She was my nightmare. Every time I closed my eyes, I watched her fall into that inferno. Over and over, I failed to save her.

I hadn’t been able to reach her, and the guilt only burned hotter over time. Four years later, I was the unreachable one.

Heroes aren’t always saints. Sometimes, we’re nothing more than jaded sinners driven by sleepless nights and hearts full of darkness.

And then I met her. She was a dreamer who managed to soothe my scars and heal my wounds.

But, as the flames closed in around us, I feared I wasn’t the right man to save her. That is until I realized she was the one woman I’d burn the world down to protect.

SINGE

by Aly Martinez

Years after Jude’s life was upended by a fire that left him with scars, inside and out, he goes back to Chicago, the place where the tragedy happened. He is the new guy at Guardian Protection.

The world stood still like it had the first time I saw her… In that moment, nothing else existed.

For Rhion the guys from the security company located in her house are family. While she is is private to an extreme one guy one person there knows that she’s actually a writer which started after her tragedy when she tried to come to terms with being a part of Jude’s spiral down after he saved her from the fire. In her mind Jude is the hero and she wouldn’t be alive without him.

Even though it seems impossible with their background Jude actually has the more devastating scars on his soul than Rhion and they never healed completely. He is still tortured by nightmares. When he meets his butterfly again, he doesn’t know if it’s curse or blessing. But hell, despite the guilt that is wrecking him from the inside he can’t stay away from her.

Because of him, I didn’t have to live in a fairytale to know that heroes were real.

Jude is the kind of alpha type male you can only love. He’s sweet with an edge, protective and I loved that he never hid his feelings from anyone. He was all in, although he also always expected the other shoe to drop and for Rhion to find out what a fraud he was. Which of course didn’t happen because Jude was awesome.

Rhion was a wonderfully adorable, a little quirky young woman who did everything to turn everything into something positive. I loved her optimism despite the things she had been through and was still dealing with. Jude and Rhion’s connection was palpable and I just couldn’t see them fail.

“Love rarely makes a man smile. Especially if said man is me and he has to deal with a crazy woman like you. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t burn the world down for you. Extinguish and entire species. And then place their ashes at your feet if it meant you’d smile.”

Ever since I read The Fall Up and The Spiral Down I wanted to go back and read more books written by Aly Martinez and she didn’t let me down. Aly Martinez creates memorable stories with heart. Singe landed a sucker punch right in the feels but it wasn’t super angsty. It’s one of those stories that you just can’t put down, it’s utterly riveting with its twists, romantic love story and absolutely lovable characters (Johnson doesn’t count – he is an ass but I’m sure I’ll come to love him in his own book – and BOY I CAN’T WAIT).