207 Book Talk

  I read Things You Save in a Fire  to kick off the new year. I posted about it on Twitter, and the author shared the link to a bridge chapter between that story and this one. I read the bridge last night, and ended up wanting to start How to Walk Away  immediately afterward, so I did. Margaret Jacobsen is on the verge of getting everything she has ever wanted... a great job, the ideal fiancé, and all the other hallmarks of a perfect life. Then, after being talked into doing something she most certainly does not want to do, everything changes.  Katherine Center writes her characters to perfection, because it is evident Maggie's fiancé Chip is a jerk from the very start. Who forces someone to do something they are terrified of doing, just to show off? Ugh. He was just so smarmy and self-centered. (Side note - why wasn't he charged with some sort of crime for "borrowing" and flying a plane without a license?!)  Maggie has to rework her whole life, while those arou...

I started, and finished, this one today, and it was a good kick off for this year's reading. Things You Save in a Fire  by Katherine Center is the story of Cassie, a young woman working in the male dominated firefighting profession. She is in Austin at the start of the story, but gets a request from her long gone mother to move to Massachusetts for a year. She says no, but circumstances soon change, and she finds herself in a home with a woman she has tried hard to ignore for over a decade and in a new fire station with a crew that has never worked with a woman on their shift.  The book is billed under the romance genre, and there is some romance, but the heart of this story is a kick ass woman learning the art of forgiveness and vulnerability. Is the ending wrapped up with a pretty little bow? It is a "romance," so you can probably figure that out for yourself, but let me tell you, there is a lot of interesting stuff going on in between.  As the long time partner of a fi...

About to start Things You Save in a Fire   by Katherine Center. She is a new to me author. I came across this title on a GoodReads list. The cover colors caught my eye, and I am down to try any stories centering on firefighters, since I live with one. That might be a weird reason to try a book, but... 🤷🏻‍♀️. Romance is also a genre I have always shied away from in the past, until I realized there were several authors and stories I was reading and enjoying that are considered "romance." I don't read the bodice rippers, but if a story has a romance as a side angle on a life story or mystery, I will give it a whirl.