Playing With Fire

3.5 stars

After finishing the Team Hope series, I went hunting for Conner's story and found it here. I'd previously tried to read it and abandoned it about 15% in because it was too confusing. It was short (262 pages) and I felt like Conner and Liza's personalities were somewhat obscured in this effort. I got a stronger picture of his nature in the three Team Hope books but clearly a lot has happened since then, and I'd like to have seen more than a series of candid bits over a few days in time to get the updated picture of where his mind was. He's known as the preacher in his group but he only has a couple minutes of talk of any depth on-page, very different from his past in Team Hope, where he drops nearly as much preaching as Jim Micah does. I miss the showing of that aspect of his nature, and it made me wonder if he was less bold than he had been.

Liza is mostly reacting through the story, and again, I felt like I knew her better from Mona's book than from her own. It's pretty much only about two things: living through the SAR mission, and the relationship with Connor. I wanted more Liza aspects than just those two things.

Otherwise, except for all the heavy descriptive kissing (eww tonguing) I did like seeing quick updates from so many other people. Pete and Jess from Montana Rescue; Derek, Ivy, Raina from Christiansens; a glimpse of Deep Haven; and a few other folks. It was just kinda bum to see all of them but not get a more drawn out savory ending showing what Connor and Liza did next.