Kimani, $7.99, ISBN 978-1-335-45840-7
Contemporary Romance, 2019

Sheryl Lister’s Spark of Desire, if I can believe the back cover synopsis, is about a possible arson taking place in one of the construction sites of, er, Hunter Construction. Boy, that’s a creative name for a company.

So, I suppose I can be forgiven to imagine that the story will open with a huge conflagration, with panicked people shouting as they try to douse the fire…

Oh, silly me. I forgot for a second there that I’m reading a story from the Kimani line.

I’m sure it will be a shocker to many that the story opens with a conversational recap of who has married whom and who has popped out brats in the stories leading up to this one. Given that the conversation is between the hero Cedric Hunter and his mother, I’m not sure why they need to recap who they are to one another and what their family members have been mashing genitalia with.

Shouldn’t they already know this? Perhaps they have the memory of a goldfish, requiring a detailed summary of who’s whom every ten minutes or so, or maybe these people are so vapid and self-absorbed that the only thing they can talk about is themselves?

Oh, finally there is a phone call about the arson and… it is all taking place off-screen.

Never mind, let’s move onto our heroine Randi Nichols. No, that’s not the name of some hot cam girl, she’s actually an arson investigator determined to prove that she has what it takes to succeed in a male-dominated job.

To show me what a girl boss Randi is, the author goes into detail about how capable and intelligent how hot Randi’s body is because she works out a lot, as well as how sexy and beautiful she is. Our heroine is so awesome that every time she has to do her job, she is so efficient and succinct that the scene is summed up in a sentence such as she takes these many hours to do her work and that’s it.

Don’t underestimate Randi, people, because this modern, independent, capable woman demonstrates her prowess as an arson investigator by dating and sleeping with the guy she is investigating, and spending a lot of time wondering whether she’s ever going to get a ring on her finger for all the flings he is getting in her. Truly stunning and brave, this woman, making misogynists everywhere repent for thinking that a woman has no value aside from her beauty and the ease in getting her to put out.

As for the two characters, they are stereotypical hero and heroine in this line, with nothing here that distinguish them at all. Their relationship consists of scintillating moments such as they having dinner together and talking about how awesome the other person is.

Wait, wasn’t there an arson that happened earlier in the story? These characters barely remember even ten seconds into showing up on the scene, because he immediately checks her out, she immediately does the same, and I can only hope no one died because these two don’t seem to care at all about the whole thing.

Oh wait, there are some super tepid developments toward the end to nail some bad guy that barely appears in the story, just to wrap things up in a level of excitement best described as “the author has finished taking a dump and is now slowly reaching for the toilet roll” realness.

The characters talk and act in robotic manner that suggests that they are barely cognizant of what is happening around them as they go through the motions of dating and shagging with all the electricity of broken down toasters. Actual dramatic moments are glossed over or described to have taken place off-screen, because it is more important to spend words on tedious day-to-day mundane antics of dull, dull characters. Maybe the author and the editor are afraid that readers may experience even a little accelerated heartbeat while reading this thing, and that is not allowed in Kimani Land.

What’s the point of this story? Everything about it seems calculated to prevent the reader from deriving even an iota of entertainment from it. I have no idea what the people behind this thing are thinking, but ah, who cares.

The line is dead, and it’s pretty obvious, from reading this and some of the tragically flat-lined entries during the final years of its existence, why it outstayed its expiration date.