Review: All Fired Up

All Fired Up by Dylan Newton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

Zander Matthews. 

Yep, she remembered him, all right. He was her first and only one-night stand. Well, technically, it was two nights, two mornings, and one long, glorious afternoon, nine months and twenty-five days ago. But who was counting? 

All Fired Up stars the youngest brother of the hero and best friend of the heroine from How Sweet It Is. I didn't read that first book but the author relays enough information, Imani and Zander had a two-night stand after the main couple's wedding, that I had a an idea of what happened between them. Both appear to have had feelings after their time together but Imani panicked and ghosted Zander, ignoring all his texts and calls. When Imani has to come back to the town everyone lives in to help her grandmother Gigi after she has knee surgery, there is no avoiding Zander as he's intertwined with her life now as her bestfriend's brother-in-law. 

“Look, I want to know if Imani Lewis is renting space in my head because she's 'the one' everyone says will someday appear, or if she's only intriguing because she ghosted me. 

I do think not reading the first book and enjoying that couple's romance did hurt my enjoyment of this, especially the first half. A good chunk of the beginning is about the gender reveal/baby shower of the past main character bestfriend, in fact, a lot of this book deals with her pregnancy, the reveal shower and delivery. I didn't really care about that character and wished the focus could have been more on Imani and Zander. I was also missing a little bit of those beginning romance feelings as they seem to have already developed those feelings from their two-night stand, I wish we could have gotten a prologue or some flashback scenes to see some of those two days. I'm not sure if those scenes were shown in the first book but that would probably help set the foundation for this one. 

“Will you go on a first date with me, Zander Matthews?”

Basically, Zander was in the Marines, been to war, and helped his middle brother recover from a war injury, which has taught him that life is fleeting and to live in the moment. He owns three ceramic stores (All Fired Up) but is known as the guy who doesn't make plans and keeps everything light and breezy, making some think he is irresponsible. Imani's mother had Bipolar Disorder and she lost her to a fire when candles burned down the apartment, this has caused Imani to be strict about always having a plan and keeping things structured so they don't get unmanageable, out of hand. Seems like opposites attract but Zander is pretty much all in with Imani right away and decides that he will let her set the pace and just constantly be doing things for her that she needs done or starts stressing about. It makes it kind of lopsided then with Zander constantly giving and Imani not sure she even wants to give him a chance. Imani constantly claims she wants to keep things just friends but then gets grumpy when Zander does that, even has a trying to keep the anger down jealous moment. These two never quite jived for me with their different vibes and even though the cover has a fun cartoon-y cover, there are some heavier topics in here, the bipolar disorder I mentioned along with death of parent, Imani's panic attacks, Zander and his brother's PTSD from war, and a fraught birthing scene. Imani's grandmother has a parrot that likes to curse (says b*tch a lot) that I think was supposed to lighten the mood but those antics didn't quite do it for me. The inside does make good on the cover's promise of hot air balloons, though, with a romantic date scene. 

If you read the first, you'd probably enjoy this more as the first book's couple has a strong showing in this and I missed some scenes of Imani and Zander's first two nights together that could have shown me those romantic feelings developing.

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