Liquid Silver Books, $5.25, ISBN 978-1-59578-692-0
Fantasy Romance, 2010

Fired Up is a Strange Hollow book, which means we are back to small town boinking featuring a cast of folks full of woo-woo and special powers.

This time around, the lucky winners of the Boinking Happily Ever After lotto are Sarya, a Slyph who loves dancing naked in the forest glades, and Erich, a fireling kicked out of his clan. What’s a fireling anyway, you ask? Hmm, the best I can say is that he’s like the Human Torch fellow. Both don’t belong in their respective people, and Erich is the latest newcomer in Strange Hollow. Since he’s what he is, the town matriarch appoints him the Fire Chief. Guess whose fire he will be putting out.

The previous Strange Hollow stories I’ve read tend to be heavy on sex scenes and very short on plot and relationship development, so I am pleasantly surprised when the authors make an effort to have the characters connect emotionally before they begin doing the do. This is a novella-length story, so the characters are not the most well-developed ones around, but still adequately written to carry the story without coming off like paper cutouts. There is some decent chemistry, some plot that serves as filler between the boinking, and – of course – sex scenes aplenty.

All in all, Fired Up is a serviceable and pretty readable novella from start to finish.