deep, and I’d never recover. If I loved him again, I’d be lost forever.”

Love is a battlefield and sometimes you have to fight for what you believe in, fight for the other person, fight for love. I cried tears of heartbreak, happiness, and hope. Tremors of tenderness yet trepidation surged through my body as I wanted this second chance too. These two halves of hearts needed to be whole… one. This knight could not…would not… leave his damsel in distress again…PLEASE NO! So I hoped. I prayed. I desperately rooted for love. Love that had to survive time and turmoil. Love that had to survive war. Love that is worth the fight.

When you begin and end a story in tears, you know it’s something special, and oh was Fire in You such an emotionally intoxicating and incredible read. Fire in You shattered me…slayed me…this second-chance love story stripped me bare where I broke. I was enraptured as every emotion was electrified. My heart and soul were on fire as Fire in You set them ablaze, burning bright, melting EVERY PART OF ME.

Fire in You breathed fire in me, words that burned into my heart and soul. Fire in You is LOVE…LOSS…AND LIFE. This soul-searing story is full of life with a magnetism that drew me in deeply where I was transfixed as every word became me. This pulse-pounding story bled angst where I bled with these characters too. I felt every word I read. I felt heartbreak. I felt happiness. I felt hope. I FELT EVERYTHING. ALL OF THE HEART. ALL OF THE SOUL.

Jennifer Armentrout is a new author to me, and oh am I hanging my head in shame that I didn’t pick up one of her heart-hitting and mesmerizing masterpieces years ago!!! This author now owns my book-loving heart and soul for life! Fire in You breathed life in me, leaving me breathless, in a book that was sheer brilliance from beginning to end. Fire in You BLEW ME AWAY!!!

“The truth is I gave my heart away a long time ago, my whole heart, and never got it back.” ~Sweet Home Alabama

I gave my heart to Fire in You where it’s still melting in the flames of a heart-wrenching and heartfelt hangover. I gave my soul to this story…no…Fire in You stole my soul. I had no choice but to FALL HARD into the flames of feels that this story swathed me in, and oh was every part of me on fire. Fire in You was the fire in me, and I want to feel the burn of this book forever.

★★★★★ 5 soul-burning bright stars

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From the # 1 New York Times and International bestselling author, Jennifer L. Armentrout writing as J.Lynn, comes a richly moving story about heartbreak and guilt, second chances and hope. Full of familiar, fan-favorite characters and no two people more deserving of a happy ending, Fire In You will burn bright beyond the last page…

Jillian Lima’s whole world was destroyed in a span of a few hours. The same night her childhood love, Brock ‘the Beast’ Mitchell, broke her heart, her life was irrevocably altered by the hand of a stranger with a gun. It takes six years to slowly glue together the shattered pieces of her life, but Jillian is finally ready to stop existing in a past full of pain and regret. She takes a job at her father’s martial arts Academy and she’s going out on her first date since a failed relationship that was more yuck than yum. Jillian is determined to start living.

She just never expected Brock to be a part of her life again. But he’s firmly back in her life before she knows it, and not only is he older, he’s impossibly more handsome, more teasing and more everything. And when he sees Jillian, he’s no longer capable of thinking of her as the little girl who was his shadow growing up or the daughter of the man who gave him a second chance at life. He sees the woman who’d always been there for him, the one person who believed in him no matter what.

Brock knows she’s the one he should’ve made his, and what begins as a tentative friendship quickly turns to red-hot chemistry that sparks a flame that burns brighter than lust. Falling for Brock again risks more than her heart, because when the past sorrow-filled and guilt-ridden past resurfaces, and a web of lies threatens to rip them apart, the fallout could lay waste to everything they’ve fought to build together, and destroy the dreams of those they care most about.