Review: Heat by Lis Lucassen

Under a burning sun more than a thousand miles from home, Lynn Stevens is trying to get her life back on track and leave memories of that one fateful night behind. She meets Dan, a young man with strangely erratic behavior and smoldering brown eyes, who is on an involuntary vacation with his parents. In him, she sees her own struggle reflected every time she is starting to get too close.
Dan doesn’t like being touched. But when he sets out to uncover Lynn’s secret, it means he’ll have to tell her some secrets of his own.

‘Heat’ is Lis Lucassen’s New Adult debut novel. This book puts her on the map in the Netherlands as the first-ever NA author from her own country.

Review

I received this ARC of Heat by Lis Lucassen from Storm Publishers in exchange for an honest review.

The cover of Heat is eye-catching. With the cover being black and white, the title in blue really pops.

I thought Heat had an interesting beginning, enough to keep me reading. The plot was what I really enjoyed. Lynn and Dan, each have their own troubled pasts. We get backstories for them both; to understand them as individuals and how they grow throughout the novel.

The conversations between Lynn and Dan were slightly awkward but maybe that's the direction Lis Lucassen wanted. This novel had some strong moments in the writing but also week moments. The characters needed to be developed a bit further to bring out a greater connection with one another. The chemistry was lacking for this reason.

I was left undecided if I really liked this story. The pace was slow at times and when I thought it was picking up it would slow down again. This would have been a stronger novel with some changes in pacing and dialogue.

I give Heat 3 out of 5 stars.

About The Author

Using the pen name of Lis Lucassen, thriller author Olga Hoekstra (1980) writes dark romance and new adult. In daily life, she works as a journalist and communications specialist. Her story ‘Tree of Kings’ won first prize in the Dark Romance writing contest organised by Storm Publishers in 2014. Her dystopian novella ‘The Tribunal’ came in third in Storm Publishers’ Dystopia writing contest and is included in the novella collection named ‘Defiant’ in English, published by Storm Publishers in 2015.

Lis is a dreamer and a romantic soul. As long as she can remember she has been fantasising about True Love and quiet heartbreak. Her own True Love crossed her path during her time at university, and he swept her off her feet and gave Lis her very own ‘happily ever after’.

Whenever Lis isn’t writing her own stories, she reads other people’s books. She feels inspired by authors such as J Lynn, Jessica Sorensen, and Lisette Jonkman (a Dutch author of romance books). Lis lives close to the German border with her fiance, two beautiful daughters, and two evil cats.

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