Review: Burning Bright by Chanda Stafford

Burning Bright
by Chanda Stafford
Release Date: January 25th 2016

Summary from Goodreads:

Three years ago, Samantha Gray killed her parents.

Haunted by their deaths, she hides her scars behind sarcasm and vintage t-shirts, counting the days until she can escape her foster home in Alegria, Arizona. Then she meets Ben, a California boy whose filmmaker parents constructed a big cat sanctuary outside of town. She's hesitant to get close, terrified he'll learn her secret.

When Ben introduces Sam to Solomon, a Bengal tiger on borrowed time whose gruesome history eerily mirrors her own, she must decide whether she’s strong enough to overcome her past and save not only Solomon’s life, but her own. And to do that, she'll need to tell Ben the truth.

 

Buy Links:

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Chanda Stafford teaches middle and high school English. She loves traveling and currently lives in Michigan with her husband and a menagerie of rescued dogs and cats.

When she’s not reading or writing, Chanda enjoys old zombie movies, authentic Italian food, and comic books.

 

 

Author Links:

   

 

 

My Review:

 

I signed up to review this book because...well the cover got me. I did in fact judge a book by it's cover and I'm glad I did! 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. It's written well and caught my attention pretty swiftly. The characters are all pretty well developed and interesting. The way Stafford connected Solomon to Sam was pretty nice and didn't feel forced at all. I was kind of afraid it would be some sort of cheesy "She's wild like a tiger" plot device, but was in fact a really touching element that caught me off guard (in a good way!) 

 

If I had to make a gripe about this book I'd say that I'd really would have liked more about Emily and Sam's friendship. How they met, how they became friends, etc. It was briefly touched upon, but I would have loved a bit more depth. 

 

That's pretty much it. I really enjoyed Burning Bright and would recommend it!