Abandoned by Booklikes

Please note that I received this via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.

Well this was really good. The only reason I didn't give it five stars was because forgiveness is okay, but I loathed what one of the characters did and it was like they were given a pass on it because they had other issues going on. FYI, I am all about the vengeance. 

"Things You Save in a Fire" follows firefighter Cassie Hanwell. Cassie is doing great at her department and is about to receive an award when someone from her past comes screeching back. Cue one public relations nightmare later, and Cassie is going to have to start all over again. It's just luck that Cassie's estranged mother calls her and asks her to come and live with her for a year and help her due to her losing her eyesight. Cassie has to start all over again in Boston and we get to see the ins and outs of firefighters in this book.

Cassie was a great character. I also laughed at how none of the firefighters in this book use each other's first name. I still am blank on the real name of Cassie's love interest in this one. Cassie is strong, has good friends from the firehouse in Texas, but is a lonely individual. We readers can guess what happened to her, Center gives us enough clues. Cassie is resistant to becoming close with her mother and with the love interest who has a way of digging in. I did love Cassie's mixed emotions about her mother. She left her and her father on Cassie's 16th birthday which...yeah. I do want to say though that I wanted them to really have it out though. Cassie's mother character keeps talking about forgiveness, but it didn't seem like she really wanted to know how Cassie's life was harder after she left. 

The other firefighters and the captain were great. I don't know if I could be a firefighter. It sounds like a pain. I did appreciate what Cassie's favorite firefighter talked to her about before she left, about how things were easy for her before, and it was going to be hard now. Since this character was an African American woman I appreciated it. 

I thought the writing was really good and mixed in was explanations about fire, kits, etc. and what you do when a fire happens. We also get a few funny scenes with them responding to things that I went seriously people call the fire department on that? 

The flow was really good too. 

The setting of the book moves from Texas to Boston, but I didn't get a sense of either state in this one. The book is really focused on Cassie's mother home and that was described very well. Other than that, not too many details to make me think oh yeah this is happening in Boston, MA right now.

The ending was great. We get an epilogue that goes into things that occurred over a lengthy period of time. Very good ending and was sad to finish this one.