Scott

5 Stars
This is the best book I have read in a very long time.

I already knew Robert Ford was a gifted story teller, but I was not prepared for this. I can’t remember the last time a book got ahold of me and wouldn’t let me put it down until I had finished it.

Lydia 

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrifyingly dark and unforgivably brutal

“She watched until the flames died down to nothing but a group of embers, a glowing collection of secrets gone forever, and future memories lost for good.”

Some may say the scariest monsters are real. Our world is filled with atrocities, tragic endings, and real life villains. Ford reminds us how close all of those horrors really are to our lives.

“She wore a costume of violence.”

You can go your whole life and do everything right, only to have it all ripped away from you within minutes. To feel pain you only hear about from those less fortunate, never imagining it could be you or a loved one in the hell thought up by psychopaths.

“The pain was pristine, almost elegant in its purity.”

Burner takes us to the seedy underbelly and the back alleyways we all know are there, but don’t want to believe in. The unspoken deals and trading behind closed doors and blindfolds.

“...the last pieces of the girl’s childhood floated away like rising embers from a burn barrel.”

To say this book is terrifying is an understatement. Aside from the necessary trigger warning it comes with, Burner will leave a mark, a branding if you will. Something to take with you for years to come.

“Sometimes the tears of happiness are mixed with a little blood.”

I can’t say there is much happiness, if any, in this novel. It will tear you apart, leave you in pieces, and you may even have to put it down ever so often, but you’ll yearn to get back to it, like a train wreck you can’t look away from. It’s dark, brutal, and unforgiving, but it’s a story which needed to be read.

“Laughter and yelling tried to break through to iris, to punch a hole in the heroin womb protecting her from the world happening beyond.”

We may be stronger than we think we are when it comes to life and death. I just hope none of us ever have to find out what we would be willing to do to survive. Is it worth it in the end?

Randy Bates

5.0 out of 5 stars Grim and scary

Like being in a train wreck, Burner just keeps pummeling you page after page. Such horror told in such a calm conversational style, added to the terror and shock. Robert Ford is definitely one of a kind. Chilling... I loved it!

Elizabeth M. Brewster

5.0 out of 5 stars Edge of your Seat horror!

I read this book in a single sitting. Could NOT put it down...I was horrified and HAD to know ....what's going to happen...no WAY ??!! THAT?!! The author sucks you right in...page one. The characters are alive in your head, you can see them, smell them, hear them. Brings to life real human fear, weakness, and resilience in these characters. Have a strong drink on hand for this one!

Ron Fortgang

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece

I have read so many small press indie writers; great spectacular powerful writers...Robert Ford is one of them and Burner is a masterpiece that will rip you apart. Literally. Brilliant.

Jeremy Megargee

5.0 out of 5 stars 

Harrowing, relentless, an unflinching spotlight into the Hell of what strangers are capable of...

Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2020

"Simply touching things in here made her feel grimy and unclean, as if she was sorting through an alley dumpster full of maggot-ridden food instead of her dead husband's belongings."
- Robert Ford, Burner

This is an incredibly brutal read. It focuses on human trafficking and the atrocities that often go unseen in the sickly white underbelly of that world. Ford's prose is strong and captivating, much like a grisly car accident that draws the eye, almost impossible to look away from.

The message of this book is powerful, and it's even scarier to think of how legitimate victims are being dehumanized and whittled down to nothing all around the world in circumstances not so different from what you'll find in this novel.

An important book that lures you in masterfully, and if you like your horror merciless and raw, you cannot miss this one.

Plainly stated, Robert Ford's most recent novel ranks up there with Jack Ketchum's THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, JF. Gonzalez's SURVIVOR and PRODIGAL BLUES by Gary A. Braunbeck (Haven't read any of those titles? You need to fix that ASAP). If this doesn't garner rave reviews across the horror community, it's a crime.
Pete K.

As these three books previously did on similarly dreadful topics, BURNER tackles a horrifying subject with elegance and manages to toy with the reader's emotions in the process. I, for one, wrestled with the fact that Ford made me feel sympathy for characters that I disliked and distress over the actions of the "protagonist".

With only a week to go until the end of the year, BURNER is the front-runner for my choice for Best Novel of 2020.

When I saw that Bob Ford put out something new, I knew I had to get my hands on it. I started reading Burner shortly after it arrived at my door and could not get enough of it. I will do everything I can in this review to avoid spoiling it, but if you chose to pick this up (you should) you are in for one hell of a ride.

Nothing is more terrifying than reality. The reality Ford brings to everyone’s attention in Burner is the ugly, dangerous world we try to imagine does not exist in middle-class America. To what extent will people go to hide this horrible under-belly? How far will those trapped in such a hell go to survive it?

In short, past/present chapters, Ford writes two sides of the same coin. The brief chapters make the content slightly more manageable for a fragile human psyche, but this book is an artfully constructed car crash from which I had the hardest time looking away. Turning page after page, I found myself cringing, nauseated, horrified, and incredibly invested.

