Burn is definitely one to add to the reading list. The novel takes place in a kumpania in the desert. The kumpania is a camp for traveling gypsies. Janeal, the daughter of the clan’s leader, is given a chance to escape the gypsies and start her own life. Salazaar Sanso lures Janeal into locating his one million dollars. Janeal fails to find it on time and Sanso burns the kumpania down, leaving everyone for dead. At least, that’s what Janeal thought. Sanso traps Janeal in a burning building with her best friend and her father. Janeal is unable to locate the money for Sanso, so he kills her father and makes Janeal choose herself or her best friend. She chooses herself. She narrowly escapes with her life and the one million dollars. Janeal makes her way to New York City where she works her way up to the ladder of a large company. After 15 years, she learns that, Robert, her lover from the kumpania so long ago is still alive. In Janeal’s quest to discover who she was, who she had become, and who Robert had become, she runs in to Sanso. Sanso informs Janeal that Katie, Janeal’s childhood best friend, is also still alive. Janeal struggles with the decisions of whether or not to return to New York and continue hiding from her past. However, the connection between her and Katie is too strong to hide from. Ultimately, Janeal makes a very big sacrifice in order to set things right.
This novel was absolutely wonderful. Dekker and Healy mastered connections with the reader and the characters. I grew angry as horrible things happened to characters that I felt like I knew personally. Then, I grew empathetic when their whole world turned upside down over and over again. Burn really took the characteristics of good and evil and separated them into two separate people who were one and the same. It really allowed the reader to realize that the evil side in our hearts is just as convincing as the good side. It also tries desperately to change, but just can’t. One must either choose good or evil, but both cannot truly live inside of us at the same time.
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