Burn Butterfly Burn by Reese Rivers

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Secrets and lies rang through the night

The Butterfly took wing and flew out of sight

Ragged and torn, she ghosted along

Unable to love, she danced a new song

Wrapped up in flames to keep all away

They try and convince her to come back and play

Battling fire with fire, they do all they can

But Savy’s a master and won’t fall for their plan

The flames grow higher the harder they fight

Until all their love, burns everything in sight

What’s a Butterfly to do when she gets too close to the flames?
Fly, fly away and start her own damn fire, that’s what.
Savy got burnt when she gave those careless boys her heart. She flew from her cage and built a new one made from fire so no one can hurt her again. She’s writing her own story now and they won’t be a part of it, her book is closed to them.
Her men will do anything to get her back but when fire meets fire it causes an inferno that might turn them all to ash.

Burn Butterfly Burn

Groveling Guys, Fireproof Girl

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: ❤️💙💚💛
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Chemistry: 🧪🧪🧪
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: 😋😉😎
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Full Cast Duet Narration

Characters and Plot Summary

Picking this one up right after Dance Butterfly Dance, I was desperate to see Savy St. James finally get her power back. This book opens four years after she walked away from all four men, and she is not the same soft, uncertain girl from book one. She has built herself a whole new life in a new city, and honestly, watching her stroll back into their world richer, sharper, and unbothered was so satisfying.

Jude Dixon has not given up on her for a single day of those four years, still chasing her with the same unhinged devotion he had back at school. Beckett James, though, is dealing with something none of us saw coming: he is now a single dad after a drunken hookup left him raising a baby alone, and he is trying to figure out fatherhood while still aching for Savy. Tate Valor and Asher James spend a lot of the book stewing in guilt over how they treated her, and that regret sits heavy over every scene they share with her.

When the four of them finally track her down, she does not fall into their arms. She makes them work for it, and I loved her for that. Underneath the reunion drama there is also a real threat, someone has been targeting Savy, and figuring out who is behind it becomes the engine that eventually forces all five of them back into one room.

Highlights and Limitations

Jude is the absolute heartbeat of this book. There is a scene where he shows up uninvited to one of her events just to make her laugh, and it worked on me too, I was grinning through my earbuds. Beckett’s storyline hit differently than I expected. I went in thinking the secret baby plot would annoy me, and at times it did feel a little rushed, but there is a quiet moment where he is up in the middle of the night with his son, exhausted and scared he is failing, that actually got me a little teary. My honest gripe is that Tate and Asher just do not get enough to do. Tate is sweet, but he mostly hangs back and supports the others instead of carving out his own arc, and Asher, who was so intense in book one with his obsession over Savy’s dancing, felt like he faded into the background here. I wished the book

Narration

This is where the audiobook truly earns its keep, because on the page some of this might have dragged, but the cast brings it to life. Maeve York as Savy is phenomenal, she captures every ounce of Savy’s guarded, fire-forged confidence, but she also lets the cracks show in the quieter scenes when Savy is alone with her doubts.

Matt Haynes voices Tate with this warm, sincere delivery that makes his few big moments land even though the writing does not always give him much. Vincent Skye pulls double duty on Jude and Beckett and somehow makes them feel like two completely different men, Jude’s manic energy versus Beckett’s tired, tender dad voice. Christian Black gives Asher this gruff, clipped quality that suits his grumpier moments perfectly.

Hearing all five voices bounce off each other in the group scenes, especially the confrontation near the end, made the whole cast dynamic click in a way I do not think I would have gotten from silent reading.

Final Thoughts

I finished this one satisfied but not completely won over. The ending gives Savy and all four men a genuine, happy ending, and I appreciated that the story let her set the terms of her own healing instead of just melting the second the guys showed up. Jude alone makes this worth the listen, he is funny, devoted, and easily the strongest part of the whole duet. But I kept wishing the author had trusted Tate and Asher with more to actually do, because right now the group dynamic feels a little lopsided. If you loved book one and want to see Savy come out the other side stronger, this is a satisfying, if slightly uneven, way to close out her story, and the narration alone makes it worth the listen.

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