**INDIE NEXT PICK FOR AUGUST****AN AUGUST 2019 LIBRARYREADS SELECTION****BOOK OF THE MONTH PICK FOR JULY****AN AMAZON EDITOR’S PICK FOR AUGUST**“Center gives readers a sharp and witty exploration of love and forgiveness that is at once insightful, entertaining, and thoroughly addictive.”— KIRKUS, STARRED REVIEW“An appealing heroine, a compelling love story, a tearjerking twist, and a thoroughly … appealing heroine, a compelling love story, a tearjerking twist, and a thoroughly absorbing story. Another winner from Center.”
— BOOKLIST, STARRED REVIEW
“A spirited, independent heroine meets a smoking-hot fireman in Center’s smart romance… If you enjoyed ‘The Kiss Quotient,’ by Helen Hoang, read Things You Save in a Fire”’
– THE WASHINGTON POST
From the New York Times bestselling author of How to Walk Away comes a stunning new novel about courage, hope, and learning to love against all odds.
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 a total pro at other people’s tragedies. But when her estranged and ailing mother asks her to give up her whole life and move to Boston, Cassie suddenly has an emergency of her own.
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 infatuation-inspiring rookie, who doesn’t seem to mind having Cassie around. But she can’t think about that. Because love is girly, and it’s not her thing. And don’t forget the advice her old captain gave her: Never date firefighters. Cassie can feel her resolve slipping…and it means risking it all—the only job she’s ever loved, and the hero she’s worked like hell to become.
Katherine Center’s Things You Save in a Fire is a heartfelt and healing tour-de-force about the strength of vulnerability, the nourishing magic of forgiveness, and the life-changing power of defining courage, at last, for yourself.
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Oh, how I love Katherine Center’s writing…and her newest novel is a gem…a story that reminds us that the word emergency has, at its heart, a new beginning. Just read it, and thank me later.
An absolute gem of a novel about a tough, heroic female firefighter who, when faced with family illness, must learn to embrace vulnerability and slowly relearn what it means to live a truly open-hearted life (in the Brene Brown sense)! Elegant writing and a wonderful story.
Romance lovers! This was just tremendous. It kicks off with high (still believable!) drama and never stops.
It’s a true romance dressed up in a hardcover and women’s fiction clothes. Fans of Kristan Higgins will find a lot to love, here. Great heroine. Exciting setting. The hero is basically perfect.
Read it right away! You won’t be sorry.
This novel has everything I love in a heartfelt romance–entertaining characters, laugh out loud moments, a well-earned happily ever after, and unpredictable twists and turns. The narration was fantastic too! I highly recommend!
Cassie Hanwell’s calling is to save lives. She’s born for it. Calm in the face of danger, with quick responses and a compassionate heart, Cassie is one of only a few fully trained women EMT firefighters and she’s fiercely proud of her accomplishments. Which makes her loss of control on a stage surrounded by hundreds of her peers all the worse to bear.
Faced with either getting fired or moving to another state, Cassie accepts the inevitable and leaves her beloved Texas FD for one near her mother. A FD filled with arrogant men who believe a woman’s place is in the home. That’s okay, she likes a challenge. What she doesn’t like is her sudden, uncontrollable attraction to the rookie. Made worse, they are the two newbies on the Lillian C Shift and are forced into close contact on an all-too regular basis.
Adding to the stress factor is Cassie’s estranged mom, newly blind in one eye and in need of assistance. A reluctant Cassie moves in with the woman who deserted her family seemingly without a backward glance, leaving Cassie with a boatload of resentment.
As if there had ever been anything to win. As if you don’t always lose by definition when you push the people who love you away.
CENTER, KATHERINE. THINGS YOU SAVE IN A FIRE (PP. 213-214). ST. MARTIN’S PUBLISHING GROUP. KINDLE EDITION.
Things You Save in a Fire is a story of forgiveness, acceptance- and love.
Cassie froze her emotions at the tender age of sixteen and needs to learn that opening her heart doesn’t always mean it will bleed.
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.
CENTER, KATHERINE. THINGS YOU SAVE IN A FIRE (P. 235). ST. MARTIN’S PUBLISHING GROUP. KINDLE EDITION.
I laughed and I ached for the young girl who lost her innocence in the worst way possible and cheered for the woman she became. This is a call-to-action for anyone who doesn’t believe they can overcome impossible odds- life is what you make of it.
Someone recommended Katherine Center when I asked for low-heat romance authors. I picked up this book for a reading challenge (a book with flowers on the cover). It doesn’t strike me as a romance novel, and I honestly wasn’t that excited about it, but I had a long car ride ahead so I picked up the audiobook.
