Review: Fanning Fireflies by LS Delorme – Historical Paranormal Romance

Item: Fanning Fireflies: A romantic historical paranormal mystery
Rating: 4
Author: Gina

"There is, and always has been, something rotten in Harrisville."

👋 Welcome to the Tour!

I’m thrilled to welcome you to my stop on the Goddess Fish Promotions tour for Fanning Fireflies by LS Delorme—a hauntingly beautiful historical paranormal romance set in 1944. If you're drawn to emotionally rich stories where ghosts linger, secrets fester, and forbidden love dares to bloom in the shadows of injustice, this book belongs on your reading list.

Blending eerie supernatural elements with the grit of wartime America, Fanning Fireflies explores race, memory, grief, and the powerful pull of connection across boundaries—both earthly and beyond.

📚 Genre: Historical Paranormal Romantic Mystery
🕰️ Setting: 1944, Harrisville
🎁 Don’t forget to scroll down for a chance to win a $15 Amazon/BN gift card from the author!

Post Highlights

📝 Book Details

Fanning Fireflies: A romantic historical paranormal mystery
By LS Delorme
Series: The Limerent Series #3
Published by Limerent Publishing on 1 November 2024
Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Paranormal, Romance
Formats: eBook, Hardcover, Paperback
Pages: 237

There is something rotting in Harrisville.

It's 1944 and Veronica works so she can afford to eat. Maybe one day she will save enough to own the home her family is living in, but for now, she doesn't have time for fanciful thoughts, or much else.

She doesn't have time for the fire whispering to her, the ghosts trying to talk to her, and the son of her boss, who can't stop staring at her. She definitely doesn't have time to think about Lazlo, the handsome black soldier that she processed at the draft office, but she can't seem to stop herself.

As her ability to ignore Lazlo evaporates, so does her self-imposed ignorance about her hometown. There is, and always has been, something rotten in Harrisville. It shouldn't have been a surprise.

After all, Veronica works in the cigarette factory, where corpses hide in the tobacco with the roaches.

Source: Amazon Purchase, Goddess Fish Promotions, Kindle Unlimited

Excerpt from Fanning Fireflies

She knew that she shouldn’t be here, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to leave. This isn’t being brave, it’s being foolish, her brain told her. He will suffer more than you if they catch him…

Lazlo was now holding the paper wrapper—the biscuit was gone. Veronica took the last bite of hers. She didn’t want him to go. She didn’t want him to be in the war. She wanted to protect him.

“Well, it was nice to meet you,” she said, sticking out her hand. Women didn’t shake hands much, and almost never with a man, but she wanted any excuse to touch him.

He took her hand in his. He didn’t shake it; he just held it for a moment as his eyes met hers. His eyes were dark and open. Veronica wanted nothing more than to kiss him. He leaned forward a bit and she did the same. But then the sound of voices drifted over on the wind—male voices somewhere down the tracks.

“I should go,” he said softly.

Veronica nodded, as her heart spasmed in her chest.

Lazlo got up, jumped from the rock, and landed gracefully on the ground. He turned to her, smiled, and then started back down the train tracks.

“Lazlo!” Veronica called out.

He turned around quickly and took a few steps back in her direction.

“Why don’t you write me?” she said. “I would love to hear about what you see out there in the world.”

Even from this distance, she could see his eyes widen. But then he smiled and nodded before turning and running up the embankment and disappearing.

"She didn’t want him to go. She didn’t want him to be in the war. She wanted to protect him."

📚 Where to Find Fanning Fireflies

Available on Amazon

KINDLE | PAPERBACK | HARDCOVER

If the above links don’t direct you to your country’s Amazon page, please feel free to contact me—I’m happy to provide the correct link.

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Do you prefer to shop locally?
🛍️ You can also purchase Fanning Fireflies from your favorite indie bookstore online.

Bookshop.org is an excellent option that supports indie authors—and book bloggers like me—while avoiding the big-box route.

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💭My Thoughts on Fanning Fireflies by LS Delorme

"Fanning Fireflies is Book 3 in the Limerent Series, but it reads beautifully as a standalone."

LS Delorme has crafted a story that doesn’t just simmer with suspense—it burns with slow, luminous heat. From the first line (“There is, and always has been, something rotten in Harrisville”), I was drawn into a world that felt at once grounded in historical truth and tinged with a spectral eeriness.

