Things You Save In A Fire by Katherine Center

 I was surprised to receive a copy of Things You Save In A Fire by Katherine Center in some happy mail from St Martin's Press.  But I'm certainly glad that they chose me to be one of their reviewers.  The kit even included a lovely little woodfire scented candle which was a nice compliment to the book's subject matter.

I instantly liked the character of Cassie as she stood as a lone woman in her firefighting crew and ready to accept the awards of her peers.  She was such a no-nonsense force that I was ready to root for her from the start.  Center does a great job of building the circumstances that took her out of her comfortable, metropolitan existence in Austin, TX to her mother's home in quaint, rural Lillian, Mass. 

It's on the Lillian FD that I had my first eye roll of the book with the unfortunately predictable love interest that dropped into the picture and shattered everything that I loved about Cassie when the book started.  She kept her edge, for the most part, I was just hoping that she would truly break the mold of heroines and stay strong to her personal philosophy.

In the end, however, I ended up enjoying Cassie's journey and her gradual softening as her relationship between the person that she had been for a decade and the person that could let people become a part of her life bit by bit.  There is a believable progression throughout her journey that takes the reader along with her and you can see how she got from the beginning to the end of her story. 

Yeah, the epilogue is a little "tie it up with a pretty bow" for my taste but, overall, Katherine Center provided me with some excellent poolside reading material while my kiddos splashed the summer away. 

Pick this one up for your next vacation or to keep in your tote for waiting rooms and soccer practice.  It's a great distraction from the everyday without being crass or too deeply "chick lit"