The Fireproof Girl
Loretta Lost
(Sophie Shields, #1)
Publication date: September 29th, 2016
Genres: Mystery, New Adult, Romance

Abandoned at birth, Sophie Shields grew up in abusive foster homes, escaping into books and computers for solace. When the constant danger became too much to bear, she ran away, thinking she could survive on her hacking skills alone.

That was until she met Cole Hunter. He became the only person she could trust: her family, her friend, her partner-in-crime. Her everything. After struggling through college and starting their lives together, she believed that nothing could ever tear them apart.

Until it did.

And she’ll do everything in her power to fix what is broken. If it isn’t too late…

———

When Cole was nine years old, he watched his whole family burn to death in a house fire. Fueled by years of obsession, he started one of the world’s leading architectural firms, with a mission to design homes resistant to fire, earthquakes, floods, and every threat known to man.

Sophie was his secret weapon. She was his purpose. Since they were teenagers, he was determined to build a better life for her, so she could finally be safe, and they could be together.

But disaster has always followed Cole around, ripping away everything he loves. This time, if he isn’t careful…

His enemies might just take him down.

My Review:

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Loretta Lost’s first in the Sophie Sheilds series, The Fireproof Girl. Cole and Sophie met in an abusive foster home as teenagers and formed an incredible bond. As adults, Cole is a crazy-talented architect and Sophie utilizes her hacking and code-breaking skills in a private position within “an agency.” They maintained their close bond writing letters to one another for many years, until communication stops. Suddenly, Sophie’s world is turned inside out as she tries to understand what has happened to Cole and who could be responsible.

The Fireproof Girl is an unusual read. Categorized as women’s fiction, psychological, and mystery/thriller, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I definitely see the psychological part, but otherwise, I consider it more suspense. Cole’s character seemed loving, caring, brilliant, and devoted. Zack seemed like a nice guy, but honestly, I couldn’t figure out why he put up with Sophie’s attitude towards him and complete disregard for his feelings. Sophie… Not sure what to say about Sophie except that I just didn’t care for her. She had an incredible ability to hack into computer systems and break codes, she had basically grown up in hell, and in her own way, she seemed as devoted to Cole as he was to her. But overall, I just struggled to connect with or even like her character at all. Sophie was kind of crazy. Not good crazy, like completely nuts. I get that it was a result of her life growing up and the abuse she endured, but still – the woman wasn’t quite right. Being on the run, as well as, her career had necessitated having alias’, but I felt that it ran much deeper than that. Besides being crazy, the woman was selfish and withdrawn, demonstrating no personal growth or change by the end of the novel. I kept waiting for her to have a sane, “aha” moment prompting her to be kind to others or show some semblance of a soul, but it never came.

The plot and suspense made this novel very entertaining in spite of my disconnect with Sophie. There were many pieces to this puzzle and tons of different players in the present, as well as, during the flashbacks. The characterization and suspense that the author caused me to doubt everyone and be on the edge of my seat wondering what had happened and who, if anyone, was “the bad guy.” The investigation was interesting and several surprising moments popped up, until the last few chapters. Things turned weird very fast, almost like a depiction of some weird, LSD trip. Things became confusing, then all of it sudden, things were resolved. Imagine spending two hours climbing the hill on a roller-coaster, only to find it a 1-second drop on the other side? Not exactly satisfying, although the climb was still fun.

I feel like I’m being overly critical, but I did enjoy the book as a whole. I would love to read the follow-up installments just out of curiosity and to learn what happens next with these characters, but I can’t say this is one of my favorite books read lately.

*Thanks to Xpresso Book Tours for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

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Author Bio:

USA Today bestselling author Loretta Lost writes to experience all the love and excitement that can often be lacking from real life. She finds it therapeutic to explore her issues through the eyes of a different person. She hopes to have a family someday, but until then her characters will do nicely.

Follow @loretta.lost on Instagram for cute photos of her cat reading books. He refuses to cooperate unless they are really good books.

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