‘I want to watch you while I love you,’ he breathed fiercely. ‘I do not want you to forget who I am.’

A Fiery Baptism by Lynne Graham, first published in August of 1991, brings to readers the tempestuous world of Sarah and Rafael, a couple whose past is marred with passion, betrayal, and heartache. This is classic Mills & Boon, with of course the emotional highs and lows that only an author like Ms. Graham can properly deliver to her fan-base.

The story begins with 25 year old Sarah, who is a single mother of twins, whose life has been a constant struggle with loneliness and insecurity, primarily due to her emotionally distant adoptive parents, finds herself running into her estranged husband Rafael at a party. Thus, a man whose confidence and charisma are as unforgettable as his betrayal, re-enters Sarah’s life, igniting old wounds and unresolved emotions.

Readers are taken through the shared history of Sarah and Rafael, Sarah’s elopement with Rafael against her parents’ wishes, and the subsequent turmoil that had made Sarah miserable to the point where it had been easy for her parents to manipulate her into surrendering to their wishes. Their marriage is portrayed as one that is passionate and yet destructive, where Sarah had had hopes of escaping the controlling nature of her parents, only to find that Rafael too, treats her as his possession.

When Rafael discovers that he is in fact father to twins, the betrayal he feels is immense, and Ms. Graham does a remarkable job of taking readers through the central themes of passion, heartbreak, betrayal, and redemption with her usual fervor. Sarah’s character is one that makes you feel for her – the lack of emotional affection that had shaped her most formative years which has turned her into a nurturing soul, whose spirit had been crushed under the weight of the expectations of her parents and her husband.

Rafael too is a man shaped by an upbringing that is painful. While Sarah had grown up in an environment that had lacked affection, Rafael had grown up in a harsh environment that makes him cynical and dispassionate about the finer emotions of life. His emotional vulnerabilities and passionate nature creates a complex character who is both possessive, while at the same time yearns for deeper connections and also rejects the very notion of the vulnerability that would be associated with such a connection.

The passion that blazes out of control as Sarah and Rafael engage in heated exchanges and raw confrontations as they navigate their shared life a second time around, all reveal the deep-seated grievances and misunderstandings between them, painting a vivid picture of their troubled past and the lingering emotions that bind them.

I found Sarah’s sexual awakening to be rather intriguing which comes later in the novel, a deviation from the almost formulaic nature of category romances. In 99.9 percent of the novels, the hero never fails to satisfy the heroine in every single sexual encounter from the onset, and to see their sexual relationship also evolve with their maturity as individuals in this novel, was truly what stood out for me.

Recommended for fans of Ms. Graham’s stories which are roller-coaster rides on the emotional bandwagon.

Final Verdict: A Fiery Baptism serves a captivating read for fans of classic Harlequin romances, offering just the right touch of passion, drama, and emotional intensity to keep the pages turning.

Favorite Quotes

Her flat was just round the corner. She walked fast, not looking at him. Inside the lift the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense. With a flourish she removed his jacket but before she could return it he closed the distance between them. He slid long fingers very slowly into the damp tangle of her hair. Fierce dark eyes searched her pale, upturned face. Heat rushed up to the surface of her fair skin.
‘Por dios, Sarah,’ he breathed raggedly. ‘What is it that you want from me?’
A dull ache stirred in the pit of her stomach. The thump of her heartbeat filled her eardrums. An overpowering sexual excitement unlike anything she had ever experienced had her entrapped, preventing her from moving away.

He lowered his dark head so gradually that she trembled before he engulfed her mouth in the scorching heat of his.
Shock reverberated through her but shock was swiftly drowned by sensation. Her hands clenched convulsively into his broad shoulders. His tongue penetrated hotly between her lips, imitating another far more elemental possession, and the ground rocked and fell away beneath her feet. It was a savage awakening to a hunger that had no boundaries, a hunger that boldly seized and controlled.
She was weak and dizzy, wildly disorientated, when he released her mouth and vented a stifled groan into her hair. ‘I don’t know you like this,’ he muttered roughly, angrily.

Clashing unwarily with luminescent gold challenge, she could feel her hold on reality loosening even more. ‘Don’t…’ she whispered shakily.
‘You speak with such conviction,’ he mocked.
Alarm bells rang loudly in her head as his measuring gaze dropped to the prominent thrust of her small, high breasts and lingered on the pointed buds pushing against the damp cotton, damning indictments of her response to him. He was very still, dull coins of colour overlying his hard cheekbones, his breathing shallow and audible.
‘You say “don’t”,’ he noted in a low-pitched growl.
A peculiar lassitude was sweeping over her. Time seemed to have slowed down to a third of its normal speed.
‘But I say si…I say yes,’ he completed.

He swept her up in his arms and kicked the bedroom door wide. He tumbled her down on the bed, following her there in an almost instantaneous motion. Impatient hands disposed of the remainder of her clothing. He was indifferent to the sound of ripping lace but she welcomed the rapacious savagery of his demanding mouth. His mouth, oh, God, his mouth. The hot, hard angularity of his body on hers was an unbelievable pleasure and the burning urgency of his hands made her cry out, defenceless against the wild, explosive agony of need that he had induced.

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