74. Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center

listened on Audible

2019
320 pgs.
Adult Chicklit
Finished 12/3/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.02
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Rockport, MA

My comments: An almost too-good-to-be-true paramedic/firefighter moves to Rockport, Massachusetts to help her estranged terminally ill mother.  Too-good-to-be-true in that she is stronger, smarter, savvier than all the other (male) firefighters in her department.  At 26 years old she has sworn off love and has never even dated since two things happened on her 16th birthday - her mother abandoned her and she was raped.  But on her first day in her new job in Massachusetts she has partnered with a rookie firefighter who she instantly falls for.  Turned out to be a definite romance novel with a firefighting twist.

Goodreads synopsis:  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 jeopardize her place in a career where she's worked so hard to be taken seriously?

Katherine Center's Things You Save in a Fire is a heartfelt, affecting novel about life, love, and the true meaning of courage.

MOVIE - Only the Brave

My Halloween Night movie, haven't missed one in 15 years!
PG-13 

Wide release 10/20/17

Viewed 10/31/17 at Carlisle 8
IMBd:  8.1/10

RT Critic:  90  Audience:   93
Critic's Consensus:  Only the Brave's impressive veteran cast and affecting fact-based story add up to a no-frills drama that's just as stolidly powerful as the real-life heroes it honors.

Cag:  5/ Story was so well done, acting was superb, and nothing was nicey-nicey cleaned up

Directed by Joseph Kosinki

Studio:  Columbia Pictures

Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connely, Jeff Bridges

My comments:  What a powerful, well done movie, a lovely tribute to the Granite Mountain Hotshots of Prescott, Arizona. It would be a terrible shock to go to the movie without having a clue about the ending and even then, of course, it's hard to conceive.  What brave, honorable, hard-working men.  Men with families, senses of humor, dedication.  The actors that portrayed them did a wonderful job.  I've been to and through Prescott (Press-kit) many, many times; the first one with Steve and the kids when we left Jerome and twisted around and around the mountains, not knowing where we'd end up.  It was Prescott.  The last time I was there was almost exactly two years ago, on my way home for a letterboxing event in Lake Havasu.  I remember I woke up to snow and hightailed it back to Tucson without looking for a single letterbox!
     How, I wonder, did they film the forest fire scenes?  It looks like it was filmed in and around Santa Fe.  The ferocious flames were unbelievable, and made what happens so, so real and terrifying.  Incredible movie-making.  So hard to rate this film!

RT/ IMDb Summary:   Granite Mountain Hotshots, is the heroic story of one unit of local firefighters that through hope, determination, sacrifice, and the drive to protect families, communities, and our country become one of the most elite firefighting teams in the country. As most of us run from danger, they run toward it--they watch over our lives, our homes, everything we hold dear, as they forge a unique brotherhood that comes into focus with one fateful fire.