This is the first book in a long time that I just didn’t want to end. I would have loved to read more about Owen and Cassie and the fire house. Sometimes Cassie’s thoughts were rambling, but it not enough to pull me out of the story or stop me from wanting to read just one more chapter.
Katherine’s style reminds me a lot of Jill Mansel — heart-warming, sometimes tragic, romantic, low-heat but still swoony. I’m so glad I picked up this book. I can’t wait to read another!
R-rated for language.
An expertly plotted novel with strong characters, a compelling central romance, and some great points to make about feminism and #MeToo and forgiveness. I sometimes wished the points were not hammered home quite so plainly — there’s nothing very subtle here — but that’s just a matter of taste and I suspect Center’s choices actually please readers more than my own tendency to hope they’ll arrive at these points on their own. Love the portrait of firehouse life, and love our tough heroine and her guy. I also read it in about one day, because it’s definitely a page-turner. Also kind of fascinating to contrast this one with its tough-as-nails, one-arm pull-up performing, parkouring heroine vs. the last one, in which a young woman had to cope with losing the use of her legs. Extra points for a great opening with the best use of a reward plaque EVER.
How has this author escaped me until now? I loved this book, loved the whole women-in-a-male dominated world (firehouse), and the very skilled handling of a difficult topics. But don’t let that remark fool you—this is a delightful read full of wonderful characters and of course, the perfect ending. Thoroughly enjoyed it and am going to look for more of her work
I absolutely loved this book. Can not say enough good things about it!! Well drawn characters with unique plot. Authentic.
Another exceptional book by Katherine Center. I was immediately pulled into the story, and by the end, my fingernails were just a bit shorter. This story has it all – family drama, romance, female empowerment, and suspense. What are you waiting for?? Go read it.
This is my third Katherine Center book and my favorite by far. An excellent, soulful story of a female firefighter with a tragic past who is forced to move from her progressive station in Austin (where she was on the verge of becoming the younger Lt) to an old-school, female-unfriendly station in small-town Massachusetts to aid her ailing mother who left her when she was sixteen. At her new station, Cassie, our MC, struggles to prove herself while also hiding budding romantic feelings for the new rookie.
A lot to unpack, huh? Center’s books are some of the most emotional I’ve ever read, but they’re not quite sad–they’re mostly uplifting, with HEAs–but they definitely feel like a gut punch sometimes. As usual, Center’s story is masterfully done with wonderful writing that sucks you in and makes you binge the book in a day. The characters are realistic and three-dimensional, even if it seems like they’ve had the misfortune of experiencing every bad thing. Cassie was a badass and a complete joy to read–I wish I had even half her spunk and strength. Would highly recommend, especially for those who’ve enjoyed Center’s other books or love a good, emotional read.
Trigger warnings: rape, fire
Oh man, this book! How to even express my feelings for this book is a question I’m not sure I’m equipped to answer. It’s good. Very good. I made note of a few lines that just really stood out me as being quite profound and wise and I am coming away so very happy I read this book.
Admittedly, I struggled getting into the book a little at first. It just didn’t suck me in right away (actually, this was the third time I’d checked the audiobook out from the library and was determined to actually finish this time). But by the time I was in the middle of the 3rd of 8 sections, I was so sucked in I couldn’t stop listening (good thing about audiobooks: I was able to still do household work that needed doing while finishing this book I “couldn’t put down”).
Cassie is a firefighter. A really good one. She knows it, but not in a cocky way, just a “this is the truth” kind of way. She’s also super smart and has worked her way up the ranks of her Austin, TX, fire department pretty quickly. She’s strong. She’s cool in an emergency. She does all the right things. She’s passionate about her job. She’s not emotional. She’s organized with her life, laser focused on her career. She has her life so tightly compartmentalized, in fact, that when things start falling apart, she’s scrambling to figure out how to fit it into her life. Because she’s all of these things, but she’s also hurting and suffering so much inside. She’s buried the pain, but it’s working it’s way to the surface.
Through a rather unfortunate set of circumstances, she ends up moving in with her partially estranged mother in Boston and transferring to a new fire station, where things are very different from the modern fire station she just left.
Cassie has to figure out how to start facing all the demons from her past, to learn from them and grow and feel the hurt and be able to move past it and actually start living her life, not just going through the motions of it.
The way Katherine Center handled the emotional complexities of grief and trauma and anger and addiction and forgiveness was so well done. While I wasn’t pulled into Cassie’s life right away, I was definitely rooting for her by the end. I was so invested in her story, I stayed up late to listen to it. Her character development is powerful.
