Published by St. Martin's Press on 13 Aug 2019
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Cassie Hanwell was born for emergencies. As one of the only female firefighters in her Texas firehouse, she's seen her fair share of them, and she's excellent at dealing with other people's tragedies. But when her estranged and ailing mother asks her to uproot her life and move to Boston, it's an emergency of a kind Cassie never anticipated.
The tough, old-school Boston firehouse is as different from Cassie's old job as it could possibly be. Hazing, a lack of funding, and poor facilities mean that the firemen aren't exactly thrilled to have a "lady" on the crew, even one as competent and smart as Cassie. Except for the handsome rookie, who doesn't seem to mind having Cassie around. But she can't think about that. Because she doesn't fall in love. And because of the advice her old captain gave her: don't date firefighters. Cassie can feel her resolve slipping... but will she jeopardise her place in a career where she's worked so hard to be taken seriously?
Who doesn't love a strong female lead? Plus, I interned at the Austin Fire Department one winter, so that's fun. However, I felt that the idea of a strong woman in this book was a bit superficial and nothing that I hadn't seen in a superhero movie already. That said, I keep watching superhero movies and am still entertained. This book was no exception.
Choosing to love--despite all the ways that people let you down, and disappear, and break your heart. Knowing everything we know about how hard life is and choosing to love anyway... That's not weakness. That's courage.
At the beginning of the book, Cassie and her superiors list off everything she, as a woman, can't do, in order to maintain her credibility at the station. You already know that the rest of the book involves breaking every single one of those rules. The most obvious of which? To not get involved with another firefighter. No matter how hot, how good natured, how perfectly dreamy he is. So waddyaknow??
Yes, the world is full of unspeakable cruelty. But the answer wasn't to never feel hope, or bliss, or love--but to savor every fleeting, precious second of those feelings when they came.
The answer wasn't to never love anyone.
It was to love like crazy whenever you could.
It was super predictable and reads like a YA novel except for a traumatic experience in Cassie's life that is alluded to throughout the book and revealed at the end. I loved her mother Diana and Diana's best friend Josie, and loved seeing how Cassie and Diana's relationship developed throughout the book.
What I think would be interesting to explore is this whole "I'm not a girl"/"I'm not like most girls" thing.