Veronica, our complex and quietly fierce protagonist, is a woman caught in the grind of factory work, social constraints, and family responsibility. Yet there’s more to her than survival. She sees things others can’t—or won’t. Ghosts whisper. Shadows move. Fire whispers back. These elements create a layered tension that feels both literal and metaphorical: the dead are not done speaking, and neither is history.

Then there’s Lazlo, the Black soldier she’s drawn to—a relationship as dangerous as it is tender in 1940s small-town America. Their moments together glow with restrained intensity, offering a fragile hope in a world marred by systemic rot. One excerpt I especially loved shows Veronica offering Lazlo a biscuit and a handshake—simple gestures charged with risk, yearning, and the unspoken desire for more.

“Why don’t you write me?” she said. “I would love to hear about what you see out there in the world.”

This is not a lighthearted romance. It’s a ghost story, a war story, and a reckoning. The paranormal scenes—particularly the raccoon sequence—gave me genuine chills and reminded me of classic Gothic tales with a modern, unapologetic voice.

I also appreciated the sibling bond between Veronica and Franklin, a powerful subplot that showcases familial love and the brutal realities of racism and violence.

I read this book through Amazon's Kindle Unlimited program. I also received a copy of the book as part of this tour. This review reflects my honest, unbiased opinion.

Read my other reviews of the Limerent Series:

Ciao, Book#1 - A supernatural romantic thriller about grief, justice, and forbidden connection.
Bright Midnights, Book #2 - A YA dream-thriller following a magnetic girl caught between dimensions.
Ghosting Academy, Book #4 - A high-stakes psychological thriller with VR technology, elite agents, and spiritual unraveling.

Each book is a standalone, yet interwoven through deeper cosmological themes and recurring characters.

About LS Delorme

Author photo of LS Delorme. She is smiling with tousled blonde hair and blue glasses, seated in a black chair with papers pinned to the wall behind her. Warm, playful expression.

Lexy Shaw Delorme (writing as LS Delorme) is the award-winning author of The Limerent Series, a genre-defying collection of emotionally resonant novels that blend supernatural mystery, psychological thriller, historical fiction, and romantic suspense. With a background as a lawyer, pop musician, and science writer, Lexy brings intellectual depth and lyrical prose to every story she tells.

Now based in Paris, she lives with her French husband and two very cool sons. Her work explores themes of limerence, memory, identity, and the echoes of past lives—and she’s not afraid to push boundaries along the way.

Media Recognition & Reviews

Kirkus Reviews praised Caio as "an entertaining fantasy with a dash of macabre eroticism."
Bright Midnights received a coveted BookLife Editor’s Pick from Publishers Weekly, with critics calling it an "enthralling, character-rich narrative."
Fanning Fireflies was IndieReader Approved (4.8/5), described as "an emotionally charged, thought-provoking read."
The series has been celebrated across the book blogging world as genre-bending, hypnotic, and emotionally gripping.

Awards & Honors

Bright Midnights won the Golden Wizard Book Prize (UK) in the YA Fantasy category.
Caio received a positive “Get It” verdict from Kirkus, signaling quality and appeal.
Fanning Fireflies was awarded near-perfect marks from IndieReader, achieving critical acclaim.

Media & Events

Featured guest on BBC Radio 2 – The Gabby Roslin Show, discussing Fanning Fireflies and the mythic architecture of the series.
Interviewed on the What We Reading UK blog and spotlighted by the British Fantasy Society.
Frequent guest on virtual book tours hosted by LiterallyPR and Goddess Fish Promotions.
Upcoming panelist and moderator at C2E2 Comic Con 2025.

Reader Response

Called "a cult classic in the making" by readers.
Described as having “characters who stay with you long after the last page.”
Celebrated for blending literary depth with page-turning suspense.

Publisher Contact: LiterallyPR (London)

🔚 Final Thoughts

Fanning Fireflies is not a story you breeze through—it’s one you absorb. It's poetic, unsettling, and ultimately hopeful. LS Delorme doesn’t just write a romance; she conjures a world where the past haunts the present, where love can be both an anchor and a rebellion, and where even the fireflies seem to carry secrets.

✨ Recommended for:

Fans of The Diviners by Libba Bray or The Good People by Hannah Kent
Readers who love supernatural mysteries grounded in history
Anyone who believes love is worth risking everything for, even in the darkest times