Diana is so cool. I had serious reservations about her at first, but gosh, she is a smart woman. And her patience with Cassie is amazing. The Rookie is awesome. He’s supposed to be. You can’t help but love him from the beginning. The Captain and the rest of the guys on “C shift” are all pretty cool, too (with the possible exception of one, but I’m not giving anything away). Cassie’s dad is pretty amazing, too. I was impressed with his phone call to Cassie at the beginning. He really knows what is truly important.
This book really dives deep into grief and emotions, feeling the hard emotions, and learning how to overcome all the trauma that comes from decisions other people make that impact is in hurtful ways. Gosh, this book is just good. And all the stuff about forgiveness? That’s good, good stuff.
Also, I’m impressed with the way Center describes fire fighting. I have never been a fire fighter but I really felt like I was getting a chance to feel how a firefighter might feel about all their work. She’s clearly done her research.
Note: does contain language, including plenty of F words, especially in the last 20% or so. A couple of steamy kissing scenes, nothing very descriptive (except his six-pack abs, which I don’t think most people mind reading about). An off page sex scene. Reference to and short description of molestation.
Quotes I wrote down:
“‘I didn’t want to spend my last year getting drugged up. I’d much rather be in the garden. Or painting pottery. Or walking by the ocean.’ Of course, you can’t argue with walking by the ocean, but when the end result of that is dying, it sounds a little less ideal.”
“I had four days until my next shift. Four days to figure out how to face the rest of my life. So I just helped Diana weed her garden. And I helped her make supper. We looked through old photo albums and sang Christmas carols, even though it wasn’t Christmas. She showed me her old diaries and portfolios from art school. She walked me through her jewelry box and tried to educate me about which long-gone relatives had owned which rings and necklaces and charm bracelets. We drank a lot of coffee and made a lot of tea. We made sure not to miss the sunsets. I tried, with at least partial success, to savor the time we had left. That was the goal, anyway. To enjoy her living presence near me, and not fixate so much on the sorrow to come that I forgot to pay attention. To learn to make the best of things as fast as I could.”
“It’s not the easy moments that define who we are. It’s the hard ones.”
“I wasn’t sure he deserved my compassion, but I did know I wanted to be the kind of person who would offer it.”
Another book I heard a lot about and finally got at the library (because I’m on a book no-buy…). Where has Katherine Center been all my life? This book was a perfect balm on a rainy, dreary winter’s day. Full of heart, humor, a touch of mystery, a smidge of family drama, a heartwarming romance. So good!
I loved everything about this book. There are difficult issues that are dealt with for sure, but in a real positive, inspirational and real way. I also loved the messages about family, love, and forgiveness. And Cassie–the heroine–was a true hero in every sense of the word which made this book all that much better.
One of my fave books of 2019.
Well-written book, with a theme of forgiveness, how misconceptions can create barriers, and how to move on. An enjoyable read.
A beautifully written story that deals with some of women’s hardest issues in present times such as working on a traditional only male working place, sexual assault and bullying and others.
I fell in love with the heroine, a beautiful and real character. I fell in love with their romance and the cast. I want to read more books like this.
THINGS YOU SAVE IN A FIRE is a heartwarming tale of survival with an outstanding heroine. Despite several disturbing threads, the novel brims with humor and hope, love and forgiveness.
From the first line, I was transported into the world of Cassie Hanwell, a kickass firefighter who can outshoot men on a basketball court or calmly enter a dangerous situation that has a male cohort throwing up in the gutter. She’s also the youngest person—and first woman—to win the Austin Fire Department’s valor award.
Cassie excels in a guy-dominated career, taking pride in her skill and rejecting coworkers’ offers of hugs and anything “girlie.” She’s determined and courageous, can take a guy down in combat, but at her core, she’s broken and alone. I kept flipping pages, desperate to know why, admiring her even more as her truth is revealed.
The surrounding cast is equally memorable, including the rookie, a gifted chef on his own journey of redemption. Their love story creates a rare balance of light and dark, with the serious weighed against the funny. As my son would say, “This book has all the feels.”
I loved everything about this book. Read it. Read it now.
I am not normally someone who devours “women’ s fiction” (which I imagine some reviewers would label this book). In this instance, I got pulled in by the clever title and stayed in because it has everything: adventure, danger, heroism, trauma, tragedy, comedy, love and hope. It’s about everyday wins and losses set against the backdrop of the sometimes mundane and sometimes larger than life experiences of a firefighter. And wonder of wonders, the protagonist is a feisty female in her mid-twenties who can enter a burning building but can’t manage (for a very good reason) to enter a relationship. I could go on but I’d rather you spent the time reading the book. It is that enjoyable.