Scorched by his Fire.

Review of ‘Scorched by his Fire’ by Reet Singh.

‘Dammed if he does and dammed if he doesn’t’, is the position Detective Tanay Devkumar finds himself in when he sets out to teach Mita Ramphul a lesson for her supposed indiscretions with his brother-in-law, Samrat.  Haughty to the point of being arrogant, he is not ready to listen to any of her remonstrations of innocence. Even as he is working on his own agenda of keeping Samrat and Mita apart, he cannot but acknowledge the intense attraction she holds for him.

Samrat is Mita’s oldest and dearest friend and ‘just that and nothing else’. Beautiful and feisty she is absolutely indignant at Tanay’s attitude towards her and is not ready to go down without a fight.

The attraction between them is palpable, heady and intense and thank God for an author who doesn’t get her characters to get all coy and evasive about it. She aptly portrays Tanay as this decisive, meticulous go-getter and then she brings into relief the havoc Mita is causing in his life by the way his ‘grand plan’ can be thrown into absolute disarray by a single glance from her. Her family is warm friendly inviting and the descriptions of them and the island are marvelously sketched.

What I would have liked is a bit more of Samrat as he was the whole reason they met in the first place. Just one or two scenes to show the undercurrents between the three of them would have been entertaining and added support to the storyline. Besides, that sub-plot that revolved around Mita ended quite lamely in the end.

On the whole the book was a fast, smooth read that I thoroughly enjoyed: mainly due to it being interesting with well defined characters and above all the flow of the plot was very good.