Liviania’s review of Hot Mama (Bigtime #2) by Jennifer Estep
Paranormal romance release by Berkley 6 Nov 07, re-release 5 Aug 08

Immediately after finishing and loving Karma Girl, I instantly delved into the next Bigtime story. Estep kept me up way past my bedtime. Both books are fast paced, well plotted, and impossible (for me) to put down. [Ed.: float your cursor over the cover to the left to see the original cover.]

I’ve had a terrible time trying to write this review because it keep sounding like a lame rephrasing of the blurb and my Karma Girl review. I believe this is caused by the fact I read the two books back-to-back, no pause for anything. (It was late. I’d already eaten and such, so why stop when I was having such fun?) Hot Mama possesses the same feel of Karma Girl – it is upbeat and draws upon the appeal of the more campy comics. In other words, it’s a light-hearted good time with violence and sketchy, sketchy science.

This time around, Striker and Karma Girl are gone on their world tour honeymoon and it is up to the other three members of the Fearless Five to keep Bigtime, NY safe – both from ubervillains Siren and Intelligal, and vigilante Johnny Angel. At the same time Fiera must maintain her personal life as Fiona Fine, which is heating up for the first time since the death of Tornado, her fiancé.

I liked Fiona a little less than Carmen. This is partially from just finished Carmen’s book. Fiona spent many of the pages hostile to her because of her role in Tonado’s death and thus Carmen’s point of view highlighted her flaws. Seeing things through Fiona’s view was different, but at first I had a little residual hostility on Carmen’s behalf towards her. As the book continued, I did fall into her narration, but I still like Carmen better.

Jennifer Estep did do well with letting Fiona put the pieces of the story together. At one point she’s somewhat willfully ignorant, but then she faces the obvious and confronts Johnny Angel. The villains’ identity being obvious to the reader but not the characters still doesn’t work as well in textual novels as in graphic ones, but it fared better here than in Karma Girl. (Maybe the villains’ identities aren’t even noticeable to other readers. It’s entirely possible that I’ve simply read to many comic books in more formative years.)

And here’s where that retread of the first novel’s review shows up. I like Estep’s characterization. Not only is the heroine well-realized, weeks after reading the novel I can still remember Fiona’s assistant who believes her boss has bulimia. The ongoing secondary romance gets some nice moments as the two involved fight over their relationship’s future. Characters are always important to me, particularly in a romance, so this trait of Estep’s writing will definitely keep me coming for more.

Grade B+

Summary:
She can melt steel – and men’s hearts …

By day, Fiona Fine is a successful couture designer, catering to the high society players of Bigtime, New York. By night, she’s Fiera, a superstrong superhero who can create and manipulate fire with her bare hands. Fiera, along with the other members of the heroic Fearless Five, make life miserable for the ubervillains who want to take over the city.

But Fiona’s personal life isn’t so fine. She still misses her fiancé, who was killed by ubervillains a year ago. But men admire Fiona’s smoking assets, and she decides to get back in the dating game – especially after she meets Johnny Bulluci. But this notorious playboy has plenty of secrets to go along with his sexy smile. And, with two new ubervillains in town who are intent on raising hell, Fiona’s love life might just crash and burn …
Read an excerpt here.

Other books in the series: