Zach and Kiera would appear to be opposites. She's a certified nerd, a designer for a popular MMOPG called Leokin, and would prefer to spend her days and nights holed up working on the game.
Zach, on the other hand, is a hero. An EMT who is working not only to save the lives of others, but to try and keep his family together after the loss of his sister. His mother's alcoholism has gotten worse and all his youngest sister does is mope around playing online. He knows that can't be healthy.
But Zach and Kiera meet when her friends drag her out (they promise anywhere she wants to go so she chooses the local gaming Con) and the ceiling of the roof collapses. When Zach sees Kiera, she's literally sparkling from gold paint. And then... it gets a bit ooky. He's described as wanting to be "in the center" where all the action is (this is a real EMT feeling, especially for those who go in because they want to "save lives" rather than help people and fits in with Zach's personality) but then he gets distracted from his job, his job
to save hurt people, by Kiera. Yes, I get that EMTs can't be laser focused the whole time, but most of the ones I've worked with are. At least the good ones and that's what I think Zach is supposed to be set up as.
Don't get me wrong. I liked that he was flawed. And I liked that even though he was trying to save his sister, he was doing it in a wrong way that he didn't see. I also liked that she was trying to save him right back. But the whole way that Zach and Kiera's relationship started was... not good. And I liked that Nicholas included the notion that not always being online is bad because you can form real relationships with people. But Oh. My. God. It was repeated over and over and over again. A lighter touch might have made the message more powerful.
Overall, I really did like this story and appreciated what Nicholas was trying to do. I'm looking forward to reading about Kiera's roommates.
Three stars
This book comes out December 20
Sophie Birch grew up with a father who was a con man (what is the deal with romance heroine's named Sophie always having con men fathers?). Obviously, this has made her fairly wary of relationships in her adult life, even with her roommates (the heroines of the first two books in this series). Except... it's different with Angela. Sophie sees her as a sort of surrogate mother. And that's the reason she tries to run back into her burning theater; to save the only copy of Angela's play. Too bad some dude keeps trying to rescue her.
Alex has only just discovered that he fathered a child almost ten years ago during a drunken one-night stand. He might never have found out except that Charli (his daughter) is a hemophiliac and that happens to be Alex's specialty. So he's trying to find a way to connect and wants to do it through her favorite, very geeky, TV show.