'Burning Both Ends' continues the Hot Aussie Knight series, where a legion of Knight family firefighters gather to mourn the family patriarch...and that's where the stories begin.

I found myself fairly neutral about this one throughout; it's well-written with all the emotional slips and nuances detailed though it was harder to connect with the characters who didn't quite do it for me. Dare and Lock on their own, had so many issues in their past that combined, their baggage would have shattered a camel's back.

Dare - whose behaviour reflects her own name - is as much of a wild-card as she is an emotional drifter with a bold, reckless streak and a penchant for breaking the rules, felt like an out-of-control character for most part, and I spent most of the time waiting for her implosion as she finally confessed that she couldn't ever betray her first and only love's memory. In fact, it felt as though Lock had been put, to some extent, in a caretaker role - of her emotions as well as her physical health - gave the relationship a strange and somewhat unequal sheen especially since he was adamant not to fall into the same trap again.

I did however, expect more opposition to the fraternisation between Dare and Lock at the station house, and was quite surprised that didn't seem to be an issue at all. But the long and short of it is, I'm not entirely sure what to make of the angst and the frequent push-pull in this particular story; there were times the frustration got me as the protagonists hovered at the TSTL threshold as there were other times where they reminded me that they were adults still. Objectively speaking, 'Burning Both Ends' isn't a bad read, but it's probably more suited to those who like their characters heavily-burdened and tortured with a bucketload of (leftover teenage?) angst to boot.