Flame Unleashed by Jillian David – a Review

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Description:
When Civil War nurse Ruth Blackstone sacrificed her soul to save her husband’s life, he utterly betrayed her trust. Now, 150 years later, she’s still stuck killing depraved souls to feed her devil of a boss, Jerahmeel. She’s never been one for hair-brained schemes or sweet-talking flirts. That is, until she meets Cajun rogue Odie Pierre-Noir.

Odie has the research and the war plan to overthrow Jerahmeel and win freedom for all Indebteds. There’s just one hitch: he needs Ruth to act as bait. With charm on his side, he shows Ruth an intense passion she’s never experienced before.

Now Ruth must make the hardest decision of her long, damned life: continue in relative safety as an Indebted with Odie as her lover, or risk their eternal souls for one chance to break the curse. Will she choose the lesser evil?

Review:

I loved the first two books in this series, I didn’t think it would get any better……
Flame Unleashed is the third and final book in the Hell To Pay trilogy by Jillian David.  To be honest you could read it as a stand alone, but as we meet both the couples from the previous books, it would probably help. I enjoyed reading all three together. 

We first met Ruth in the previous book. She was playing a part of a nurse, we don’t get much on her character, she seemed a quiet person, but I also got the impression that she was a very caring person. But Ruth isn’t an ordinary person, she is an indebted.  An immortal assassin, chained by the devil, she kills evil with her specially given dagger, hoping one day to repay the debt and be free. 

(An indebted is someone that has signed a contract and given their soul over to Jerahmeel who is Satan in human form. When an indebted kills someone evil, their evil essence is drawn in to the knife and feeds Jerahmeel, and an indebted cannot fight the need to kill.)

As the story evolves, we find out how Ruth became an indebted, it’s a sad tale of betrayal and deceit.  When she is given a task, Ruth wears a disguise, she becomes a totally different person, is this to help her, or does it shield the real Ruth, if her soul is a caring person, wouldn’t this slowly destroy her? Does Ruth even know the real person anymore? 

The first time Odie and Ruth meet, the attraction is there, there spark of electricity when they touched. But Ruth cannot allow herself to ever trust a man again after the betrayal of her husband, so she does all she can to convince Odie she doesn’t like him. 

Odie has been researching and planning for his entire existence to find a way to end Jerahmeel and to free himself and other indebted. When he meets Ruth, he knows that he needs her to help him to carry out his plan. 

I wasn’t too keen on our hero at first, I got the impression that he was out to use Ruth. He notices that his boss Jerahmeel has a fascination for Ruth, if she’s on a mission, he will pop up and make her uncomfortable. He seems fascinated with her; does he have feelings for her ?  Odie sees this, as the perfect way to use Ruth as bait to finally kill Jerahmeel.

But he happily proved me wrong.  When they FINALLY decide to be together, the connection they have to each other was great to read. They care about each other deeply. The chemistry was sizzling between Odie and Ruth. 

We also get to spend time with Peter and Allie and their beautiful new baby, (hero and heroine from book one) and Dante and Hannah (they were the main characters from the second book.) 

And the build up to the final showdown was intense and crazy. I’m not going to give anything away, but it could go either way. Does Odie’s plan work? Will their boss discover their plan and make them pay?

I’m sad that the series has ended, but I’ve enjoyed the ride. 

Reviewed by Julie B

Copy provided by Author