I really loved that this has two strong female characters. While Burner also shows the sh*t women are put through at the expense of men, it proves female resilience. Everyone wants to protect themselves, but none so much as a woman scorned.  I want to say I was rooting for both because I wanted everything to work out. Ford reminds us that no matter how bad you may want things to work out, the world has other plans.

Like putting your face directly on a grinder, Burner hurts, is ugly, and peels away all your protective layers. If you can’t handle the truth, don’t read this. If you think you can handle it, think again. Thank you, Bob, for providing stats and resources at the end of your novel. These are important things to know and to spread. Stay safe everyone!

Wayne Fenlon rated it it was amazing
Five Stars

Burner is one heavy hitter of a story that is not for the faint of heart. It's a reminder of how brutal, cruel and horrific people are in this world.
You will be angry and upset reading this. You will be shocked. You will see how the human spirit fights and survives through the worst ordeals. You might even be close to putting the book down altogether. But there's a need to read this.
A need to know.
Nothing will prepare you for how terrifying the torture scenes are, though. Nothing. You literally feel every ounce of pain here.
I was just glad for the short chapters that helped to make it somehow manageable.
I won't say you'll have a good time reading this. I won't say rush out and buy it.
The reason for that is because this book is not for everyone.
Even hardened horror fans might struggle.
It's the reality, you see.
Think Ketchum's GIRL NEXT DOOR and you'll have an idea.
What I will say is that this book will stay with you. This book will be talked about for years to come.
I honestly believe that.
So with that, I'll leave it up to you.

All the stars. 

MK-reads rated it it was amazing
Five Stars

We all have a few authors we jump up and run to the bookstore to get their current release. Robert Ford is one of those authors for me. With his lastest book he even got me to read outside my comfort zone. BURNER is a very intense, dark story. A story that scared me. That doesn't happen very often. 
Now I always worry about giving away to much in a review. Nobody likes spoilers. I would suggest you find Robert Ford's YouTube and listen to him read the first chapter of BURNER. I can guarantee you will be running out that door to get your very own copy of BURNER!

Joseph Pesavento rated it 5 Stars

Sometimes it's difficult to find brilliance in a story so painfully depicted. Robert Ford found it and did it correctly.

I couldn't stop turning the pages as Iris and Audrey dug deeper into their pain, finding further torment as their days went on.

I have enjoyed Ford's diverse tales, but this will haunt me for months to come. I hold my loved ones a bit tighter going forward.

A Good Marriage Meets Taken

Horror exists to terrify us. Sometimes that can be cathartic. Reading about the fictional exploits of a supernatural slasher, or hideous monsters straight out of a nightmare can be a fun way to experience fear within our comfort zone. Robert Ford doesn’t write within comfort zones. With his latest novel, Burner, he has instead chosen to hold up a mirror to horrors that are uncomfortably close to home.

The lives of two ordinary women, content and happy with their lives, intersect with an act of brutality. Audrey is happily married, with a loving husband and a grown-up daughter. Iris is a student studying to be a doctor. She wants to travel the world and hopes that her boyfriend will accompany her on her journey after she finishes her final year.

The lives of these two women will be irrevocably changed when one unthinkable act brings the two together, linked by a man whose terrible secrets are beyond anything either of them could ever have imagined.

Burner is told from the perspective of two women, each chapter switching between the two, and split between the ‘then’ and ‘now’ of the story. We learn early on that something awful has happened, as both characters are interviewed about the events that have already taken place, and it is through their reflections of these events that the curtain is slowly pulled back. Once it has, you’ll wish it had stayed firmly shut.

It is an intense reading experience and not one intended to be ‘enjoyed’ in the traditional sense. It keeps you guessing at what the traumatic events were that both characters are relaying and, when the truth is gradually revealed, Ford manages to increase the horrors way past the stage where you thought things could get no worse. I found myself constantly torn between wanting to put the book down and being consumed with a need to read on and finish the story.

Ford is delivering on another level with Burner. He is so adept at making us care for his characters that it will leave you absolutely broken when you are presented with the awful things those same characters are capable of under the most extreme of circumstances. His prose is straightforward and impassive, unflinching in its detail and unforgiving, refusing to shy away for even a second.

I vividly recalled my experience reading Jack Ketchum’s masterwork, The Girl Next Doorafter I put down Burner. Much like Ketchum’s book, Robert Ford’s latest ends with an afterword detailing the all too real horrors that the book is based on. It makes what came before it all the more harrowing to read that the fictional tale you just read is, if anything, a toned-down version of real-life atrocities.

Burner is an absolutely merciless book. It is a difficult, but rewarding read and one that will stay with you long after you’ve put the book down. Robert Ford is a criminally underread author and I can’t help but feel that Burner is the book that will soon rectify that.