In Controlled Burn, firefighter Rick Gullotti gets involved with his landlord's granddaughter, Jessica Broussard. Their relationship starts out very quietly, and there's a nice build-up of their relationship as they go from friends to lovers. I think I liked that the most about this story, but I have to be honest and say that Controlled Burn lacked something for me. 
 Most of the action takes place away from the station house and Rick's firefighting brothers so this installment didn't rely on the the friendships and unwritten rules of the brotherhood of firefighters like Heat Exchange did. While there were a few firefighting scenes and some serious consequences for one of the firefighters to set up the next book in the series, I didn't feel like the firefighter storyline was strong in this book. 
 For me, there wasn't much story in Controlled Burn and it lacked a certain excitement. Jessica meets her grandparents, falls in love with Rick and they have to resolve a long distance relationship. It's a sweet love story, but that's it. I got to the last page of the book and said to myself..."Is that all?" The story ends abruptly and without revealing how Jessica and Rick are going to resolve their living arrangements, or any of the other conflicts that arose during the story. Even their love scenes seemed a bit ho-hum to me. 
 This just didn't have that family feel that I got from the Kincaids in book 1 of this series, and the pacing was a bit slow as well, which is why I am rating this three stars. While Controlled Burn wasn't a bad read, I've come to expect more relationship story from Shannon Stacey. 
 I am looking forward to the next book in this series which centers around Scotty Kincaid. He's a solid fixture in this world and I'm eager to see how his story resolves, so I am going to stick with this series. 
 ARC provided for review.