Burning Alive

Shannon K. Butcher

When she looks up in the restaurant, Helen Day sees the man from her vision. This man would watch her die in a fire. She's seen the vision over and over, felt the heat, saw the man's smiling face. She needs to get out of here.

When Drake sees the woman in the restaurant, he is immediately drawn to her. It's more than appreciation or lust or desire. It's like a need. He approaches her. When he touches Helen, the pain he has had for years seeps away. He can't let this woman go.

Helen wants nothing to do with him. Yet she is compassionate. When she sees how the pain hits Drake after letting her go, she feels for him. Soon she and the elderly lady with her, Miss Mable, are involved in a battle they can barely understand. Drake and his friends are huge, muscled men. They try to get the women out of the restaurant. But the monsters have found them. They go to Helen's home, which is destroyed in a battle of swords and claws and magic and fire.

From then on, life as Helen has known it is gone. She discovers there are magic beings involved in a war of good and evil. She has an important role to play in it. Also, there is Drake. She knows he will watch her burning up - very soon. Yet she goes when he asks and attaches herself to him in a manner she doesn't comprehend. Perhaps she can surprise herself and help in this war.

If you're a romance reader who loves dark paranormal stories with swordplay and hot sex, read Shannon K. Butcher's Burning Alive. It's mesmerizing. It's dark and dangerous. It's the first book in her Sentinel series. The reader has to suspend a lot of belief - and wants to as the story continues.

At times Burning Alive is over the top. At times Butcher seems to be writing in ALL CAPS to make her story rather than letting the story go on its own. Yet there is a poignant scene in the Hall of the Fallen that remains enough understated that the reader is able to see and empathize.

The setting is modern day, so there are other weapons besides swords. The Sentinels have been around for centuries and swords are still a weapon of choice - as well as being effective on the monsters.

Prepare to be pulled in to Burning Alive. You might want to have the next book in the series, Finding the Lost, at hand when you're done...

Notice:  Explicit sexual content, Graphic violence, Strong indecent language

Sentinel Wars:

Burning Alive
Finding the Lost
Running Scared
Living Nightmare
"On the Hunt" - The Collector
Blood Hunt
Bount by Vengeance
Dying Wish